Transcript Indicators for Climate Change over Mauritius

Indicators for Climate Change
over Mauritius
• Mr. P Booneeady
• Pr. SDDV Rughooputh
Research Objectives
• Determine whether the climate in Mauritius is
changing and how it may be affecting our lives,
the natural environment and our economy.
• Alert on the impact of climate change as it
develops and instils a sense of urgency in
responding to it.
• Establish a baseline against which future
perturbations due to climate change or variability
could be measured.
• Develop indicators for climate change over
Mauritius
Background
• Almost all the aspect of nature and human life
depends on the climate and in turn the climate
influences the fauna and flora. When the climate
patterns changes, all of these are affected, some
slightly and others very strongly.
• Climate change is about shifts in the
meteorological conditions lasting many years
which include whether it is becoming warmer,
drier or sunnier.
• Climate change may have large impacts on our
economy and daily lives.
Indicators
• Selected from different fields, namely:
meteorology, marine, environment, health and
behaviour of plants.
• Are those with a long-term and accurate historic
datasets that show close correlation in time.
• Indicators which have been selected includes
air temperature, rainfall, drought index, sea level
rise, tropical cyclone, thunderstorm and health
• Statistical techniques have been used to test
the relevance and significance of these indicators
Temperature
• An increase of about 0.8oC on the mean
temperature has been noted from 1975 up to
2008.
• Decadal trends indicate a shift towards the south
and the centre
• The number of hot days have increased.
• The number of cold days have decreased
Rainfall
• the annual rainfall is found to be decreasing at
about 1.3 mm per year.
» 1.0 mm per year for summer
» 0.7 mm per year for winter
• A shift in the start of rain indicates that the
summer rain is being delayed more in the
coastal regions than at the centre of island.
• Longer period of dry spells in the coming years.
Sea level Rise
• Sea level in Mauritius indicate that the sea level
is now increasing quadratically
• Seasonal variation in the sea level whereby it is,
on average, 0.2m higher in summer than in
winter.
• For the period 1988 to 2008, the rate of increase
is 4.0mm per year, slightly above the satellite
observed value.
Tropical Cyclones
• A decadal increase in the occurrence of intense
to very intense tropical cyclones indicates that
most of the storms forming over the southern
Indian Ocean will intensify at least to the tropical
cyclones intensity
Thunderstorms
• A temporal increase in thundery activity over
Mauritius
• A negative correlation of the
thunderstorms with the sunspot
number
of
• Negative influence of ENSO on the formation of
cumulonimbus clouds
Health
• A positive correlation between the temperature
and the number of food poisoning.
• A positive correlation between the temperature
and the number of cataract cases.
• Other forms of vector and air borne diseases:
– Gastro-enteritis peaks in September to October
– Conjunctivitis peaks in August to October
– Respiratory diseases peak in June and July
Challenges
• Optimize variograms particularly for
summer months to improve accuracy of
models
• Derive values of humidity, wind speed
and direction, pressure and temperature
on a regular grid from few available
stations.
Limitations
• Access to data
• Data available for a short period of time
except for the meteorological data
Future Works (1)
• Study the interconnections between the different
indicators.
• Develop other relevant indicators for Mauritius .
• Use advanced spatial geostatistics techniques in
order to come-up with various GIS layers to map
out features (for example, floods and
vector/airborne diseases) which will give a deep
insight about the future dangers or risks. This
will thus enable us to prepare our country to face
the coming undesirable events by developing
timely mitigation plans.
Future Works (2)
• Carry out a national survey in order to
investigate the perceptions and notion of
Mauritians concerning climate change and its
consequences.
• Consider global indicators such as Southern
Oscillation Index and Indian Ocean Dipole.
• Extend the study to include the outer islands of
Mauritius: Rodrigues, St Brandon and Agalega
to cover the SWIO
• Develop a website to reflect climate change
indicators for Mauritius and the outer islands
Conclusions
• Give a greater understanding that the climate
change trends and its impacts over Mauritius.
• Help to adapt to climate change as the mitigation
measures reduce the scale of future impacts.
• Able to reduce some of the adverse impacts of
climate change through mitigation and
adaptation and enhance some of its potential
benefits
Acknowledgements
• University of Mauritius for providing logistic
support.
• Mauritius Research Council for funding
this study.
• Mauritius Meteorological Services for
providing required data.