Effect of climate change on seasonal monsoon

20 Março 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

Global warming and climate change is one of the most extensively researched and discussed topical issues affecting the environment. Although there are enough historical evidence to support the theory that climate change is a natural phenomenon, many research scientists are widely in agreement that the increase in temperature in the 20th century is anthropologically related. The associated effects are the variability of rainfall and cyclonic patterns that are being observed globally. In Southeast Asia the link between global warming and the seasonal atmospheric flow during the monsoon seasons shows varying degree of fuzziness. This study investigates the impact of climate change on the seasonality of monsoon Asia and its effect on the variability of monsoon rainfall in Southeast Asia. The comparison of decadal variation of precipitation and temperature anomalies before the 1970s found general increases which were mostly varying. But beyond the 1970s, global precipitation anomalous showed increases that almost corresponded with increases in global temperature anomalies for the same period. There are frequent changes and a shift westward of the Indian summer monsoon. Although precipitation is observed to be 70% below normal levels, in some areas the topography affects the intensity of rainfall. These shifting phenomenon of other monsoon season in the region are impacting on the variability of rainfall and the onset of monsoons in Southeast Asia and is predicted to delay for 15 days the onset of the monsoon in the future. The variability of monsoon rainfall in the SEA region is observed to be decadal and the frequency and intensity of intermittent flooding of some areas during the monsoon season have serious consequences on the human, financial, infrastructure and food security of the region. The global circulation in terms of precipitation is an important element for the functionality of the Earth's system. It helps to regulate the temperature of the Earth by transporting heat from the tropics to the higher latitudes. However, this system is vulnerable to long-term temperature fluctuations, more commonly termed as climate change. Climate change is currently debated as an anthropologically enhanced phenomenon. Many scientists of today have been trying to quantify climate change and its relation with other environmental systems. Arguably one of the most heavily dependent upon weather system is the monsoon season of Southeast Asia. While there are many literatures available on the interactivity of the monsoon seasons, the impact of climate change in terms of rising temperatures on monsoon rainfall intensities in Southeast Asia has received little attention. This study has given some insights on the connections between global warming and monsoon rainfall. It is evident that the distribution of monsoon rainfall is greatly influenced by a number of weather systems, such as the Arctic Oscillation, Siberian High and Western Pacific Subtropical High, as well as the complex Asian topography, i.e. the Tibetan Plateau. The EAWM is regulated by the Arctic ice which influences the SH weather system. The EASM is affected by the westward shift of the WPSH and consequently impacting on the distribution and variability of monsoon precipitation. Excessive monsoon flooding which has become frequent in recent years in parts of Southeast Asia remain an issue to be overcome. Understanding the shift and predicting changing trends of monsoon may be central to managing the floods that impact on millions of people, damage to lives and property, destruction of ecology and farmlands and the long term effect on food security.

Indian Ocean Monsoon: The maritime rhythms in Trade

15 Março 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

 Generally speaking, however, traders would not travel farther than a monsoon’s trip from their home port.  Greeks and Arabs ventured as far as western India; Indians ranged between the mouth of the Red Sea and the Malay Archipelago; Chinese and Southeast Asian merchants went as far as Sri Lanka.  Along these limits formed a string of emporia, where merchants speaking a babel of different languages would haggle and barter as part of the long process that brought goods from one extremity of the Indian Ocean to the other.

Ethiopians trading gold and ivory, Malays trading pepper and nutmeg, Yemenis trading frankincense and myrrh–all would mingle in trade towns and ports scattered across the ocean, negotiating the trans-shipment of their precious cargo in some common trade tongue.  Thus the silk that reached ancient Rome, or the spices that reached Europe before the age of colonization, would be handled by a multitude of merchants during a journey that could last years.

When following the western side of the African coastline from the equator, however, the Cape of Good Hope marks the point where a ship begins to travel more eastward than southward. Thus, the first modern rounding of the cape in 1488 by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was a milestone in the attempts by the Portuguese to establish direct trade relations with the Far East (although Herodotus mentioned a claim that the Phoenicians had done so far earlier). Dias called the cape Cabo das Tormentas ("Cape of Storms"; Dutch: Stormkaap), which was the original name of the "Cape of Good Hope".

Once Portuguese explorers rounded the Cape of Good Hope and began a campaign of conquest that subjugated Asia’s richest ports, the complex network that had defined Indian Ocean trade began to unravel.  Starting with Vasco da Gama in 1498, heavily-armed caravels rode the monsoon trade winds up from Africa and blasted through the defenses of local princes to commandeer their share of the lucrative spice trade.  Successive expeditions pushed toward the point of origin of this valuable commodity, eventually setting up ports on the Spice Islands, which granted them a monopoly on the trade.

