Community | June 15, 2011 | 41 comments

Warning: extreme weather ahead

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/13/extreme-weather-flooding-droughts-fires

Image
Vierotchka
Tornados, wildfires, droughts and floods were once seen as freak conditions. But the environmental disasters now striking the world are shocking signs of 'global weirding'.

Drought zones have been declared across much of England and Wales, yet Scotland has just registered its wettest-ever May. The warmest British spring in 100 years followed one of the coldest UK winters in 300 years. June in London has been colder than March. February was warm enough to strip on Snowdon, but last Saturday it snowed there.

Welcome to the climate rollercoaster, or what is being coined the "new normal" of weather. What was, until quite recently, predictable, temperate, mild and equable British weather, guaranteed to be warmish and wettish, ensuring green lawns in August, now sees the seasons reversed and temperature and rainfall records broken almost every year. When Kent receives as much rain (4mm) in May as Timbuktu, Manchester has more sunshine than Marbella, and soils in southern England are drier than those in Egypt, something is happening.

Sober government scientists at the centre for hydrology and ecology are openly using words like "remarkable", "unprecedented" and "shocking" to describe the recent physical state of Britain this year, but the extremes we are experiencing in 2011 are nothing to the scale of what has been taking place elsewhere recently.

Last year, more than 2m sq km of eastern Europe and Russia scorched. An extra 50,000 people died as temperatures stayed more than 6C above normal for many weeks, crops were devastated and hunderds of giant wild fires broke out. The price of wheat and other foods rose as two thirds of the continent experienced its hottest summer in around 500 years.

This year, it's western Europe's turn for a mega-heatwave, with 16 countries, including France, Switzerland and Germany (and Britain on the periphery), experiencing extreme dryness. The blame is being out on El Niño and La Niña, naturally occurring but poorly understood events that follow heating and cooling of the Pacific ocean near the equator, bringing floods and droughts.

Vast areas of Europe have received less than half the rainfall they would normally get in March, April and May, temperatures have been off the scale for the time of year, nuclear power stations have been in danger of having to be shut down because they need so much river water to cool them, and boats along many of Europe's main rivers have been grounded because of low flows. In the past week, the great European spring drought has broken in many places as massive storms and flash floods have left the streets of Germany and France running like rivers.

(read all about it at link)
  1. groups:
    Community,   News and Politics,   Green,   Earth and Science,   2 more
  2. tags:
    Climate Change,  Global Warming,  Weather,  Natural Disaster,  1 more
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41 comments // Warning: extreme weather ahead

  • inge4art
  • EcoCapitalist
    • 0
      EcoCapitalist  

    • Global warming resulting in climate chaos is obviously going to be disastrous. Unfathomable destruction of our natural ecosystems, unecessary loss of human life, the rise of political tensions and the spread of poverty among those least suited to deal with it. However, there is a bright side. The transition to a sustainable society, a sustainable economy will create vast opportunities for entrepreneurs. Since fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, antibiotics all have carbon footprints organic agriculture (or at least a minimization of these) will reduce pollutants in food, air, and water we increase worker productivity, while reducing health care costs for citizens. Constructing a decentralized clean energy infrastructure is ten times more labor intensive than tradition fossil fuel sources of electricity generation (like coal) according to a study by the University of Berkeley "Putting Green to Work" The Benefits of Clean Energy and Climate Regulation".

      The question only remains, how are you going to make money while helping people, and the planet adapt to the devastation that is surely to only get progressively worse.

    • 11 months ago
  • harleyblueswoman
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • As the planet’s overall temperature increases there will be a tendency to more violent weather conditions and the resulting massive food shortages that can and will occur due to “megadroughts” will lead to an increase in violence among countries struggling to control and exploit dwindling food and fresh water sources.

    • 12 months ago
  • letsliveinpeace
  • thedirtman
    • +1
      thedirtman  

    • The natural state of planet Earth over the last 60 million years is that it is a frozen ball of ice. Glaciers were visible from Las Cruces New Mexico. Much of North America would look like Antarctica. We were enjoying a rare stable period of warmth lasting 8000 years that was due to end.

