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Chilly Willy - South Pole Pals
Flooding, Climate Change, Natural Disasters
A record crest, is in forecast in Greenville, Mississippi, as the waters in Mississippi river keep rising. National weather service is forecasting that by the weekend there will be record flooding in Vicksburg and Natchez Mississippi, and in Red River Landing and baton Rouge, Louisiana. Monday morning, the rising Atchafalaya lake was already threatening Morgan Town, Louisiana. Mike Stack, a Corps of Engineers spokesman, told CNN's "John King USA" that 20,000 to 25,000 homes could be flooded, but the agency and Louisiana authorities are working to limit the damage. As sad as it is that the structures in Butte Larose are being predicted to be 15 feet underwater, the rapidly increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters in United States and around the world is asking us, How long we will keep thinking that we can tackle this problem just by closing our eyes from it or just by denying that scientific and eyewitnesses facts?
World Wide Fund for Nature published a detailed, landmark reports in year 2000, which reported that the climate change was already causing an increase in frequency and intensity of natural disasters, and the trend was very likely to continue. The report stated, "
Emissions of global warming gases continue to rise as the world burns ever more coal, oil and gas for energy.
Floods along the Yangtze River in China in 1998 were responsible for 4,000 deaths and economic losses of US $30 billion. In the same year, extreme weather conditions in Florida lead to drought and widespread wildfires caused the loss of 483,000 acres and 356 structures from fires, and resulted in an estimated US $276 million in damages.
Changing levels of precipitation, more severe El Niños or tropical cyclones, acute coral bleaching such that corals would not have time to recover, or a stagnation of the Ocean Conveyer Belt and the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are risks.
The dramatic floods in Mozambique that left thousands stranded and the recent bleaching coral reefs around Fiji are characteristic of what we can expect in a warmer world.
This includes changes in temperature, precipitation, sea level rise, atmospheric circulation patterns, and ecosystems.
We thank Fons Baede of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and Jim Bruce, Chair of the International Advisory Committee UNU Network on Water, Environment and Health and former co-chair of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 3, for their reviews and comments. Greenhouse gases trap some of the infrared radiation emitted by the Earth and keep the planet warmer than it would be otherwise.
Carbon dioxide has increased from 280 ppmv to 360 parts per million by volume (ppmv), methane from 700 to 1720 ppmv, and nitrous oxide from 275 to 310 ppmv.....................
A closer look reveals that the majority of this temperature increase occurred during the last few decades, when the global average temperature has risen by about 0.2oC per decade.
The six warmest of these years occurred after 1990.
This plot also forms the basis for the conclusion that 1998 was the warmest year of the millennium.
The largest warming occurred in the upper 300 metres, on average by 0.56 degrees Fahrenheit (0.31oC).
The researchers also found that the warming of the subsurface ocean temperatures preceded the observed warming of the surface air and sea surface temperatures, which began in the 1970s. However, systematic observations show that global warming and the spatial pattern of this warming extend beyond the bounds of our estimates of natural variability.
Regardless of the way the influence of the sun is included in the statistical model, the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere significantly influence the temperature, the global mean temperature has rapidly risen since the late 1980s.
As a result temperature differences between oceans and land increase, most probably affecting atmospheric circulations.
In spite of these limitations, some specific changes in the amounts and patterns of precipitation have been found over the last few decades.
In general, between 30oN and 70oN an increase in the mean precipitation has been observed.
In North America the annual precipitation has increased (Karl et al. 1993b; Groisman and Easterling 1994). For example, analyses of precipitation patterns in the USA (Karl and Knight 1998), the former USSR, South Africa, China (Groisman et al. 1999) and India (Lal et al. 1999) show a significant increase in heavy rainstorms. While this rise in sea level may be seen as the tail end of a continuous rise since the last ice age, sea level has risen most sharply over the last 50 years. Thus, the measured 0.6oC-sea surface temperature increase explains a 6 centimetres sea level rise.
In the last century, glaciers on Mount Kenya have lost 92 percent of their mass and glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro 73 percent. However, this winter increase in volume is no longer keeping pace with the melting caused by the longer and hotter summers.