Portuguese hegemony did not last long, as armed merchant ships from Holland, France, and Great Britain soon arrived in the Indian Ocean with ambitions of their own.  Each of these powers, like Portugal before them, sought to bypass or co-opt the intricate chains of commerce that stretched across the ocean by creating mercantile zones in their conquered territories that excluded all foreign traders.  Over the course of a couple centuries, the trade system that endured for millennia was subsumed by European power politics. But the end of the monsoon trade system did not spell the end of monsoon trade.

Even after the age of steam replaced the age of sail, dhows plied the routes between East Africa and the Persian Gulf, carrying African ivory, spices from Yemen, and pearls from Abu Dhabi.  The seafaring habits that had persisted for millennia were slow to die off, only succumbing in the mid-20th century once the discovery of oil had permanently altered the economics of the region.  Massive supertankers replaced wooden boats as the flood of wealth into the Persian Gulf made it impossible to earn a living carrying small cargoes over thousands of miles.  The dhows that ferry tourists along the shores of Zanzibar and Dubai today are but a reminder of the great monsoon trade system that once spanned a whole ocean.

Indian Ocean Currents

•      Indian ocean is half an ocean, hence the behavior of the North Indian Ocean Currents is different from that of Atlantic Ocean Currents or the Pacific Ocean Currents.

•      Also, monsoon winds in Northern Indian ocean are peculiar to the region, which directly influence the ocean surface water movement [North Indian Ocean Currents].

The currents in the northern portion of the Indian Ocean change their direction from season to season in response to the seasonal rhythm of the monsoons. The effect of winds is comparatively more pronounced in the Indian Ocean.

Monsoon: Nature and Scope

13 Março 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

Throughout the last few thousand years the mariners and trade routes of the Indian Ocean have moved to a unique rhythm based upon the prevailing seasonal weather patterns. These are known individually as a monsoon, derived from the Arabic mawsim, meaning a fixed time of year. Two main monsoons can be identified: blowing from the north-east in the winter and the south-west during the summer with a variable weather season in between.

These two monsoons have very different characteristics from each other, despite occurring over the same body of water. The north-easterly monsoon of the winter is characterised by dry, steady, relatively gentle winds which encourage sailing throughout its duration. Meanwhile, the south-westerly summer monsoon is wet, violent and characterised by storms and strong wind with sailing only feasible at the beginning and end; in the late spring and early autumn. Unlike in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, then, sailing in the Indian Ocean tended to avoid the summer months of June, July and August.

The switch in overall wind direction resulting from the monsoon patterns means that it is possible to sail on the Indian Ocean with a constantly favourable wind, if done in conjunction with the monsoon rhythms. Using favourable winds as much as possible was important. Ancient and medieval Indian Ocean sailing vessels could only sail to windward in lighter winds and calm seas, but were efficient when sailing with the wind. They could average as much as 11 kph on extended voyages, with an even higher top speed in very good conditions. The use of the monsoon in this manner is inferred in Roman period written sources. One of which is the Periplus Maris Erythraei, a Greek text written in the mid-1st century AD by a merchant with intimate knowledge of the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. The Periplus lists the ports of trade, the distances between them and the products that could and should be traded at each port. In this sense, it is much more of a trading gazeteer than a description of navigational methods. Sometime before 100 B.C., Greek sailors coming from Egypt discovered a shortcut to India.  Much easier and more direct than the arduous overland route, or than hugging the deserted coastlines of Arabia and Persia for 5,000 miles, this route took only weeks to travel.  Sailing straight out into the open waters of the Arabian Sea during the late spring, ships were whisked by the monsoon winds on a steady northeast course, arriving on India’s west coast by mid-summer. It was a daring feat for those first sailors who attempted it.  In a time when ships rarely ventured out of sight of land, and open waters invited the prospect of drifting aimlessly at sea, it took an extraordinarily bold, unlucky, or stupid navigator to sail out into one of the largest bodies of water on the planet.  Fortunately for those first crews who made the attempt, they were saved by one of the great forces of nature: the monsoon.

Nature of Scope of Port Cities

8 Março 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

General port cities: a reduced importance of port functions in the local economy, favouring central place functions but lowering port competitiveness. Major urban centres dominate this category, with financial poles (Tokyo, London), national and regional capitals (Bangkok, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Oslo, Dublin, Barcelona, Glasgow, Naples and Leixoes). It also shows the remotely located port cities of the Atlantic Arc and the Scandinavia Baltic areas;

Hub port cities: port functions dominate the local economy, through efficient port concentration but limited hinterland penetration. The only European major nodes to be compared to Asian ones are located in southern Europe: Lisbon, Piraeus (Athens), Thessaloniki. Asian port cities dominate this category due to the limitation of their hinterlands;

