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More weather disasters expected
02/07/2007 13:44 - (SA)
Oslo - This year is on track to be
the second warmest since records began in the 1860s and floods
in Pakistan or a heatwave in Greece may herald worse
disruptions in store from global warming, experts said on
Friday.
"2007 is looking as though it will be the second warmest
behind 1998," said Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research
Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia, which provides
data to the UN's International Meteorological Organisation.
"It isn't far behind ... it could change, but at the moment
this looks unlikely," he told Reuters, based on temperature
records up to the end of April.
Jones had predicted late last year that 2007 could surpass
1998 as the warmest year on record due to rising concentrations
of greenhouse gases emitted mainly by burning fossil fuels and
an El Nino warming of the Pacific.
Almost all climate experts say that the trend is towards
more droughts, floods, heatwaves and more powerful storms. But
they say that individual extreme events are not normally a sign
of global warming because weather is, by its nature, chaotic.
"Severe events are going to be more frequent," said Salvano
Briceno, director of the Geneva-based secretariat of the UN
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.
The 10 warmest years in the past 150 years have all been
since 1990. Last year ranked number six according to the IMO.
Nasa, which uses slightly different data, places 2005 as
warmest ahead of 1998.
Storms
Among extreme events, more than 500 people have died in
storms and floods in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India in the
past week.
Temperatures in Greece reached 46 C this week as
part of a heatwave across parts of southern Europe. Parts of
China have also had a heatwave in recent days.
And torrential rains have battered northern England and
parts of Texas, where Austin has had its wettest year on record
so far.
The UN climate panel, drawing on the work of 2 500
scientists, said this year that it was "very likely" that human activities led by use of fossil fuels were the main cause of a warming in the past half-century.
It gave a "best estimate" that temperatures will rise
1.8-4.0 Celsius this century.
Briceno told Reuters that the world had to work out better
policies to prepare for disasters, saying that climate change
was adding to already increasing risks faced by a rising human
population of about 6.6 billion people.
Irrespective of warming, many people were cramming into
cities, for instance, settling in plains where there was
already a risk of floods or moving to regions vulnerable to droughts.
"We need to reduce all the underlying risk factors, such as
by locating communities out of hazard-prone areas," he said.
"We now have a clearer picture of what is going to happen and it's urgent that governments give this higher priority."
In Germany, average temperatures for the 12 months to May
2007 smashed records for the past century, raising questions
about whether climate change was quickening, the Potsdam
Institute for Climate Impact Research said.
"If this trend continues in the near future, we will be
experiencing an acceleration of global warming in Germany so
far unexpected by climate scientists," it said in a statement.
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