Malaysia minister seeking to visit Indonesia over forest fires before SEA Games
Malaysia minister seeking to visit Indonesia over forest fires before SEA Games
03 August 2017
published by http://www.straitstimes.com
Malaysia – KUALA LUMPUR (SIN CHEW DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – A Malaysian Cabinet minister said he would seek to visit Indonesia before this month’s South-east Asian (SEA) Games to offer Malaysia’s assistance to fight forest fires in the country.
“Our request is as soon as possible. If we can go tomorrow, I will go but we have to seek permission from Indonesian side first,” Natural Resources and Environment Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafaar said in a press conference after the 12th national water resource committee meeting.
He said Malaysia would offer to send the Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (SMART), bombardier plane and firemen to Indonesia.
He added that officials from his ministry to also arrange to visit their counterparts in Indonesia.
The minister said the situation had actually improved, noting that Aceh had 72 hotspots four days earlier but none currently. This showed that effort to put out fire in Indonesia had been effective, he said.
Wan Junaidi said he had instructed officers to brief him on haze condition, direction of wind and the updated report from Indonesia on forest fire each day at 7:30 am.
“I am of the view that we should not be worried about the haze currently. Although the monsoon wind is blowing from southwest, if forest fire take place in Riau and Jami, Peninsula Malaysia and Singapore would be affected. If forest fire take place in western, middle and eastern parts of Kalimantan, then Sarawak would be affected.
“Currently we are monitoring forest fire in Aceh. Based on the direction of the wind, only northern part of the Peninsula Malaysia – Penang, Perlis, Kedah and northern part of Perak as well as Thailand would be affected.
An international team of climate researchers from the US, South Korea and the UK has developed a new wildfire and drought prediction model for southwestern North America. Extending far beyond the current seasonal forecast, this study published in the journal Scientific Reports could benefit the economies with a variety of applications in agriculture, water management and forestry.
Over the past 15 years, California and neighboring regions have experienced heighteneddrought conditions and an increase inwildfire numbers with considerable impacts on human livelihoods, agriculture, and terrestrial ecosystems. This new research shows that in addition to a discernible contribution from natural forcings and human-induced global warming, the large-scale difference between Atlantic and Pacific ocean temperatures plays a fundamental role in causing droughts, and enhancing wildfire risks.
“Our results document that a combination of processes is at work. Through an ensemble modeling approach, we were able to show that without anthropogenic effects, the droughts in the southwestern United States would have been less severe,” says co-author Axel Timmermann, Director of the newly founded IBS Center for Climate Physics, within the Institute for Basics Science (IBS), and Distinguished Professor at Pusan National University in South Korea. “By prescribing the effects of man-made climate change and observed global ocean temperatures, our model can reproduce the observed shifts in weather patterns and wildfire occurrences.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-atlanticpacific-ocean-temperature-difference-fuels.html#jCpAn international team of climate researchers from the US, South Korea and the UK has developed a new wildfire and drought prediction model for southwestern North America. Extending far beyond the current seasonal forecast, this study published in the journal Scientific Reports could benefit the economies with a variety of applications in agriculture, water management and forestry.
Over the past 15 years, California and neighboring regions have experienced heighteneddrought conditions and an increase inwildfire numbers with considerable impacts on human livelihoods, agriculture, and terrestrial ecosystems. This new research shows that in addition to a discernible contribution from natural forcings and human-induced global warming, the large-scale difference between Atlantic and Pacific ocean temperatures plays a fundamental role in causing droughts, and enhancing wildfire risks.
“Our results document that a combination of processes is at work. Through an ensemble modeling approach, we were able to show that without anthropogenic effects, the droughts in the southwestern United States would have been less severe,” says co-author Axel Timmermann, Director of the newly founded IBS Center for Climate Physics, within the Institute for Basics Science (IBS), and Distinguished Professor at Pusan National University in South Korea. “By prescribing the effects of man-made climate change and observed global ocean temperatures, our model can reproduce the observed shifts in weather patterns and wildfire occurrences.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-atlanticpacific-ocean-temperature-difference-fuels.html#jCp
