Reaping the whirlwind: Extreme weather prompts unprecedented global alert

Independent.co.uk ^ | 7/4/2003 | Staff Writers

[ex-Texan]

Reaping the whirlwind: Extreme weather prompts unprecedented global alert

In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme weather, the World Meteorological Organisation signalled last night that the world's weather is going haywire.

In a startling report, the WMO, which normally produces detailed scientific reports and staid statistics at the year's end, highlighted record extremes in weather and climate occurring all over the world in recent weeks, from Switzerland's hottest-ever June to a record month for tornadoes in the United States - and linked them to climate change.

The unprecedented warning takes its force and significance from the fact that it is not coming from Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, but from an impeccably respected UN organisation that is not given to hyperbole (though environmentalists will seize on it to claim that the direst warnings of climate change are being borne out).

The Geneva-based body, to which the weather services of 185 countries contribute, takes the view that events this year in Europe, America and Asia are so remarkable that the world needs to be made aware of it immediately.

The extreme weather it documents, such as record high and low temperatures, record rainfall and record storms in different parts of the world, is consistent with predictions of global warming. Supercomputer models show that, as the atmosphere warms, the climate not only becomes hotter but much more unstable. "Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number and intensity of extreme events might increase," the WMO said, giving a striking series of examples.

In southern France, record temperatures were recorded in June, rising above 40C in places - temperatures of 5C to 7C above the average.

In Switzerland, it was the hottest June in at least 250 years, environmental historians said. In Geneva, since 29 May, daytime temperatures have not fallen below 25C, making it the hottest June recorded.

In the United States, there were 562 May tornadoes, which caused 41 deaths. This set a record for any month. The previous record was 399 in June 1992.

In India, this year's pre-monsoon heatwave brought peak temperatures of 45C - 2C to 5C above the norm. At least 1,400 people died in India due to the hot weather. In Sri Lanka, heavy rainfall from Tropical Cyclone 01B exacerbated wet conditions, resulting in flooding and landslides and killing at least 300 people. The infrastructure and economy of south-west Sri Lanka was heavily damaged. A reduction of 20-30 per cent is expected in the output of low-grown tea in the next three months.

Last month was also the hottest in England and Wales since 1976, with average temperatures of 16C. The WMO said: "These record extreme events (high temperatures, low temperatures and high rainfall amounts and droughts) all go into calculating the monthly and annual averages, which, for temperatures, have been gradually increasing over the past 100 years.

"New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe, but in recent years the number of such extremes have been increasing.

"According to recent climate-change scientific assessment reports of the joint WMO/United Nations Environmental Programme Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global average surface temperature has increased since 1861. Over the 20th century the increase has been around 0.6C.

"New analyses of proxy data for the northern hemisphere indicate that the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest in any century during the past 1,000 years."

While the trend towards warmer temperatures has been uneven over the past century, the trend since 1976 is roughly three times that for the whole period.

Global average land and sea surface temperatures in May 2003 were the second highest since records began in 1880. Considering land temperatures only, last May was the warmest on record.

It is possible that 2003 will be the hottest year ever recorded. The 10 hottest years in the 143-year-old global temperature record have now all been since 1990, with the three hottest being 1998, 2002 and 2001.

The unstable world of climate change has long been a prediction. Now, the WMO says, it is a reality.

It is even worse! Global cooling and warming and huge storms are mixed together worldwide:

See these Free Republic posts from yesterday.

[verity]

We are all going to die - eventually.

[EggsAckley]

Doug: I couldn't resist this.........

the devil made me do it. Happy 4th!

[Joe Hadenuf]

In the United States, there were 562 May tornadoes, which caused 41 deaths. This set a record for any month.

Uh, that's hard to believe......

[Domestic Church]

" an impeccably respected UN organisation"

more likely a pickled UN puppet.

Why not counter this by just tell them the magnetic poles are switching and really let the panic start? Let them get good and lathered up about it too.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

What about the supercell outbreak on April 3, 1974? The death toll in Kentucky and Ohio on that day alone was several dozen.

