Climate vulnerability in tropical Asia

Abstract

The tropical zone encompasses some of the wettest areas on Earth, as well as some of the world's driest deserts. This zone also includes some of the countries that are the most vulnerable to natural disasters, due to population pressures that drive settlement in flood- or drought-prone areas. Some of the less-developed countries also lack the resources to build structures resilient to climatic extremes. The limitations of physical and human infrastructure also contribute to the limited capacity to warn of or respond to major disasters, although this is an area where large improvements have been made in many countries in recent decades. Tropical Asia's near future climate vulnerability in terms of extreme temperatures, precipitation and typhoons was analysed using the output of the general circulation model (GCM) MIROC4h in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The analysis of the long-term sea level rise in the Pacific Ocean, using the dataset of the Reconstructed Sea Level Version 1 (RSLV1), indicates that sea level rise is occurring at an alarming rate.