      Instead of seeing advancing glaciers and ice sheets we're seeing polar ice caps melting and glaciers vanishing. By the end of the this millenium we will be experiencing temperatures that are more like the days when dinosaurs walked and the beach was in Colorado.

      I don't have enough information to say for certain whether the planet will be more or less habitable. No doubt it will cost us a fortune to have to move cities and farms to their new places. Further, it says quite a bit that mankind did not evolve in that setting, so it would be doubtful that the new environment would favor mankind. Humans do a lot of sweating in high heat and humidity.

      We evolved in this paradise. Why would we choose to roll the dice again in hopes of anything better? There is no reason.

      Thanks for the article, Vierotchka. I hope this starts people thinking.

    • 12 months ago
  • coolplanet
  • letsliveinpeace
  • Vierotchka
  • CaptSutter
    • +2
      CaptSutter  
    • thedirtman:

      From the planets point of view sure, from the very selfish human point of view, I don't like russian roulette and playing it for the entire world is selfish and insane beyond beyond compare. "After me the deluge", that is a winning strategy for the individual and a losing strategy for the community.

      Morality is a survival strategy we should begin to treat the world morally.

    • 12 months ago
  • thedirtman
    • 0
      thedirtman  
    • Vierotchka:

      I think the point you are making is that the carbon buildup could lead to a mass extinction event. I see no evidence to indicate otherwise.

      Or maybe you mean to point out that the PETM occurred 56 million years ago - not 60 million years ago. Well, you got me there. Voted up.

    • 12 months ago
  • thedirtman
  • Vierotchka
  • thedirtman
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • thedirtman:

      "There have been five known ice ages in the Earth's history, with the Earth experiencing the Quaternary Ice Age during the present time. Within ice ages, there exist periods of more severe glacial conditions and more temperate referred to as glacial periods and interglacial periods, respectively. The Earth is currently in an interglacial period of the Quaternary Ice Age, with the last glacial period of the Quaternary having ended approximately 10,000 years ago with the start of the holocene."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_glaciation

      There again, it is far from being the natural state of Earth.

    • 12 months ago
  • thedirtman
    • 0
      thedirtman  
    • Vierotchka:

      I'm looking for a reference that has an average amount of cover for the glacial ice during those periods. I'm out of time for now. The range of cover over land masses is 10% for interglacial periods and 30% for glacial periods. Unfortunately, I could not find an average or a representative total for the full period. These totals would include only glacial masses of ice and not mountain glaciers or snow pack.

      Warranted enough. I do believe you would not disagree that overall conditions were very much colder than the conditions we have come to know.

    • 12 months ago
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • thedirtman:

      Winters used to be much colder than today up until 30 years ago, summers were hot. In my childhood, I ice-skated on Lake Geneva, and up until some 30 years ago we had plentiful snow for several weeks, even in the city of Geneva every winter. But then, things began to change quite rapidly, with winters getting shorter and milder with each passing year and hardly any snow at all - maybe a few centimeters for a few days, with one notable exception in February 1985. Summers have been getting hotter and hotter, and the 2003 heat wave lasted for 3 months and killed tens of thousands of people in Europe. We have also of late been getting dog days temperature in April and May. The temperature shifts that usually take centuries and even millenia have occurred in just a small handful of decades. In Finland and Sweden, there have of late been temperatures above freezing in January, something that has never occurred in living memory or in records. Overall conditions were comparatively colder up until 30 years ago, and getting progressively much warmer at an incredibly and unprecedented fast rate.

    • 12 months ago
  • Mark701
    • 0
      Mark701  
    • thedirtman:

      Man didn't evolve in that setting mainly because the dinosaurs were around. Small mammals were lunch. I suspect we would have done ok in that time period if there were no dinosaurs. It would have been hot yes, but probably survivable. I agree however that the world climate has been in a relatively quiescent period since approximately the end of the last ice age.The calm before the storm perhaps?

