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.
‘DANGEROUS GAME’: Legislative Yuan budget cuts have already become a point of discussion for Democrats and Republicans in Washington, Elbridge Colby said Taiwan’s fall to China “would be a disaster for American interests” and Taipei must raise defense spending to deter Beijing, US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead Pentagon policy, Elbridge Colby, said on Tuesday during his US Senate confirmation hearing. The nominee for US undersecretary of defense for policy told the Armed Services Committee that Washington needs to motivate Taiwan to avoid a conflict with China and that he is “profoundly disturbed” about its perceived reluctance to raise defense spending closer to 10 percent of GDP. Colby, a China hawk who also served in the Pentagon in Trump’s first team,
SEPARATE: The MAC rebutted Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is China’s province, asserting that UN Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor grants the PRC authority over it The “status quo” of democratic Taiwan and autocratic China not belonging to each other has long been recognized by the international community, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday in its rebuttal of Beijing’s claim that Taiwan can only be represented in the UN as “Taiwan, Province of China.” Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday at a news conference of the third session at the 14th National People’s Congress said that Taiwan can only be referred to as “Taiwan, Province of China” at the UN. Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, which is not only history but
CROSSED A LINE: While entertainers working in China have made pro-China statements before, this time it seriously affected the nation’s security and interests, a source said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) late on Saturday night condemned the comments of Taiwanese entertainers who reposted Chinese statements denigrating Taiwan’s sovereignty. The nation’s cross-strait affairs authority issued the statement after several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑), Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) and Michelle Chen (陳妍希), on Friday and Saturday shared on their respective Sina Weibo (微博) accounts a post by state broadcaster China Central Television. The post showed an image of a map of Taiwan along with the five stars of the Chinese flag, and the message: “Taiwan is never a country. It never was and never will be.” The post followed remarks
INVESTMENT WATCH: The US activity would not affect the firm’s investment in Taiwan, where 11 production lines would likely be completed this year, C.C. Wei said Investments by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in the US should not be a cause for concern, but rather seen as the moment that the company and Taiwan stepped into the global spotlight, President William Lai (賴清德) told a news conference at the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday alongside TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家). Wei and US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday announced plans to invest US$100 billion in the US to build three advanced foundries, two packaging plants, and a research and development center, after Trump threatened to slap tariffs on chips made
RSS