Hinterland port cities: port functions are important for a local economy specialized in industrial and logistic activities which serve large hinterlands. This is seen in Europe with port cities facing the lock-in effect of core regions (e.g., Le Havre, Marseilles with Paris; Genoa, Trieste with Milan, Turin; Valencia with Madrid). This is similar to the Asian cases of Busan, Kaohsiung, Taichung and Tianjin, which are also dependent on their close centralized markets (Seoul, Taipei, and Beijing);

Maritime port cities: port functions are limited compared to other urban functions but port activity is kept despite the pressure from the urban environment. Those port cities are found mostly in Japan, where the risk of congestion has been overcome by gigantic reclamation projects, and in northern Europe thanks to the downstream shift of port functions along estuaries (Maas delta for Antwerp and Rotterdam, Severn river for Bristol, Solent river for Southampton, Seine river for Rouen, Weser river for Bremen and Elbe river for Hamburg). Without such geographical advantage and territorial strategies, these port cities would have become without any doubt “general cities”, gradually losing their port function due to congestion.

Port choice becomes a function of the overall network cost and performance. The factors together in the demand profile of the port, the supply profile of the port and the market profile of the port. Typical port choice criteria include factors such as: (a) physical and technical port infrastructure, including nautical accessibility (for example draft); (b) terminal infrastructure and equipment, hinterland accessibility and intermodal offer; (c) geographical location vis-à-vis the main shipping lanes and the hinterland; d) port efficiency expressed as port turnaround time, terminal productivity and cost efficiency; (e) interconnectivity of the port (sailing frequency of deep-sea and feeder shipping services); (f) reliability, capacity, frequency and cost of inland transport services;
(g) quality and cost of auxiliary services such as pilotage, towage and customs;
(h) efficiency and cost of port management and administration (for example port dues);
(i) availability, quality and cost of logistic value-added activities (for example warehousing) and port community systems; (j) port security/safety and environmental profile; and (k) port reputation. 

Port City: Comparison between Europe & Asia

6 Março 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

The nature of port-city relationships in two major port regions of the world, Europe and Asia. Interms of demographic size and container traffic, it shows the decline of port-urban dependence,stemming from changes in global transportation and urban development. However, Europeanand Asian port cities are not identically confronted to the same challenges, notably in terms oftheir hinterlands. A factor analysis highlights a regional differentiation of port-city relationshipsaccording to their insertion in both urban and port systems, with a core-periphery dualism inEurope and a port-city hierarchy in Asia.Thus, the distance to inland markets for European ports and the size of coastal markets for Asianports are the main factors to explain the nature of port-city relationships in the two areas. It helpsto evaluate which European and Asian port cities are comparable beyond their cargo volumes, byputting together micro (local environments) and macro (regional patterns) factors.Port cities are strategic nodes for major trading regions such as Europe and Asia, especially in aworld where more than 90% of trade volumes occur by sea. However, their roles are different fora number of reasons, such as the history of trade and urban settlements, the geographical layout,and the current level of regional integration.In Europe, the importance of inland cities is reflected in the “central place” paradigm, and portcities have often been disregarded by urban specialists. Most European urban comparisons verifythe lower economic importance of port cities. In Asia, since the colonial period and following thecoastal industrialization in Japan, and the China, port cities are vital propellers of development,to the expense of inland cities. They have become the new cores of their national economies.According to Some scholars on the basis of historical and geographical perspective in Europe,Western models of port-city growth are not applicable to Asian countries, but for others, it isfruitful to analyze how port regions adapt differently to same global phenomena, such aswaterfront redevelopment. However, the lack of comparable data has limited the quantitativeanalysis of port-city relationships, hampering direct international comparisons.European port cities are much more specialized in the logistic function (i.e. distribution, storage,transfer) because they are the gateways between core regions and the outside world. For thisreason, it is quite rare to find a logic of port-city combination in Europe, where port-relatedfunctions have, comparatively with other areas of the world, a stronger importance for the localeconomy. It has been argued elsewhere that this specificity of European port cities has led to anumber of contradicting opinions about the role of ports in enhancing local economicdevelopment, as it is a hard task in Europe but a natural process in many other areas.This also verifies the “lock- in effect” of urban systems, based on the idea that port cities incentralised urban systems are “blocked” and remain specialised when they are dependent andwell connected to core regions. It also shows that in Asia, the distribution of goods needs lesslogistic agents due to closer markets and a simpler transport chain. Thus, Asian port cities have abetter port-urban combination than in Europe, where the transport chain is more complex andforces ports to compete inland through intermodal services and hinterland expansion. Asian port cities have a better port-urban combination than in Europe, where the transport chain is morecomplex and forces ports to compete inland through intermodal services and hinterland expansion.