Wild weather a taste of things to come
August 9 2007 The Washington Post
Marc Kaufman in Washington
 

A MONSOON dropped 35 centimetres of rain in one day across many parts of South Asia this month. Germany had its wettest May on record, and April was the driest there in a century. Temperatures reached 45 degrees in Bulgaria last month and 32 degrees in Moscow in late May, shattering long-time records.

The year still has almost five months to go, but it has already experienced a range of weather extremes that the UN's World Meteorological Organisation says is well outside the historical norm and is a precursor to much greater weather variability as global warming transforms the planet.

The warming trend confirmed in February by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - based on the finding that 11 of the past 12 years had higher average ground temperatures than any others since formal temperature recording began - appears to have continued with a vengeance into 2007. The meteorological organisation reported that January and April were the warmest worldwide ever recorded.

"Climate change projections indicate it to be very likely that hot extremes, heatwaves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent," the organisation said.

The heavy rains in South Asia have resulted in more than 500 deaths and displaced 10 million people, while 13.5 million Chinese have been affected by floods, the report said. In England and Wales, the period from May to July was the wettest since record-keeping began in 1766, resulting in floods that killed nine and caused more than $US6billion ($7billion) in damage.

The World Meteorological Organisation, which is co-sponsoring a series of meetings and reports on global climate change, is putting together an early-warning system for climate extremes and establishing long-term monitoring systems, and plans to help countries most vulnerable to climate change.

"The average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely the highest during any 50-year period in the last 500 years, and likely the highest in the past 1300 years," the report said.

Global warming is expected to result in more extreme weather because of changes in atmospheric wind patterns and the ability of warmer air to hold more moisture, said Martin Manning, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's working group on the physical science of climate change. He said that one year of heavier than normal rains and warmer than usual temperatures said nothing definitive about climate change, but they were consistent with the panel's long-term predictions.

"What we have projected is an increase in extreme events as the global temperatures rise," Dr Manning said. "Floods, droughts and heatwaves are certainly consistent with that."

The World Meteorological Organisation reported the extreme weather occurred in many parts of the world. In May, a series of large waves (estimated at up to 3.6 metres) swamped almost 70 islands in 16 atolls in the Maldive Islands off south India, causing serious flooding and extensive damage. Halfway around the globe, Uruguay was hit during the same month by the worst flooding since 1959 - floods that affected more than 110,000 people and severely damaged crops and buildings. Two months later, an unusual winter brought high winds, blizzards and rare snowfall to parts of South America.

Meanwhile, two extreme heatwaves affected south-eastern Europe in June and July. Dozens of people died, and firefighters worked nonstop battling blazes that destroyed thousands of hectares. On July 23, temperatures hit the record 45 degrees in Bulgaria.
 

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Climatic Mayhem!

This terrifying graph courtesy of:

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"Clean Coal" is a dirty lie.

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SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

Barrier Reef just 50 years from death

 February 21st,  2004

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Clean, Free Energy

June 20th, 2003 Global warming 'threatens Earth with mass extinction' June 21st, 2003 Bush team takes global warming off the agenda

Polar meltdown's terrifying pace

A sunburnt country gets even warmer

April 18, 1998 Antarctic meltdown's terrifying pace By ANDREW DARBY in Hobart The phenomenal collapse of the largest ice shelf group on the Antarctic Peninsula is escalating, with researchers confirming the loss of another 200-square-kilometre mass of ice.

November 24, 1997 How the climate sceptics got to Howard By MURRAY HOGARTH and LEIGH DAYTON and Science's climate of doubt is over As global warming moves beyond scientific dispute, writes LEIGH DAYTON, attention turns to predicting its effects.

January 9, 1998 Mercury's rising - Earth sets new world record By LEIGH DAYTON Last year was a scorcher for planet Earth, and may have been the hottest since records began in 1861, according to international meteorologists.

Update on mayhem December 1st, 1997

May 2, 1998 Reef faces "acid rain" damage from sea By MURRAY HOGARTH, Environment Editor Underwater "acid rain" caused by greenhouse pollution threatens the Great Barrier Reef, a leading coral researcher has warned.

May 4, 1998 Coral graveyard a pointer to climate change By MURRAY HOGARTH, Environment Editor Scientists are trying to count the cost of the worst "coral bleaching" ever reported on the Great Barrier Reef, which coincides with Australia's hottest January-March on record.

 

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October 15th, 1997

A word about climate change

AS NEGOTIA-

TIONS on a treaty

reducing emissions

of carbon dioxide

and other heat-

capturing gases

move towards their conclusion

in December in Kyoto, it looks

likely that any resulting pact will

reflect the widespread lack, thus

far, of deep and sustained

public attention to the chal-

lenges posed by what we too

politely call "global warming"

For example, in the United

States - despite the fact that the

American Government will

probably call for slightly stron-

ger limits on fossil-fuel con-

sumption than that of Australia

- it has been difficult to spark

sustained conversation (let

alone action) on the dangers of

human interference with Earth's

climate system. In polls, a

majority of American citizens

express concern about climatic

disruption, but we've been vot-

ing with our wheels - purchas-

ing more and more gas-guzzling

sport utility vehicles, minivans,

and pickup trucks.

