El Nino, Indian Ocean Dipole increases risk of haze in Singapore from Jun to Oct [0:00-5:06]

A hotter and lasting longer, that's the forecast for the dry season this year, the Meteorological Service Singapore warning of a possible double whammy of climate phenomena from June. The agency says there is an 8 in 10 chance of El Nino occurring this year, far into warning signs such as water at higher temperatures than usual building up beneath the ocean surface in the eastern tropical Pacific. El Nino is likely to develop in June to July and may become stronger towards September. For Singapore, this often means hotter temperatures or higher temperatures and less rainfall. From July to August, a positive Indian ocean dipole is predicted to develop cooler surface waters in the eastern Indian Ocean, lead to fewer clouds forming and less rainfall over parts of Southeast Asia, including Singapore. A hotter dry weather from both climate patterns raising the risk of fires and haze in Singapore. They met services in a 1997 Singapore's dry sea on record, so the same conditions. It warns the dry season could last until October, with some experts going further and suggesting it to February. Less rainfall will give us the chance that the pollutants will stay in the air longer time and also good for the long-wing transport. Without the rainfall, this is a less chance that the pollutants in the air can be removed by a rainfall. So this is Steve from the climate perspective. Professor Stephen Yim himself joins us in the studio. He's the founding director of Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Health at Nanyang Technical University. He's also professor at the Asian School of the Environment and the Lee Kong Chan School of Medicine. Thank you so much for coming in this evening, Professor Yim. That quick read we did before we heard from you in that sound by a lot of it is based on modeling, predictive modeling. So when you say there's an eight in ten chance of something happening, layman like myself will say, well, I want certainty. Could you explain what you mean when you say this is likely? How do you make your predictions? For predictions like these. So now there are different kinds of climate projections using the model simulations that will be the uncertainty of different kinds of models. But what we find now is a current projection quite consistently saying that over 80% of the chance that the El Nino would occur at the same time in the Indian Ocean Park that we also see the trend that with the cooler water surface water temperature that will drive us to have a positive phase of Indian Ocean type. Both of them with El Nino and a positive phase of Indian Ocean type will give our region warmer and drier condition. Is this the worst case scenario or immediate scenario when you predict these things? So far the current climate projection also found that the El Nino would be developed a very strong intensity. So the last one that we experienced, such kind of condition of the combination between El Nino and the positive phase of Indian Ocean type will be good example would be 1997, which give us a very dry and the warm condition. So in terms of rainfall reduction is around 53%, which is a very substantial compared with the long term mean. So in other words, you are able to make these projections because the conditions nearer those of 1997. It's because that we are not only using the model projection only but also see the trend of the surface water in the Pacific Ocean and also Indian Ocean to see how will be the trend to develop this kind of extremely climate variability condition. So both the observations and also model simulations would drive us to have this kind of conclusion in the trend over at the percent this kind of condition would happen. All right, just before we came to you, there was a sound bite of yourself talking about his Singaporeans. It's a perennial concern. I think even someone like me would think you're hotter, drier, whether we're more likely to fire and that's more likely to directly cause some kind of haze, but it is beyond just hotter dry weather and forest fires. What other links do we look at when we say haze could worsen because of these weather predictions that you want to make? So let me describe the two very important factor to drive to have a transpired haze condition would be first the favorable climate condition as we experience in the past different cases. 1997, 2015, 2023, we come across a drier and warmer condition with less cloud