Johnny
Blades RNZ Pacific senior journalist
As the
Pacific Islands region reels from a series of recent
maritime tragedies, a regional climatologist says it is
imperative that boat operators take extra caution in a time
of turbulent weather.
There have been dozens of
fatalities from incidents at sea in recent months in Papua
New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu among other Pacific
countries.
Although an official or confirmed death
toll is not yet known for Vanuatu’s MV Matui tragedy
from two weeks ago, it is likely that dozens of people
died.
A common factor in this and other maritime
tragedies in the Pacific over recent months has been rough
seas and weather conditions, and coincides with a time when
the El Niño phase is getting into full swing across the
Pacific.
El Niño has caused extreme heat in parts of
the world, extensive drought in the Western Pacific and
disruptions to ocean currents through the tropical
Pacific.
A senior climatologist with the Pacific
Regional Environment Program Philip Malsale said El Niño
has created a lot of movement of warm waters towards the
Eastern Pacific, as a high pressure system moves up closer
to the equator, with an active monsoon trough over the
Western Pacific as well.
But he told RNZ Pacific that
El Niño was not necessarily directly to blame for the rough
seas and marine conditions in which various boats have got
into trouble.
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“Well there is some connection, but not
directly. I think it is more related to the weather
conditions – but also we need to take into account our
season now,” Malsale said.
“We are in the winter
season when we have the strong trade winds that are
persistent at this time of the year.
“We have the high
pressure system move up to the towards the equator, and we
have dominant southeast trades (tradewinds), those kind of
systems can also cause high pressure gradient over the
countries, and it influences a lot of the weather synoptic
situations across the countries like Tonga, Vanuatu, Fiji,
Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea.”
Regional met
talks
Malsale, who is from Vanuatu, last week joined
regional counterparts in Tonga for the 8th Pacific
Meteorological Council Meeting.
A big point of
discussion was how to strengthen weather and climate
services and make warnings more effective, at a time when
some boat operators choose to ignore them and go out to sea,
endangering lives.
Malsale and other weather experts
are underlining that taking these warnings seriously is
absolutely critical for people going to sea.
“We have
mandated organisations such as the national weather services
in countries. So boat owners or shipowners, captains should
reach out to the national met services, find out what the
current situation is, before they can plan the trip over to
the islands.”
Vanuatu’s government is considering
linking marine weather warnings to permissions for which
boats can operate under particular conditions.
“Just
because the warning is too general, but we can link that up
to certain boat size or ships capacity,” Malsale
said.
“So you put a certain warning, on which category
of ship that is referred to in terms of not sailing or not
carrying passengers to other islands.
Climate
extremes
Discussions at the Met Council summit also
focused on the ongoing wider challenges of climate change
and the more extreme conditions it brings.
“There was
agreement among all the Met Services to put this as a
priority as well on the latest science to help the COP
negotiators from the Pacific,” Malsale said.
“This is
one area of services that that the national Met services
want for our donors to continue to provide funding
for.”
Weather experts have warned that the El Niño
phenomenon developing in the Pacific Ocean is already the
strongest ever recorded.
Malsale said the peak is
still to come later this year and into 2027.
“That’s
the forecast like to peak between probably November and
January 2027. But these are only the indicators that we’re
monitoring, but the impact can peak later on during the
year.
However, he added that with cyclone season jjst
around the corner, there could be even moire impactful
weather in store for the
Pacific.
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