Alarm over freak weather worldwide -"weather is going haywire in 2003" (WMO)

dailynews.co.za ^

[chance33_98]

Alarm over freak weather worldwide

July 4, 2003

The world's weather is going haywire in 2003, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned this week in an astonishing announcement about global warming and extreme weather occurring around the globe.

In a short but dramatic press release, the organisation, 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 the past few weeks, from the hottest-ever June in Switzerland to the 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 which is not given to hyperbole - although environmentalists everywhere will seize on it to claim that their direst predictions of climate change are being borne out.

The Geneva-based body, to which the national weather services of 185 countries contribute, clearly takes the view that what has been happening this year - in widely separated locations in Europe, America and Asia - is so remarkable that the world as a whole needs to be made aware of it immediately.

The extreme weather it documented, which includes record high and low temperatures, record rainfall and record storms in different parts of the world, are consistent with global warming predictions.

Supercomputer models of the global climate show that as the atmosphere warms, the climate will not only become 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 in its release.

Its announcement this week presented a series of examples:

In southern France, record high temperatures were recorded in June, with maximum temperatures exceeding 40C in parts of south-west France. This resulted in June average temperatures of 5C to 7C above the long-term average.

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

In India, this year's pre-monsoon heatwave brought peak temperatures of more than 45C. At least 1 400 people died because of the hot weather.

In Sri Lanka, heavy rainfalls from Tropical Cyclone 01B exacerbated already wet conditions, resulting in flooding and landslides that left at least 300 people dead.

"These record extreme events all go into calculating the monthly and annual averages which, for temperatures, have been gradually increasing over the past 100 years," the WMO said.

"New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe, but in recent years the number of such extremes have been increasing ... the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest in any century during the past 1 000 years."

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

The unstable world of climate change has long been a prediction. Now, the WMO is saying, it is a reality. - Independent Foreign Service

[blam]

Yup. The large pools of fresh water in the North Atlantic could be a problem for the Gulf Stream. It could stop flowing. That could quickly shift some areas into an Ice Age.

[Clintons Are White Trash]

I think it is supposed to drop a little bit, as in high 80's. I will be leaving town on the 14th for KS, OK, TX, etc. Enjoy your visit!

[ward_of_the_state]

Yeah, global warming. Whatever.....how many of these dudes have ever experienced a Midwest winter?

[Travis McGee]

What a rude awakening we would have if the Gulf Stream reversed, and El Nino became permanent, to name two very possible and rapid events.

[Bernard Marx]

Thanks for the memory refresher -- you're right, of course. It's a story I read once, in the late 50s or early 60s, so please forgive my fuzzy recollection. At least I got the author right and the fact that the prayer wheels stopped after all the names were compiled. Do you remember its name by any chance? I'd like to find it and re-read it sometime.

[countrydummy]

My thoughts exactly!

[Bon mots]

Don't forget, during the revolutionary war, the British pushed cannon across the ice covering LONG ISLAND SOUND!!
(Battle of North Haven.)

Imagine the panic if Long Island Sound actually froze over again?

The climate was warming before the industrial revolution. It has been doing so since the last ice age.

[Bernard Marx]

Many thanks for the link.

[AlexW]

"The summer of 1980 was hellacious!!!"

Yes it was, and the summer that I got married...yukkk.

I am in the country, just east of Memphis. One week, the temp never went below 100, even at night. Highs were around 106 and we had no A/C, except in the car.

[kb2614]

GLOBAL WARMING, GLOBAL WARMING, WERE ALL GOIN TO DIE!!!!!!!
ITS ALL GEORGE BUSH'S FAULT!!!!
IF ONLY KYOTO PROTOCAL WAS PASSED THE WEATHER WOULD BE PERFECT!!!!
WHY THOSE DASTARDLY REPUBLICANS AND THERE GREEDY OIL CARTEL FRIENDS!!!


Ahhh yes, the joys of hyped up hysteria.

[jpl]

These people are like the baseball fan who sees a player's three home run performance and extrapolates it into a 486 home run season.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

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 which is not given to hyperbole - although environmentalists everywhere will seize on it to claim that their direst predictions of climate change are being borne out.

Heeheehee...

[Centurion2000]

Alarm over freak weather worldwide

Quit screwing around with Israel and it will go away.

[Centurion2000]

I've got one for the experts! Ask anyone who spent the summer of 1980 in Dallas if it has gotten a bit cooler in the last 23 years

It most certainly has .... the number of days over 100 degrees in the summer has gone from 100 to about 2 over the last 10 years.

[truthandlife]

Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ, ' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. [Matthew 24:4-14]