Posted on 02/16/2011 10:50:09 AM PST by NormsRevenge
PARIS (AFP) – Global warming driven by human activity boosted the intensity of rain, snow and consequent flooding in the northern hemisphere over the last half of the 20th century, research released Wednesday has shown.
Two studies, both published in Nature, are among the first to draw a straight line between climate change and its impact on potentially deadly and damaging extreme weather events.
Australia, Sri Lanka, Brazil and Pakistan have all been recently ravaged by massive flooding, raising questions as to whether global warming was at least partly to blame.
Computer models have long predicted that the observed rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases would magnify episodes of diluvian rainfall.
But up to now, the link has been largely theoretical.
"This paper provides the first specific evidence that this is indeed the case," said Francis Zwiers, a researcher at the University of Victoria in Canada and a co-author of one of the studies.
"Humans influence the intensity of precipitation extremes," he told journalists in a telephone press conference.
Data gathered between 1951 and 2000 from across Europe, Asia and North America showed that, on average, the most extreme 24-hour precipitation event in a given year -- whether rain, snow or sleet -- increased in intensity over the last 50 years of the 20th century.
When this measurable spike was compared with changes simulated by climate models, the fingerprint of human influence on Earth's weather patterns was unmistakable, Zwiers said.
"The observed change cannot be explained by natural, internal fluctuations of the climate system alone."
The main driver was simply more water in the air. "In a warmer world the atmosphere has greater moisture-holding capacity," he explained.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
AP : Scientists connect global warming to extreme rain
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_sc/us_sci_climate_floods
WASHINGTON – Two studies in the journal Nature link global warming to extreme rainstorms and snowfalls and find these weather events are getting substantially worse.
One study found that the strongest precipitation events were 7 percent wetter in the 1990s than they were in the 1950s. The other looked at costly flooding in England and Wales in the fall of 2000 and found that global warming more than doubled the likelihood of that flood occurring. Both studies used computer modeling.
BS
Both studies computer modeled.
Saudi men cross on foot a flooded street following heavy rain in Jeddah. Ten people have been killed and three others gone missing in three days of flooding due to heavy rains in the Red Sea city of Jeddah. (AFP/Amer Hilabi)
X10
Climate is supposed to change; what arrogance to assume we can put a thermostat on nature
A woman wades across a flooded area of Jardim Itaim neighbourhood, eastern outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on January 2011. Global warming driven by human activity boosted the intensity of rain, snow and consequent flooding in the northern hemisphere over the last half of the 20th century, research released Wednesday has shown. (AFP/File/Mauricio Lima)
Peeing contributes to climate change.
You are no longer free to pee.
0’s health lords deem it so.
“PARIS (AFP)”
Bad Champagne with too many of those snails.
Yeah yeah...and if its NOT “climate change” it MUST be “Bush’s fault” /s
these liberal sponges are so predictable.
Ummm...so why is the same supposed-phenomenom (global warming) blamed for the drought and very dry conditions in the Colorado River basin?
also causes drought. Whatever bad happens, in fact, is cause by human CO2 emissions.
I do believe Sao Paulo is in the southern hemisphere.
I do believe Sao Paulo is in the southern hemisphere.
So, water is wetter when the world is warmer......good T-shirt slogan.....
All I see here are statements, no facts. Of course, when did facts matter to these stupid lemmings?
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