Hongkongers should enjoy cold spell while it lasts, as experts say global warming to push mercury higher in coming winters - South China Morning Post
Hongkongers should enjoy cold spell while it lasts, as experts say global warming to push mercury higher in coming winters | South China Morning Post
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Hongkongers should enjoy cold spell while it lasts, as experts say global warming to push mercury higher in coming winters
- Hong Kong Meteorological Society says city will experience ‘more hot and very hot days’, gradually warmer winters as a result of climate change
- ‘It is not exceptional or anything special to have a cold December, but as far as the long-term trend is concerned, we’re going to see less and less cold days,’ it adds
Hongkongers should enjoy the current cold spell while they can, as experts say the city will experience fewer cooler days in coming winters as global warming pushes the mercury higher.
“It is not exceptional or anything special to have a cold December, but as far as the long-term trend is concerned, we’re going to see less and less cold days,” Hong Kong Meteorological Society spokesman Leung Wing-mo said.
“We are also going to see more hot and very hot days, simply because of global warming.”
The Hong Kong Observatory on Friday said the minimum temperature recorded at its Tsim Sha Tsui headquarters was 8.6 degrees Celsius (47.5 Fahrenheit), the coldest reading so far this winter.
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On Tai Mo Shan, the city’s tallest peak at 957 metres (3,140 feet), temperatures dipped to below freezing at minus 1.6 degrees at around 5am.
The forecaster said the cold and dry weather along the southern Chinese coast was brought on by a winter monsoon.
The Observatory also predicted this winter would see “normal or above normal temperatures”.
According to the forecaster, normal temperatures for Hong Kong between December and February typically range from 16.8 to 17.7 degrees, while above normal is anything that exceeds 17.7 degrees.
Temperatures were expected to hover at about 9 degrees on Saturday and rise steadily over the following days to 14 degrees on December 26, it added.
The Observatory also expected this winter would yield fewer cold days, referring to when temperatures drop below 12 degrees, than past years as a result of climate warming. The trend was likely to continue in the coming years, it said.
Hong Kong recorded 13 cold days last winter.
Leung, a former assistant director at the Observatory, stressed that the coming temperature fluctuation, when the mercury would rise six degrees in less than a week, was normal.
“Again, it’s not uncommon, because in the old days during winter, we did have weather patterns like this, a spell of warm weather followed by a spell of cold weather,” he said.
“The only difference is that in the old days, the temperature was a lot colder.”
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Leung added that Hong Kong generally felt cooler than other locations experiencing similar temperatures.
“Firstly, homes are not built to be heated during the winter and in Hong Kong, when we have cold weather it is usually dry and windy, so the wind chill could be one of the reasons.”
Lam Chiu-ying, a former Observatory director, agreed and said the city would experience week-long spells of colder weather in the future similar to the current conditions, but with increasing mean temperatures.
“At the moment, we are having a severe cold spell with cold Siberian air coming to Hong Kong, this is part of our normal winter pattern,” he said.
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But these cold spells would be warmer in the future and the city would also see more very hot days hitting the 35-degree mark during summers, he added.
Lam said that Hong Kong had also experienced about 50 very hot days per summer in recent years, adding that the figure could reach 90 by 2050.
The city had already seen an increase in the number of hot nights over the years, he said, referring to those that reached 28 degrees or above.
“Half a century ago, there were only a couple of hot nights [in summer], by the turn of the century, it was about 20,” Lam said.
The society’s Leung added that global warming would create warmer summers and winters, as well as producing more extreme weather such as the black rainstorm that occurred in September.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”