It will no longer be a lonely job for the handful of meteorologists and climate scientists here.
Their numbers will increase because Singapore now plans to develop capabilities in climate science and modelling’ within and beyond the Government, working with experts and institutions, said the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources in its addendum to the President’s Address last week.
Till last year, none of the universities here had a division dedicated to earth and climate sciences. Now, Nanyang Technological University has one.
The National Environment Agency (NEA), on its part, is setting up the Centre for Climate Research Singapore within its Meteorological Service. It recently advertised for a director, research scientists and senior research scientists.
Climate scientists study how the atmosphere, oceans and land surface interact and try to identify predictable patterns.
The centre will start off by studying issues relevant to Singapore, for example, how intense storms called Sumatra squalls are formed. These are crucial because tropical climate and weather systems are less well-studied than temperate ones, and modelling phenomena like strong thunderstorms will be a challenge.
And as the impacts of man-made climate change hit, like more intense storms and floods, it will become more critical to understand what the future climate and weather patterns could be.
The Meteorological Service has about 40 meteorologists and the centre plans to have about 15 research scientists for now.
About $6 million is required each year over the next five years to get the centre going, said Meteorological Service director-general Wong Chin Ling.
Singapore needs to understand tropical climate over the long term - sometimes thousands of years, said Professor Kerry Sieh, head of the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS), which is trying to fill some of the gaps in understanding.
For example, EOS researcher Adam Switzer looks at corals and coasts around the region to find out how high the sea level was in the past, or when there were big tsunamis or storms.
Meteorological Service models can project climate down to a 25km area now. Researchers like those at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology’s Centre for Environmental Sensing and Modelling are trying to refine that.
Retired geography professor Wong Poh Poh said data from various climate vulnerability studies should be shared with more researchers and the public. The scope of climate research, he added, should be broadened to include adaptation, for example, to sea-level rises, coastal erosion and sea-water infiltration into freshwater reservoirs.
But good people are hard to find, even as the EOS has just shortlisted candidates for its climate group leader. Climate experts are in short supply worldwide as institutions and governments facing climate change seek expertise and advice.
But Assistant Professor Koh Tieh Yong at EOS said not many climate scientists are needed to have a big impact.
And while undergraduates need a firm grounding in physics, chemistry and the earth’s physical and chemical processes, they may not need dedicated climate-science training till the postgraduate level.
Prof Koh added that a little climate research can still yield a lot of applications. ‘You need good people,’ he said. ‘You don’t need many people.’
