electric_japan
2005-08-03, 08:27 PM
I read about this today folks: from Japan Today.com
Tokyo will sizzle in August
You think it's hot now. This is nothing. The heat that's coming to Japan, and to Tokyo in particular, says Shukan Gendai (July 30), constitutes a threat to life and happiness that will put even terrorism in the shade. Climatologists set their worst-case scenarios 25 years in the future, but, warns the magazine, Tokyoites can expect a searing foretaste no later than this August.
We've seen lately what heat can do. Directly or indirectly, it killed 20,000 Europeans in 2003. Tokyo's record heat last year had no such cataclysmic consequences, but complacency is out of place as the metropolis' climate grows increasingly hospitable to disease-bearing fleas more commonly associated with the tropics.
You don't need to be a trained meteorologist to see how strange the climate is growing. Shukan Gendai cites the most recent local examples. This year, Honshu's rainy season officially opened in mid-June, bringing hardly any rain. When the rains came at last at the end of the month, they were unusually strong. On June 28 it was 36.2 degrees in Tokyo — a record. Days later, it was so chilly you needed long sleeves outdoors.
Southern Honshu and Kyushu have been struck lately by unpredictable local rain storms of unprecedented violence — in Oita and Nagasaki prefectures, four people were dead and two missing as a result of them. They are due, says Shukan Gendai, to the "subtropicalization" of Japan, which in turn is caused by the so-called "heat-island phenomenon."
Tokyo is a classic "heat island." A heat island occurs as a result of a confluence of circumstances — lots of heat-absorbing concrete and asphalt, few green spaces, profligate energy use, and a high concentration of tall buildings that block cooling breezes. Tokyo seems almost to have been designed as a heat island. Between 1991 and 1996, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government, development absorbed 271.9 hectares of green spaces and open water. That's the equivalent of 17 Hibiya Parks. The more recent construction of skyscrapers in Minato Ward's Shiodome district — 13 buildings over 100 meters in height — are said to block cooling breezes from Tokyo Bay.
Tokyoites don't need to be told how miserable this feels. To make it bearable they turn up their air conditioners — which in turn, of course, by releasing more heat into the atmosphere, only intensifies the heat island effect.
Tohoku University meteorologist Takeo Saito has been tracking Tokyo's weather for 25 years, and he looks ahead 25 years to the year 2030. What does he see? "Our simulations," he says, "show evening temperatures of 42-43 degrees." He doesn't say what the daytime temperatures will be. Perhaps Shukan Gendai was afraid to ask.
In any case, the outlook for this August is 10 consecutive days of 40-degree-plus temperatures. It's not only a question of discomfort and heat prostration. The heat island climate is perfect, some experts warn, for fleas carrying such diseases as malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus. Malaria alone kills 1-2 million people a year worldwide.
And what's the government doing about it? Shukan Gendai demands. Not much, it concludes. The "cool biz" campaign, promoting the doffing of neckties and suit jackets so that office air conditioners can be turned down, is nice but, says the magazine, hardly measures up to the magnitude of the problem.
Tokyo will sizzle in August
You think it's hot now. This is nothing. The heat that's coming to Japan, and to Tokyo in particular, says Shukan Gendai (July 30), constitutes a threat to life and happiness that will put even terrorism in the shade. Climatologists set their worst-case scenarios 25 years in the future, but, warns the magazine, Tokyoites can expect a searing foretaste no later than this August.
We've seen lately what heat can do. Directly or indirectly, it killed 20,000 Europeans in 2003. Tokyo's record heat last year had no such cataclysmic consequences, but complacency is out of place as the metropolis' climate grows increasingly hospitable to disease-bearing fleas more commonly associated with the tropics.
You don't need to be a trained meteorologist to see how strange the climate is growing. Shukan Gendai cites the most recent local examples. This year, Honshu's rainy season officially opened in mid-June, bringing hardly any rain. When the rains came at last at the end of the month, they were unusually strong. On June 28 it was 36.2 degrees in Tokyo — a record. Days later, it was so chilly you needed long sleeves outdoors.
Southern Honshu and Kyushu have been struck lately by unpredictable local rain storms of unprecedented violence — in Oita and Nagasaki prefectures, four people were dead and two missing as a result of them. They are due, says Shukan Gendai, to the "subtropicalization" of Japan, which in turn is caused by the so-called "heat-island phenomenon."
Tokyo is a classic "heat island." A heat island occurs as a result of a confluence of circumstances — lots of heat-absorbing concrete and asphalt, few green spaces, profligate energy use, and a high concentration of tall buildings that block cooling breezes. Tokyo seems almost to have been designed as a heat island. Between 1991 and 1996, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government, development absorbed 271.9 hectares of green spaces and open water. That's the equivalent of 17 Hibiya Parks. The more recent construction of skyscrapers in Minato Ward's Shiodome district — 13 buildings over 100 meters in height — are said to block cooling breezes from Tokyo Bay.
Tokyoites don't need to be told how miserable this feels. To make it bearable they turn up their air conditioners — which in turn, of course, by releasing more heat into the atmosphere, only intensifies the heat island effect.
Tohoku University meteorologist Takeo Saito has been tracking Tokyo's weather for 25 years, and he looks ahead 25 years to the year 2030. What does he see? "Our simulations," he says, "show evening temperatures of 42-43 degrees." He doesn't say what the daytime temperatures will be. Perhaps Shukan Gendai was afraid to ask.
In any case, the outlook for this August is 10 consecutive days of 40-degree-plus temperatures. It's not only a question of discomfort and heat prostration. The heat island climate is perfect, some experts warn, for fleas carrying such diseases as malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus. Malaria alone kills 1-2 million people a year worldwide.
And what's the government doing about it? Shukan Gendai demands. Not much, it concludes. The "cool biz" campaign, promoting the doffing of neckties and suit jackets so that office air conditioners can be turned down, is nice but, says the magazine, hardly measures up to the magnitude of the problem.