Wamena, Jubi – It has been nearly two weeks, local residents of Wamena City and surrounding area experienced the extreme climate change. It’s extremely hot during the day but very cold at night.
Data issued by Wamena Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) indicates the extreme climate change during dry season in Wamena. Lower rain intensity influenced the daylight weather that can reach to 25.3 C and turn to -11 C at night.
The head of BMKG Wamena Diedrech Marlissa told Jubi at his office last week it was happening due to the position of the sun that is currently in the North. When it rotates to the northern it will cause the hot weather, on contrarily when the atmosphere mass move to the southern it takes the cold air from Australia. Thus, the weather in the Papua Central Highland area in particular Wamena is also influenced by the cold atmosphere mass, which is flowing from Australia to Papua Island.
“Therefore people also can feel this experience like this moment, such as less rainfall and even the weather is very sunny and no clouds at daylight so the heating is quite high where the temperature is now reaching 25.8 C but the it changes at night that the temperature could reach – 11 C like last Sunday,” he said.
He explained normally the temperature like that wasn’t so hot for Wamena residents if compared with the temperature at the coastal area that could reach up to 30 degrees. But now it is because the humidity could reach less than 40 degrees while at the coastal area it could reach 60 degrees.
Even in the last ten years, the coldest temperature in Wamena and surrounding area could be less than 10 degrees but now along with the city development and the increase of number of population the temperature is continuing to increase. “Normally the temperature in Wamena is around 15 degrees. So when it reached 11 degrees it could be extremely cold,” said Marlissa.
Additionally, the wind could reach 30 knots with this current condition while in normal condition it only reaches 8 – 10 knots. Windstorm was normally happening at midnight Papua time.
“This current condition is estimated to last until the end of August 2015. It is also related to the global climate change which is el nino phenomenon causing the extreme dried air. However, it is good for flight because no clouds. But usually in the morning the cloud so called frakto cumulus would be at around 200 meters from the ground, and if it was bright in the evening, usually it would be a mist in the morning,” he explained.
The similar extreme climate change was reportedly happened in Australia. As cited from Cnet on Tuesday, 7 July 2015, the Australian scientists found that the extreme temperature between 24 to 37 degrees Celsius could change the male embryo into female. “Earlier, we have been able to show the laboratory research that in the extreme temperature the male wizard genetically will change into female,” said Clare Holleley, postdoctoral researcher from Institute for Applied Ecology University of Canberra, Australia who also led this study. (Islami/Victor Mambor/rom)
