Warning about climate change is reaching our shores as rising sea levels will submerge many coastal areas around Malaysia and one beach in Penang is reportedly disappearing.

A recent finding by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) revealed that global warming is predicted to happen before 2040 with a 1.5°C rise in temperature causing more floods, droughts, storms and a rising sea level that will submerge coastal areas.

2016: Pantai Pasir Panjang, Penang. -ZAINUDIN AHAD/The Star

The IPCC roped in 270 scientists from 67 countries to study the data and review the impact of climate change.

They published their 3,675-page Sixth Assessment Report in late February.

The report was released at a time when Penangites visiting Pasir Panjang beach on the rustic and rural western side of Penang island discovered that this uninhabited beach seems to be disappearing.

The Star, which was alerted to this, visited the area recently.

At high tide, the beach becomes almost completely submerged and the waves crash high up onto the shore, washing away sand and exposing rocks that villagers said were never there before.

IPCC’s scientists had warned that a “continued and accelerating sea level rise will encroach on coastal settlements and infrastructure and commit low-lying coastal ecosystems to submergence and loss”.

2022: Pantai Pasir Panjang, Penang. -KT GOH/The Star

The scientists raised concerns that should temperatures rise by a median of 2°C, there will be “extreme weather events” bringing risk of physical water availability and water related hazards.

“Sea level rise poses a distinctive and severe adaptation challenge as it implies dealing with slow onset changes and increased frequency and magnitude of extreme sea level events, which will escalate in the coming decades,” the scientists added.

Local experts confirmed the findings.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia climatologist professor Dr Fredolin Tangang said the global mean sea level increased by a median of 20cm (between 15cm and 25cm) from 1901 to 2018.

Between 1901 and 1971, it rose at a rate of 1.3mm a year.

Between 2006 and 2018, it was rising at 3.7mm a year.

“Although the global mean sea level rise is just about 20cm now, there are spatial variations, which can be contributed by factors including changes in wind patterns or localised land subsidence (sinking),” he said, commenting on the shrinking of Penang’s Pasir Panjang beach.

Prof Fredolin said the rising sea level was primarily due to the melting of ice and glaciers and thermal expansion of the ocean, being made worse by increasing greenhouse gas (mainly carbon dioxide) emissions.

By the end of this century, he said the global mean sea level in the worst-case scenario is expected to rise by 1m, which would mean the submergence of most human coastal civilisations everywhere.

He warned that Malaysia, along with the rest of the Western-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, will suffer from rising sea levels in the decades to come.

Reversing this requires a global push towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on renewable energy sources, said Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies director Prof Datuk Dr Aileen Tan.

From solar power to electric cars and even bicycles, Prof Tan said people, companies and governments must adopt a new mindfulness about keeping carbon footprints low in everything they do.

“It is not too late to change. Many countries are making every effort possible to embrace sustainable practices. Malaysia also does this, just that we have to put even more effort into doing away with old practices,” she said.

She said that long before rising sea levels bring the wholesale destruction of man-made coastal structures, food security would first be threatened.

In Penang and Kedah, Prof Tan expects the padi fields to be lost first due to saltwater intrusion.

Then, there will be a sudden drop in marine biodiversity, leading to the scarcity of fisheries resources.

“There will be increasing acidification of seawater, which will affect carbonate systems such as coral reefs.

“If the projections are accurate, when it reaches 64cm, Penang will lose most of our padi fields.

“The models indicate that the rate of temperature increase is now faster than past estimates,” she said, citing her paper at the World Landscape Architects Summit last year.

Source:
courtesy of THE STAR

by ARNOLD LOH, N. TRISHA, FATIMAH ZAINAL, RAGANANTHINI VETHASALAM, MOHD FARHAAN SHAH and RSN MURALI

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