Rising faster in some areas
In the Western Pacific, where the Philippines is situated, sea levels have risen particularly high. Between 1950 and 2010, global sea levels rose by 10 centimeters, the WMO estimates. But in the Western Pacific region, the rise was more than three times as high, at 35 centimeters.
"Because of the currents in the ocean, because some coasts are rising or falling, because of differences in gravity in the earth you have differences from the global mean average of the ocean mean sea level," Michael Williams, also with the WMO, told DW.
The combination of warmer sea temperatures and very high sea levels is what made typhoon Haiyan so powerful. "If you have a 35-centimeter higher sea level, that means the storm surge reaches 35 centimeters higher when it hits the land," Williams explains.
Adjustment needed
Developing countries have to prepare for these conditions, says Saleemel Huq from the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh. "Being better prepared can reduce the amount of damage and particularly loss of life," he says.
In Bangladesh, 300,000 people died in a cyclone in the 1970s. In the 1990s, only 3,000 people died in a similar tropical storm, which Huq attributes to an improved early warning system. "Giving the right kind of warning is very important. You have to give them very clear messages…simple warnings that people understand," Huq says, adding that it's crucial to give this information to students in schools so that they can pass it on to relatives at home.
Shelters also have to be built higher. "In Bangladesh, we build our cyclone shelters now quite high, so that even if there was a tidal wave of a magnitude of a few meters people would still survive it," Huq says.
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