    • 11 months ago
  • thedirtman
    • 0
      thedirtman  
    • Image
    • Mark701:

      The graph (changes in temperature over time) that is familiar to me looks like the crest of an atoll in a sea of predominantly cold blasts of air. We've spent more time chasing animals with spears and gathering berries when it was colder. The dawn of agriculture shows up as we come to milder temperatures. Without agriculture there would be no reasons for villages, and our society. My guess, this sweet dreamy period of paradise is an interlude within the truer nature of the planet.

    • 11 months ago
  • inge4art
  • SpencerTreeGarden
    • +1
      SpencerTreeGarden  

    • Correct me if i am wrong but hasn't been going on since the beginning of time. It may be that since we are far more connected than our ancestors that we are realizing all of these oddities in nature. Also it is a fact that nature is mostly chaos.

    • 12 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • cherry5000
  • Vierotchka
  • cherry5000
  • Swisher
  • CalgarC
    • +3
      CalgarC  

    • its sad how there is almost nothing i can do to change this seeing as i am doing all the right stuff already, its the other few billion that need to fucking smarten up

    • 12 months ago
  • coolplanet
    • 0
      coolplanet  
    • CalgarC:

      Well the Chinese have been planting billions of trees for the past decade and it is improving their climate and soil according to the April 2011 National Geographic. One man claims to have planted over 100,000 trees with his own hands. (One young tree can remove over 50 pounds of Co2 from the air every year, giving in return oxygen and H20. Do the math. It would require about a trillion young trees to remove the carbon humans pump into the atmosphere every year.)

      So there IS something we all can do to slow down global warming. It's just that we (primarily Americans) are not doing it. We seem to be waiting for big government to pay us to do it.

    • 12 months ago
  • CalgarC
    • 0
      CalgarC  
    • coolplanet:

      lol true... we spend the extra 2 bucks on energy efficient lightbulbs, we want change, we bitch and complain like we are in here but we can't do anything ourselves because american idol is starting

    • 11 months ago
  • CalgarC
  • coolplanet
    • +2
      coolplanet  

    • "The blame is being out on El Niño and La Niña, naturally occurring but poorly understood events that follow heating and cooling of the Pacific ocean near the equator, bringing floods and droughts."

      Several climatologists have proposed that more frequent, worsening El Niños are a direct result of global warming.

      Excellent article!

    • 12 months ago
  • Vierotchka
  • artemis6
  • freehit
  • Vierotchka
  • Milieu
    • +1
      Milieu  

    • But, Vierotchka, the Kochs have said it's all going to be ok, because climate change is a myth.

      After all, there's no one more truthful and honest than a couple of sociopathic billionaire thieves.

      Excellent article, thanks.

    • 12 months ago
  • mitekillem
    • -1
      mitekillem  

    • "The warmest British spring in 100 years followed one of the coldest UK winters in 300 years"

      So...100 years ago that had the same weather in the spring, and 300 years ago they had the same weather in the winter?
      It's not unprecedented.

      Global warming is real, and the oceans are rising.
      Just like it has been for thousands of years.
      -Don't believe me, just look at all of the man-made ruins and cities that are currently underwater.

    • 12 months ago
  • Vierotchka
  • coolplanet
    • +1
      coolplanet  
    • mitekillem:

      Sea levels have not been this high for about 10,000 years, since the end of the last ice age.
      The thermodynamic rule is that the colder climate gets the lower sea levels are, and the warmer the climate gets the higher sea levels are.
      It's sixth grade science class.

    • 12 months ago
  • CaptSutter
    • +1
      CaptSutter  

    • "global 'weirding'" thatäs the best description I have heard yet.

      Just enjoy the show... I want my money back... Just enjoy the show.... I want my money back.

    • 12 months ago
  • rosyjane
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