The number of typhoons that make landfall in Taiwan in the last quarter of the 21st century is expected to be roughly half the number that landed from 1979 to 2015, due to the effects of climate change, a researcher said.
There are likely to be 44 percent to 54 percent fewer typhoons hitting Taiwan at the end of the century, which would result in 40 to 60 percent less rainfall annually, Academia Sinica researcher Hsu Huang-hsiung (許晃雄) said on Tuesday, adding that the situation would hugely affect the nation’s agriculture and water supply.
Taiwan would also experience increasingly warmer winters and springs, he said.
Photo: Chien Hui-ju, Taipei Times
Hsu said that he and his research team used a high-resolution atmospheric model in their analysis of climate change in East Asia and the northwestern Asia-Pacific.
The team discovered that a weakening of atmospheric circulation during winter would contribute to a reduction in rainfall in winter and spring, he said.
Reduced winter rainfall would affect farmers’ ability to sow rice in the spring, he added.
The team found that there would be a reduction in summer and autumn rainfall above the South China and Philippine seas, caused by increases in the high-pressure systems there, he said.
For northern Taiwan, springtime southwesterly winds are an important annual source of rain, he said.
The conditions that would bring those winds are situated off the southwest coast of Taiwan proper, but in their research, the team found that they would move northward, causing reduced rainfall in northern Taiwan, he said.
The northwestern Pacific Ocean is expected to see the greatest decrease in typhoon activity of all the planet’s oceans, he said.
Typhoons that do occur at latitudes above 20 degrees north latitude would become stronger, and those south of that latitude would become weaker, he said.
Ocean temperatures near Taiwan would increase by about 3°C, and although typhoons hitting Taiwan would bring 4 to 8 percent stronger winds, as well as 30 to 40 percent more rain than current typhoons, a decrease in the number of typhoons would mean an overall decrease in annual rainfall, he said.
The team collected long-term data from various sources, such as climate change research by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Academia Sinica, he said, adding that analysis models were processed using the National Center for High-performance Computing’s Taiwania 1 supercomputer.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central