MANILA, Philippines - Powerful typhoons like "Yolanda" (international name Haiyan) is the "new normal" phenomenon as observed in previous weather disturbances that lashed the country in recent years, Environment Sec. Ramon Paje said on Wednesday.
"More than a decade ago, we have been telling you that this will happen," Paje told ANC's Headstart. "Almost every year, it is already a common occurrence. It's now the new normal."
Paje said in just seven years, the country was hit by stronger monsoons and typhoons that have caused massive devastation and hundreds of fatalities.
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In this Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013 file image provided by NASA
shows Typhoon Haiyan taken by Astronaut Karen L. Nyberg aboard the
International Space Station. Haiyan slammed the island nation with a storm
surge two stories high and some of the highest winds ever measured in a
tropical cyclone — 195 mph as clocked by U.S. satellites, or 147 mph based on
local reports. An untold number of homes were blown away, and thousands of
people are feared dead.
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He said these weather phenomena include Typhoons Ondoy, Pepeng, Sendong, Pablo and the enhanced southwest monsoon or "Habagat" that poured heavy rains and triggered floods in Metro Manila in early 2012 and 2013.
The Cabinet official said the country should adapt to these occurrences that may continue in the future.
"The first thing to is to adapt to it in terms of infrastructure, response time, preparedness, the precision in terms of forecasting," said Paje.
Super Typhoon "Yolanda" was the strongest tropical cyclone to enter the country this year and one of the most powerful ever recorded.
The Hawaii-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) of the US Department of Defense assessed Yolanda as a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale.
At one point, the JTWC even estimated the Yolanda's one-minute sustained winds to 315 kilometers per hour.
Yolanda has caused massive destruction in Tacloban City and in other areas in Eastern Visayas. The official government death toll is nearing 2,000 but authorities have estimated that the number could go up to 10,000.
Similar to Yolanda, Typhoon Pablo slammed into the country late last year and caused floods and landslides in Compostella Valley, Davao Oriental and other areas in Mindanao. More than 1,000 people were killed while over 800 others remain missing and are feared dead.
Also late 2011, Sendong devastated Cagayan de Oro and Iligan and killed over a thousand people.
In September 2009, Ondoy spawned record flooding in Metro Manila while Pepeng also lashed Luzon. Both tropical cyclones killed nearly 500 people.
Climate change
Scientists say man-made global warming has contributed to rising seas and a general increase in strength in the most powerful tropical cyclones. But they won't specifically apply these factors to Yolanda, claiming it is not possible to attribute single weather events, like the super typhoon, to climate change.
A 2008 study found that in the northwestern Pacific where Yolanda formed, the top one percent of the strongest tropical cyclones over the past 30 years are getting on average about 1 miles per hour stronger each year — a phenomenon some scientists suspect is a consequence of global warming.
"The strongest storms are getting stronger" said study co-author James Kossin of the National Climatic Data Center. Haiyan "is what potentially could be a good example of the kind of the things we're finding."
Similarly, the Philippines has seen its sea rise nearly half an inch in the past 20 years — about triple the global increase, according to R. Steven Nerem of the University of Colorado. Higher sea levels can add to storm surge, creating slightly greater flooding.
