With Taiwan facing a heat wave in recent days, several academics called for the Central Weather Bureau to set up a “high temperature alert” mechanism and for the government to study the feasibility of implementing a system for declaring “high temperature holidays.”
In response, the Central Personnel Administration said July 6 that Taiwan currently has no regulations for closing schools and businesses during heat waves and that at present, there are no plans in the works on this front.
Wang Chung-ho, a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Earth Sciences, said, “The days when temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius will definitely soon be here.” He urged the government to squarely face the trend of rising temperatures, pointing out that a few consecutive days of plus-35 C temperatures can pose a major risk, which he said is reason enough to consider declaring holidays during these periods of severe weather.
Liu Koung-ying, dean of the College of Sciences at Chinese Culture University, said he thinks the CWB ought to set up an alert system to provide the public with information on when and where excessively high temperatures are forecast to occur.
CPA Spokesman Chang Nien-chung said Taiwan is not like tropical countries and high temperatures are not the norm. Furthermore, high temperatures usually occur in different regions on the island at different times, he added.
Nevertheless, he continued, if temperatures continue to trend upward in the future, the government will invite experts to study the issue of adding high temperature days to the list under the country’s disaster holiday system.
Chang stated that the CPA has not begun collecting data on high temperatures in Taiwan, adding that he has only heard that mainland China has put related guidelines in place for declaring high temperature holidays.
Wang said that between July 13 and Aug. 4 in 2003, Taiwan experienced 22 straight days of average temperatures in excess of 30 C. He noted that temperatures on the island were relatively low in May and June of this year, thereby making the weather of the last few days seem even hotter.
As for why the weather has been so hot recently, Wang said since last year, Taiwan began to be influenced by the El Nino and La Nina phenomena, with easterly trade winds pushing warm tropical water toward the Pacific, thereby raising the temperature of waters surrounding the island and in turn leading to higher temperatures on land.
Cheng Ming-tian, director of the CWB’s Weather Forecast Center, pointed out that Taiwan has an island climate, with sea winds providing a moderating influence. As a result, high temperatures generally do not persist like on continental land masses. Therefore, Taiwan is rarely struck by heat waves, he explained, adding that the risk of excessively high temperatures occurring is much lower than that of typhoons and sandstorms.
Beginning July 6, the Pacific high pressure system finally began to weaken, but the weather around the island remained toasty. The CWB said temperatures hit a high of 37.8 C in Keelung City on the north coast and 37.4 C in Taipei City during the afternoon.
CWB forecaster Wang Jun-hsien said that with cloudier conditions July 7, temperatures around the island are expected to drop slightly by one to two degrees Celsius. With the scorching weather persisting, he advised members of the public to stay out of direct sunlight and drink lots of fluids in order to avoid heat or sunstroke. (SB)