CLIMATE CHANGE DETECTION IN SEVERAL AREAS IN PENINSULAR MALAYSIA FOR GREEN SUSTAINABILITY AWARENESS

Abstract

Climate change has had a detrimental impact on the ecosystem, often resulting in the extinction of many species and their habitats and harm to human health. To enhance the state of the ecosystem, the green space must be preserved and carefully guarded. Thus, to increase understanding of green environment sustainability awareness, this study aims to examine climate change in Malaysia. The methodology involved investigating the pattern of climate variation using several visualization tools, the Mann-Kendall test, the EWMA control chart, and the Kruskall-Wallis test. Data on monthly average temperature and rainfall amount for the 30 years between 1989 and 2018 was obtained from the Department of Meteorology in Petaling Jaya and the study locations are Ipoh in Perak, Kuala Krai in Kelantan, Mersing in Johor, and Temerloh in Pahang, Peninsular Malaysia. Based on data availability, to assess the changes, the 30 years of monthly data is divided into three cohort years; Cohort 1 (1989-1998), Cohort 2 (1999-2008), and Cohort 3 (2009-2018). The analysis results prove that climate change occurs in all four study locations. Mersing showed the most observed rate of change of mean temperature for both Cohort 2 and Cohort 3 from Cohort 1, by 1.01% and 1.02% while Ipoh showed the highest rate of change of mean rainfall by 1.20%. The study findings support the need for green environment awareness among all Malaysians and an increased effort to educate and implement the love for nature in the general public so that our green environment can be sustained.