RP biggest victim of climate change--Filipino NASA physicist
By TJ Burgonio
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 19:28:00 09/12/2008
Filed Under: Science & Technology, Environmental Issues
MANILA—The Philippines is very vulnerable to climate change and its diverse species will be the first to be wiped out if the temperature warms up, a US-based Filipino physicist said Friday.
“The Philippines is not emitting a lot of carbon dioxide, but it's going to be the biggest victim of climate change,” Dr. Josefino Comiso said in a briefing organized by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
Comiso, a senior scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) who has made studies on climate change, said the country is very vulnerable to a warming climate because it's home to a high diversity of species.
“A lot of these species are very vulnerable to even a slight change in temperature,” he later told reporters. “If you change the temperature by even a fraction of a degree to 1 degree, a lot of species could disappear.”
He further explained: “In the Philippines, there's more diversity. If you lose 10 percent of them, we're talking of thousands of species.”
Comiso, a contributing author to the report on climate change of Nobel winner Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, is in Manila for a visit to share his knowledge with the academe under the DOST's “Balik-Scientist Program.”
The physicist said that the country's coral reefs, home to algae and hundreds of species of fish, are under immediate threat from a warming of ocean temperature, and bleaching.
“There's actually a symbiotic relationship within the coral reefs in the fact that you have algae residing in the reefs. And it's these algae that are producing the beautiful colors in the coral reefs,” he said.
And coral bleaching could change all that, he said.
“When the reefs experience a slight change, even less than a degree of temperature, this would expel the algae,” he said, pointing out that this would impact on food supply because fish feed on algae.
Six countries, including the Philippines, contain over half of the world's reefs. Together with Indonesia, the Philippines has a high diversity of coral reefs, studies show.
Only 4 to 5 percent of the 27,000 sq km of the country's coral reefs are in excellent condition.
A wide range of plant and animal species are also under threat from a warming climate, while humans will become more vulnerable to diseases, according to Comiso.
“As the temperature in the country warms up, you can start breeding some harmful insects. Like for example the mosquitoes might become a lot more abundant, and you know for sure, mosquitoes can have a lot of impact on the health of population,” he said.
Comiso echoed observations by climate experts that the Philippines was vulnerable to a rise in sea level and stronger storms as an offshoot of global warming.
“We've been having longer and heavier rainfall in the previous years. That may be associated with global warming as well because we know that SST (sea surface temperature) has been on the rise,” he said.
“If you have a warmer ocean, you get more evaporation. You also get stronger typhoons in the process,” he added.
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