Extreme Weather

In Indonesia climate change has enhanced extreme weather disasters and increased risk. Indonesia's global placement plays into it's weather issues, wind from different hemispheres meet in a Intertropical Convergence Zone prompting the gathering of moist air masses and frequent convective rainfall. With the rising temperatures, projected precipitation trends have changed across the country and extreme rainfall intensity increases in some areas. The amount of hydro-meteorological disasters have swelled, in 2016 alone 92% of the 2,342 disasters fell under that category. Between 1998 and 2018 80% of extreme weather and disasters derived from climate change including flooding, heavy wind and storms, landslides, and drought. In January of 2013 a multitude of floods affected the Indonesian capital and its surrounding regions, over 250,000 were affected, 47 people lost their lives, 100,000 residences and structures were destroyed, and loses reached over $1,000,000.  In 2015 an extreme drought affected several regions including Java, Bali, and South Sumatera, during that year some areas didn't receive any rainfall for over 60 days.    


Sources:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337306148_Extreme_Events_Disasters_and_Health_Impacts_in_Indonesia 

https://dicf.unepgrid.ch/indonesia/climate-change

https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.8321



Comments

  1. BelgiumApril 13, 2025 at 10:47 PM

    Indonesia has experienced significant human distress from the impacts of climate change that increases the frequency and duration of extreme weather and has led to a steep increase in hydro-metrological disasters. Furthermore, the Indonesian nation is geographically vulnerable to the impacts of climate change by their unique geographic location, as Indonesia is especially vulnerable to widespread flooding and severe drought affecting livelihoods and causing significant economic loss.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ana GGApril 14, 2025 at 1:26 PM

    Interesting read!-what would those mitigation measures you'd suggest be?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plate Boundaries of Indonesia

Image
 Indonesia is located on the western side of the ring of fire  and is home to 4 plate boundaries . The surrounding plates include the Eurasian, Australian, Philippine, and the Pacific plates. The Convergent plate boundaries run south under Sumatra and Java in the west, through the middle of the archipelago, and along the north of West Papua New Guinea to the east.     In the west where the Eurasian and Australian plates meet is a subduction plate boundary, the Australian plate sides beneath the Eurasian plate at the  Sunda/Java trench . On the eastern side of Indonesia within the intersection of the Australian, Eurasian, and Philippine plates, the convergence is divided within an belt of microplates ( a small tectonic plate or plates that exist within a larger tectonic plates boundaries). The microplates create  various types of faults including arc-continent collision, subduction, strike-slip, thrust, and extensional faulting.  These faults...
Read more

Indonesia

Image
Jakarta, capital of Indonesia Indonesia is located in the Indian and Pacific oceans off the coast of southeast Asia. It is referred to as a archipelago and consists of 17,500 islands, 7,000 of those islands are uninhabited. It is the  largest country in southeast Asia, sharing borders  with  Malaysia and Papua New Guinea.  Flag of Indonesia The islands of Indonesia have a diverse environment ranging from forested volcanic mountains, costal plains, alluvial swamps, shallow seas and coral reefs, it surrounds the intersection of three pieces of the earths crust. Holding a estimated population of 284,698,000 people, Indonesia is the fourth most populated country in the world.    The difference between hazards, disasters, and catastrophes:   Hazards are a natural process or event that is a possible threat to human life and property Disasters are a hazardous event that occurs over a limited time span in a defined area, where one of the following occurs,...
Read more

Volcanoes

Image
Indonesia is home to about 150 volcanoes, 130 of them are active. These volcanoes sit within the ring of fire and have "high eruptive potential" due to the seismic activity of plate boundaries, such as the Indo-Australian and Eurasian plates.  The frequent earthquakes Indonesia experiences contribute to the elevated volcanic activity, not only that but the intensity of the earthquake can effect the viscosity of magma and the eruption type. Eruption patterns can be thrown off after earthquakes as well, eruptions may be speed up afterwards. In Indonesia a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in 2001 caused fumarole temperatures to rise in Mount Merapi. Mount Merapi is the most active volcano in the world, it is a pyroclastic stratovolcano that sits 2986 meters above sea level. In 2006 another earthquake resulted in the increase of magma extrusion and pyroclastic flow.  Mitigation:  In Indonesia 70% of the population is located within a volcanic zone, with some citizens living within 6 ...
Read more