Even in much of the Ameri-

can environmental community,

there has been a tendency to

focus on local and regional

issues to the exclusion of truly

global ecological challenges.

Part of the reason there has not

been much strong or passionate

response - in Australia, the US,

and elsewhere - to one of the

most serious environmental perils

of our time is that we have lacked

terms that adequately describe the

outright ecological violence to

which the current rapid heating of

the planet is most likely already

contributing.

"Global warming" and "cli-

mate change" are imprecise and

euphemistic. They don't evoke the

upheavals associated with rapid

shifts in the Earth's average

temperature, any more than the

phrase "antipersonnel weapon"

evokes the violence done to

human beings by exploding land-

mines We are in need of a phrase

that energises conversation about

what the increase in heat energy

planetwide actually means for

local habitats and their plant and

animal (including human) lives. A

phrase that captures the unusu-

ally intense destructiveness of

"freak" weather events like last

July's record-smashing floods in

Europe and last week's Hurricane

Pauline in Mexico, and the

uncanniness and persistence of

what the Sydney Morning Herald

referred to last month as Indone-

sia's "horror haze". We need a

phrase like "climatic mayhem".

To think in terms of "climatic

mayhem" rather than "global

warming" reminds us that the

overall increase in heat energy is

not always expressed through

generally higher local and

regional temperatures, but

translates itself into increasingly

frequent and persistent extreme

weather events of all kinds:

strange storms (like last March's

long-lasting Tropical Cyclone

Justin off the Australian coast),

droughts, floods, heat waves,

and also, in some areas, out-of-

season frosts and blizzards.

Unlike "climate change", the

phrase "climatic mayhem"

evokes the destruction these

extreme weather events cause in

specific places.

Opponents of a decisive

planetary shift away from a

carbon-based energy economy

cite scientific "uncertainty" as a

justification for inaction, but

"dangerous unpredictability" is

a more accurate description of

climatic behaviour in a heat-

ed-up world. The phrase "cli-

matic mayhem" helps us

remember the likelihood of

unpleasant surprises as the

Earth's climate system responds

to increasing amounts of heat-

capturing gases.

Climatic mayhem itself may

be defined as the overall combi-

nation of chaotic, unpredict-

able, and ecologically violent

weather events accompanying

periods of rapid shifts in Earth's

climate system. It is expressed

through local and regional mete-

orological occurrences that are

extreme by virtue of their

persistence, intensity, unseason-

able (or otherwise highly

unusual) nature, or some combi-

nation of these elements. The

tenacity of Tropical Cyclone

Justin and of the Indonesian

drought exemplifies extreme

persistence of certain types of

weather; this past (boreal or

northern) summer's flooding

rains in Central Europe and

elsewhere exemplify unusual

intensity; and the record-

breaking tornadoes and floods

in early March of this year in the

Mid-western United States

exemplify unseasonableness

(such storms usually occur later

during the North American

spring).

Climatic mayhem may also

involve the juxtaposition of

longer-term seasonal abnormali-

ties. Consider the oscillation in

North Korea between the floods

of 1995 and 1996 and the more

recent extreme heat and drought.

Erosion, crop damage, and eco-

nomic difficulties associated with

the floods magnified the damage

done by the subsequent drought.

This sequence illustrates how

meteorological extremes of one

kind can help lay the groundwork

for ecological disaster, increasing

the damage wrought by the

occurrence of a seemingly oppo-

site sort of extreme.

Climatic mayhem must in

principle be distinguished from

"wild weather", which can be

violent without doing long-term

harm to ecosystems or habitats.

Nor is its ecological violence

necessarily overt or obvious to

humans. For instance, in some

temperate regions, climatic may-

hem might take the form of

seemingly benign mild winter

nights that do violence by encour-

aging infestation of forest ecosys-

tems by exotic insect species.

Climatic mayhem is, by defi-

nition, linked with rapid global

climate change and long-term

destructiveness to habitats. It is

not by itself a novel phenome-

non. Chaotic meteorological

patterns and events - and

associated dislocation and

destruction of habitats - have

been especially frequent during

past upheavals of Earth's cli-

mate system. The evidence of

such upheavals is not, however,

reassuring: it is an illustration of

the dangers of tampering with

climatological forces.

Moreover, other worldwide

ecological problems now add

greatly to the dangers of climatic

mayhem. Everywhere on the

planet, habitats, together with

their associated plants and ani-

mals, have been injured or made

more vulnerable and frag-

mented by human activities of

many kinds, so that extreme

weather and climatic shifts can

be far more harmful than they

otherwise might have been.

In many ways that truly have

no earthly precedent, climatic

mayhem is already adding dead-

liness to ecological injury. But

recognising that climatic may-

hem is not only a future threat

but a present actuality can help

us avoid the still grimmer

consequences of unchecked

global heating. If we face hon-

estly the dangerously unpredict-

able repercussions of continued

tampering with Earth's climate

system we may still discover in

ourselves the passion, imagina-

tion, and courage needed to

create cultures and economies

based on renewable energy

instead of consuming the fossil

remains of ancient plants.

We may still be renewed and

re-energised by hope for a

humane planetary future.

Michael Perlman teaches environmen-

tal science at Vermont College in Mont-

pelier, Vermont (US). His most recent book,

Hiroshima Forever: The Ecology of

Mourning, was nominated for the 1996

Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize.