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By Coco Liu, Gayathri Vaidyanathan and ClimateWire | August 10, 2015

HONG KONG—A powerful typhoon hit
China this weekend, killing over a dozen
and forcing hundreds of thousands ofpeople to evacuate.
Typhoon Soudelor—named after alegendary Pohnpeian chief—made landfall
late Saturday in Putian of Fujian province
along China’s east coast, with maximum
sustained wind of 86 mph, according to theChina Meteorological Administration.

Typhoon Soudelor, the most powerful storm seen
this year, moves on Taiwan and China's coast.
Photo courtesy of NASA.

The Chinese weather agency said that thetyphoon, which is the western Pacific’s version of a hurricane, weakened as it moved
inland and degraded to a tropical storm. But still, it is expected to bring strong windand heavy rains, continuing to pose a threat to eastern China over the next few days.
On Saturday, Typhoon Soudelor first lashed Taiwan in the early morning and thencrossed the Taiwan Strait to reach China’s east coast. Eastern Chinese provinces areamong the most populous and economically advanced in the nation.
In Fujian province, local TV news showed the typhoon ripping up trees, tearing down
billboards and turning many areas into devastated wastelands with wrecked homes,
fallen electric posts and impassable roadways. More than 1.41 million households
were left without power due to the winds, the state-owned Xinhua News Agency
reported.
Giant waves as high as 9 meters—approximately the height of a three-story
building—were observed along China’s east coast, forcing more than 60,000 ships totake shelter from the storm.
Fierce winds and torrential rain slammed the city of Fuzhou, leaving more than
10,000 trees strewn about the city and stranding vehicles in floodwater. A new record
for rainfall in a single day was set.
Hundreds of flights were canceled across the region. Thousands of police and soldiers
were sent to aid those affected. And at least 320,000 people were moved to higher
ground.

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In neighboring Zhejiang province, more than 160,000 people were evacuated.
While the Chinese government has yet to unveil its losses, the damage is likely to be

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high. Last month, two powerful typhoons hit eastern China, producing record floods
in some areas and triggering landslides on a large scale. Meteorologists say thatpersisting rainfall caused by Typhoon Soudelor could worsen the situation.

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They Become Weapons ofMass DestructionA small town called Shuitou was partly submerged under up to 4.3 meters offloodwater, the government-backed China News Service said. At least nine people
were killed in the province.

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Damage in Taiwan
In Taiwan, Typhoon Soudelor took the lives of eight people, left four missing andinjured 420 others, the Interior Ministry said today. Among the victims were an
8-year-old girl and her mother, who were swept out to sea by giant waves.

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The typhoon blew away agricultural products and infrastructure worth over $31
million and caused the worst power outage in Taiwan’s history. At one point during
the storm, local utility Taiwan Power Co. noted, more than 4 million families in theisland were without electric power.
Hong Kong on Saturday experienced its hottest day ever recorded, with temperaturesrising up to 37.8 degrees Celsius (100.04 degrees Fahrenheit).
Soudelor also pummeled the island of Saipan in the western Pacific Ocean and left
residents without electricity and running water.
Stronger storms move toward the poles
When Souledor made landfall in Taiwan on Saturday, it was a Category 3 typhoonwith winds of 125 mph. Just days earlier, at the height of its maturity, it had been thestrongest recorded storm in the Northern Hemisphere this year. It had reached
Category 5 status, with winds well above the 150 mph threshold of a “super typhoon.”

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|Soudelor was the second major storm in the region this year; in March, a Category 5
cyclone, Pam, struck the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu, affecting some 30,000people and disrupting the nation’s agrarian economy (ClimateWire, March 23).

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In 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, affecting 9 million people(ClimateWire, Nov. 12, 2013).

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The storms may create the impression that tropical storms are already becoming more
intense, but this does not have scientific backing. Scientists have not found thatstorms have intensified in the west Pacific region.
That is partly because of a dearth of data. Comprehensive records of storms in theregion did not exist until nations sent up satellites in the 1970s. Thirty years is too
short to pinpoint changes in the behavior of natural phenomena like typhoons.
Jim Kossin, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin, has found thatthe latitude at which tropical storms are at their most intense is shifting poleward.
This means that people who are on the edges of the tropics are experiencing more
intense storms than they did previously (ClimateWire, May 15, 2014).

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Other research suggests that hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin may be intensifying, butwhether this is due to climate change is unclear, said Tom Knutson, a researchmeteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospherica Administration’s
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
“We are not sure about the causes of those changes,” he said.
Fewer, more deadly storms ahead
Although it is difficult to unravel present-day shifts in storm behavior, scientists canforecast the nature of future storms in a warming world.
Climate models suggest that storms would likely occur 16 percent less frequently in2100 than in the present day. (“Likely” means there is a 67 percent chance that themodel prediction is correct.)
The storms that do occur would be more deadly. Their intensity would likely increaseby 4 percent. The occurrence of Category 4 and 5 storms would likely increase by 24
percent and 59 percent, respectively, studies show.
Storms would bring in 20 percent more rainfall, said Kevin Walsh, a tropicalmeteorologist with the University of Melbourne.
Their ferocity would bring them closer to being super typhoons.
Typhoons of the future are “a big problem in East Asia,” said Kazuhisa Tsuboki, aclimate scientist with Nagoya University in Japan. “From the viewpoint of disasterprevention, a super typhoon is the biggest threat.”
Better disaster mitigation strategies needed
Scientists are now refining their global climate models to get better regional
predictions. Knutson at NOAA and his colleagues have done some of thesesimulations, and they have found that the northwest Pacific, where Soudelor hit,
would see fewer typhoons in the future.
The storms that do occur would more likely be Category 4 or 5 storms, they found.
That tracks closely with research by Tsuboki. The Japanese climatologist used a12-mile resolution model to find out how intense storms would be in 2100.
The most intense storms around East Asia would have wind speeds of 190 to 201 mph,
he found. Those speeds would make them economic disasters, depending upon wherethey struck.
“To prevent or mitigate disasters due to intense typhoons is very difficult,” he said.
“Since the climate change is rapidly going on, we should take action to establish new

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strategy for disaster prevention.”
Gayathri Vaidyanathan reported from Washington, D.C.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy
Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500

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