COP19 (15/11/20130) – Jeremiah Lengoasa, Deputy Secretary-General, World Meteorological Organization, talks about Typhoon Haiyan.
He says that it was unprecendented with most of the damage coming from a storm surge of about 7 metres, wind speeds in excess of 200km/hour and wind gusts of around 300km/hour.
He says while we cannot attribute a single typhoon to changes in climate, the condition under which they are formed, are a direct effect of a changing climate.
For example, sea surface temperatures are becoming warmer which allows storms to grow more energy. He says that the conditions for these super storms to form are becoming much more frequent because of the changing climate and we can expect more of these in the future.