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Here is a rundown of all the extreme weather we witnessed in the past few months around the world and the numerous calamities that struck all continents without exception…
To The Guardian : ” The year 2011 was another ecologically tumultuous year with greenhouse gases rise to record levels, Arctic sea ice nearly equalling 2007′s record melt, and temperatures the 11th highest ever recorded. “
” It was marked on the ground by unparalleled extremes of heat and cold in the US, droughts and heatwaves in Europe and Africa and record numbers of weather-related natural disasters. “
I have previously written that the link between extreme weather events and climate change wasn’t clear. It isn’t the case anymore as the latest research from the IPCC proves. As Cleantechies notes :
” A new report says that an increase in heat waves is “virtually certain” as a result of global warming and that extreme weather events — including hurricanes, floods, and droughts — will likely become more intense in the next century. “
” The IPCC’s “special report on extreme weather,” (…) urges governments worldwide to draft plans to minimize the likely human and economic costs of these events. “
I wanted to write about how I am witnessing the weirding and warming climate myself. So far, France has seen an incredibly dry spring with dramatic droughts to the point of endangering many cultures. Then, summer came, with rain, a lot of it.
It was one of the rainiest summers I had seen. You would think that it would be enough ? Nope, we had so far an unusually dry and warm fall [Fr]. Two weeks ago we had up to 20°C, 10°C above the norms.
So to sum up : drought in spring, rain in summer and warm fall, ie. completely messed up seasons. I wonder what our climate will look like in 2030 and beyond if it goes on like this…
To TreeHugger : ” Last year, the Amazon rainforest experienced the worst drought on record, reducing normally flowing rivers to sun-baked stretches of dried mud and pushing the fragile ecosystem to the brink. “
” (…) As a result of 2010′s Amazon drought, experts say, some 1.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere — more than is produced by India’s entire population in a year. “
The more we put greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, the more our Planet answers back and carbon reserves like the Russian permafrost or the Amazon Rainforest start emitting even more… Continue »
To Climate Progress : ” Is the “Global Weirding” of 2010 and 2011 the new normal? (…) Any one of the extreme weather events of 2010 or 2011 could have occurred naturally sometime during the past 1,000 years. “
” But it is highly improbable that the remarkable extreme weather events of 2010 and 2011 could have all happened in such a short period of time without some powerful climate-altering force at work.”
And as the English version of Al Jazeera notes : ” Severe weather events are wracking the planet, and experts warn of even greater consequences to come. ” (See the full article as it sums up the situation well.)
While writing my selection of tweets for May, I found three really scary stories about how global warming is already dramatically affecting the most populated continent in the world, Asia as well as its two most populated nations.
From the 1,400 dry water reservoirs in central China caused by a five-month drought to the absolutely shocking suicide rates of Indian farmers (one every thirty minutes), one can see that climate change is already a horrifying reality…
And this might just well be the beginning as to the Indian Space Research Organization 75% of the Himalayas glaciers are retreating. If this trend continues, even less water will be available…
To the Huffington Post : ” Heavy rains, deep snowfalls, monster floods and killing droughts are signs of a “new normal” of extreme U.S. weather events fueled by climate change, scientists and government planners said on Wednesday.
“It’s a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we’re seeing, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University told reporters. ”
Meanwhile, the GOP – the Republicans – is still opposing action on climate change… It’s high time this changes as the country is behind more than a fifth of global greenhouse gases emissions…
France and the whole European continent are currently at risk of a huge drought as little to no rain fell in April. This could have serious implications for harvests as Bloomberg notes :
European wheat and rapeseed crops are “in jeopardy” after an “incredibly dry” April, agricultural weather forecaster said. (…) Wheat and rapeseed in France, Germany and the U.K. are ready to deteriorate rapidly, without rain.”
One of my oldest and best friends is thinking – jokingly, as always – about rain dancing. Let’s hope we won’t have to resort to these kinds of things for water in the near future. Continue »
To the Huffington Post : ” A new report says India could be 2 degrees Celsius warmer than 1970s levels within 20 years – a change that would disrupt rain cycles and wreak havoc on the country’s agriculture and freshwater supplies.”
(…) ” More flooding, more drought and a spreading of malaria would occur, as the disease migrates northward into Kashmir and the Himalayas, according to the report by 220 Indian scientists and 120 research institutions.”
Heavily reliant on coal for its electricity, it is ready to invest no less than $2.3 trillion in low carbon technologies. Here is a country that understood how critical acting on climate change is. Continue »
It seems that Pakistan is a victim of what I called global weirding earlier this month. Indeed, to the Financial Times the country is suffering from both massive floods and dramatic droughts.
To many news sources up to 20 million people have been affected by the floods. To the local government quoted by the United Nations up to six million of them are in need of food, shelter, clean water and health care.
It seems we are seeing more and more climate refugees. Indeed, after Russia and China it seems that over a billion climate refugees in 2050 is not that pessimistic…
