'We are afflicted with the boiling frog syndrome, in that we are not aware our living conditions are deteriorating,' says a heat resilience expert about climate change. — FAIHAN GHANI/The Star
The rice crops shrank and the padi dried up. The eggs got smaller and production declined. The vegetables wilted and fish washed up dead on beaches. These calamitous scenes were all seen in this region in April during a brutal heatwave.
The heat severely impacted crops in Vietnam, a major rice producer, and led to a state of emergency. Smaller egg sizes became more prevalent in the Philippines, as chickens lost their appetite in the intense heat, the Philippine Egg Brand Association said. On beaches in Penang, small dead fish were seen, such as kitang or gelama, which live near the shore where seawater gets warmer.
There is also the human toll. In Thailand, 38 people have died of heatstroke this year already, health authorities said last week. The scorching heat has also forced millions of schoolchildren to stay home.
These alarming scenes are making history. This heatwave is “by far the most extreme event in world climatic history”, climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera wrote on X (formerly Twitter). He said “hundreds of records” have been broken.
The record highs in April are inconceivable to me – 53°C in the Philippines (in Iba city), 48°C in Myanmar (in Magway region) and 47°C in Vientiane, Laos. Bangkok’s heat index, a better measure of heat as it takes humidity into account, hit 52°C at the end of April.
It’s the humidity that makes the heat here feel unbearable. And dangerous. With high humidity, it’s harder for sweat to evaporate (the body’s natural cooling system) because the air already holds a lot of moisture. So heat stroke and exhaustion can happen faster, especially among the elderly and very young. Local heat warnings sharply increased this year.
Globally, the world just endured the hottest April on record. In fact, records have been broken for every month of the last 11 consecutive months prior to April 2024, said climatologist and Academy of Sciences Malaysia Fellow Dr Fredolin Tangang. Worryingly, during these months, the global mean temperature increased by more than 1.5°C, the critical threshold which scientists say we should not exceed to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Global warming is caused by the build-up of greenhouse gases, released by humans burning fossil fuels. But the recent hot spell was also due to the natural El Niño event, when warmer Pacific Ocean surface temperatures release more heat into the atmosphere. In an interview last year, Tangang had said that heat records could be broken in April or May 2024 due to El Niño.
In June, the situation in the Pacific Ocean is expected to return to normal, he says. For the rest of 2024, a dip in global temperatures is expected from the La Nina effect, the weather effect that follows El Nino. However, the additional heat during the 2023/2024 El Niño may linger and affect global temperatures.
While El Niño drives temperatures up, it is ultimately climate change that is causing more frequent, longer and more intense heatwaves, scientists say.
“Climate change is exacerbating the frequency and severity of such [extreme heat] events,” World Meteorological Organisation secretary-general Celeste Saulo said last month.
The organisation’s latest report says Asia is heating up faster than the global average – almost doubling since the 1961-1990 period. It also says Asia was the “most disaster-hit region” from weather and climate hazards in 2023 – many countries had experienced a “barrage of extreme conditions, from droughts and heatwaves to floods and storms”.
Tangang says that the Indian Ocean is warming faster than the global average [of oceans]. “If this trend continues it could have further ramifications and drive more changes in regional weather patterns and extremes,” he says.
Malaysia is projected to experience 200 heatwave days a year by 2050, with more extreme floods and thunderstorms. That is a terrifying trend. How would this impact ecosystems, agriculture and wildlife? A mass bleaching of coral reefs is already unfolding due to heat stress, which will affect marine systems. Some marine animals might move to cooler waters. Crop damage could also affect our food sources.
The worst part is that so little is being done to address this. “We [in South-East Asia] are afflicted with the boiling frog syndrome, in that we are not aware our living conditions are deteriorating,” Assoc Prof Jason Lee, who heads a heat resilience body at the National University of Singapore, told Eco-Business earlier this year.
Much needs to be done in climate adaptation and resilience in Malaysia. We need comprehensive policies with supportive legislation. Our national adaptation plan is still being developed (Asian nations such as Bangladesh, Thailand and Vietnam already have theirs). We need to act quickly and proactively to shield us from the worst of future impacts. Like the frog in the pot, we don’t have much time to escape “global boiling” – we’ve gone beyond global warming.
Human Writes columnist Mangai Balasegaram writes mostly on health but also delves into anything on being human. She has worked with international public health bodies and has a Masters in public health. Write to her at lifestyle@thestar.com.my. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.