[nothingnew]

Well, that does it. I'm outta here, heading for the third moon of the planet Xanax. I've been told it's a very relaxing place to be.

Happy Independence Day to all.

FMCDH

[Ole Okie]

B.S. by any other name still smells like BullShit.

I note that everything changed in 1976. That was about the time that our "climatological scientists" quit prophesying disaster via a new ice age and began prophesying disaster via "global warming".

Stills smells like B. S.

[ex-Texan]

That is not my concern. But worldwide weather changes -- record hot temperatures, huge rain storms, tornadoes and record cooling temperatures may signify a new Mini Ice Age is on the way. It will hit Europe and Canada sooner rather than later. Read the Washinton Post report that is linked on the Free Republic link above.

The Wash Post report make it clear that global warming and cooling trends are cyclical in nature and related to cyclic activity of our sun. Mankind's hydrocarbons and emissions have little to do with global weather cycles.

[Black Agnes]

Course, for the tornado data, they conveniently left out the fact that we 'get' a lot more tornadoes than we used to simply because we have doppler radar that can 'see' these tornados. In the past, most of these 'tornados' went un-noticed. 1992 was also one of the coldest years in recent history due to the mt. pinatubo eruption. Course, they conveniently leave that bit out of their report as well.

[Black Agnes]

ping.

[w1andsodidwe]

I remember that one well.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

This site has a recording of one of the 1974 Xenia tornadoes - it picks up at the end, and sounds like the one that was going over my house last year.

[Larry Lucido]

I thought the hot summer of 1988 signalled that the world's weather is going haywire? Or was it El Nino in 1998? Or El Nina in 1999? Or the cold European winter of 2002? Well, whatever, the world's weather has to go go haywire sometime.

[cookcounty]

""New analyses of proxy data for the northern hemisphere ..........

"Proxy data"? aka as "junk science."

[w1andsodidwe]

And of course statistics are manipulated for their purposes.

For example, in the early 80's we had a drought in California so bad that the experts told us it would take 10 years to catch up, then the next year we had enough rain fall to catch up all in one year. I then read in the local paper that the state had decided not to include the drought years in the statistics for annual rainfall because they were abnormally dry. Therefore, every rainfall stastic out of California is skewed toward wet years and as a result we are always in a rainfall deficit position and therefore in a crisis that the government must solve while the demoncRATS wring their hands and moan.

[FreedomCalls]

Last month was also the hottest in England and Wales since 1976, with average temperatures of 16C.

Oh my gosh, they're all goning to melt under such an extreme heat wave. Let's do a quick calculation .... 16C is what? [pulls out calculator]...[tap, tap, tap] ... the "hottest" month is England is 61 degrees Fahrenheit!

The use of the word "hottest" here proves this is BS. I wouldn't even have used "warmest", I would have probably said it was the "least cold" month.

[Wthrman13]

"In the United States, there were 562 May tornadoes, which caused 41 deaths. This set a record for any month.

Uh, that's hard to believe......"

Well, this May was indeed an unprecedented month for the sheer number of tornadoes that occured (I lost a lot of sleep stormchasing). However, to imply that "global warming" had anything to do with it, as this article does, strains credibility to the extreme. Part of the reason we are seeing more extreme events nowadays is that we now have the observational infrastructure to record these events accurately as they happen, in a way never before possible. I have to admit that I was a little surprised to see the WMO itself come out with such a report. It reeks of politics with virtually no scientific backing that I could see.

[FreedomCalls]

"New analyses of proxy data for the northern hemisphere indicate that the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest in any century during the past 1,000 years."

Why limit it to the last 1,000 years? Did industrial pollution case global warming more than 1,000 years ago?

Considering that 10,000 years ago Kansas was under 1,000 feet of ice, global warming is a good thing in some places. I'm sure the people in Siberia and northern Canada would love to have some global warming.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Right on!

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