Trends estimated from these data suggest a net decrease in Arctic ice extent of about 2.9 percent per decade (Cavalieri et al. 1997).
Rothrock et al. concluded from a comparison of sea ice draft measurements during submarine cruises between the periods 1993 to 1997 and 1958 to 1976 that the sea ice cover has decreased by about 1.3 m in thickness.
All these recent trends and variations in sea ice cover and thickness are consistent with recorded changes in high-latitude air temperatures, winds, and oceanic conditions.
One way or another this temperature difference will affect the atmospheric circulation patterns, the wind speed distribution/frequencies, and the strength and trajectories of high-and low-pressure fields.
In fact, an increase in the number of low-pressure areas has been detected in parts of the United States, the east coast of Australia, and the North Atlantic Ocean (Houghton et al. 1996).
The changes of the ocean water temperature most probably lead to a change in atmospheric circulation, as a result affecting the amounts of rain falling in the Sahel (Hulme and Kelly.).
This is qualitatively in line with greenhouse gas theory: greenhouse gases warm the troposphere; the heat produced at the lower levels cannot gradually diffuse upwards and the upper atmosphere cools down, a process known as radiative cooling.
Changes in the atmospheric circulation caused by the greenhouse effect may enhance radiative cooling.
The conclusion we may draw is that important temperature and circulation changes are likely related to the enhanced greenhouse effect.
As a result of increased investments in climate change research and atmosphere and ocean circulation analysis, the understanding of natural climate variability at the time scales of seasons, years, and decades has significantly increased.
Widespread droughts and floods occur simultaneously in different parts of the world in association with El Niño.
The occurrence of an El Niño has profound implications for agriculture, forests (burning), precipitation, water resources, human health, and society in general (Trenberth 1996).
El Niños have occurred more often since 1975, and measurements covering the last 120 years indicate that the duration of the 1990-95 El Niño was the longest on record. It is more likely that a sustained thermal forcing, such as caused by the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, has been at least partly responsible for the observed warming over a broad triangular region in the Pacific Ocean associated with El Niño. This suggests that human-induced climate change may be at least partly responsible for the relatively extreme character of the El Niño-related weather over the last few years in many parts of the world. This phenomenon is responsible for the exceptionally high mean temperature and the many particularly heavy rainstorms hitting Northwest Europe in the last 10 years.
In statistical terms, an annual precipitation with a chance of occurrence of 1 in 1000 per year is also possible within the range of a "constant" climate.
The comparison of various models indicates that the surface changes are largely driven by the effect of greenhouse gases on the stratosphere (Shindell et al. 1999).
Also, tropical sea surface temperature anomalies near Indonesia, related to El Niño, could influence NAO (KNMI 1999).
The influence of El Niño on tropical cyclone activity is more clear. For example, El Niño events increase tropical cyclone activity in some basins (like the central North Pacific near Hawaii, the South Pacific, and the Northwest Pacific between 160oE and the Dateline (Chan 1985; Chu and Wang 1997; Lander 1994), and decrease it in other basins like the Atlantic, the Northwest Pacific west of 160oE, and the Australian region (Nicholls 1979; Revelle and Goulter 1986; Gray 1984).
As at least part of the observed temperature rise can be attributed to the enhanced greenhouse effect, we conclude that the changes in tropical cyclone activity are at least partly the result of human-induced climate change.
In turn, the severity of weather extremes in many parts of the world correlates positively with the strength of the El Niño phenomenon.
Coral reef bleaching episodes were observed in 1980, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1994, and 1998 in the Great Barrier Reef near Australia and many other places in the world.
Over fishing in combination with higher temperatures endangers the long-term sustainability of cod in the North Sea.
Several researchers have found evidence of pole ward shifts of various butterfly species in North America and Europe (Parmesan 1996; 1999).
Alpine plants have migrated to higher areas in the central Pals of Austria and the east of Switzerland, according to researchers at the University of Vienna.
The studies illustrate that ecosystems are very sensitive to changes in temperature.
In the period 1963-1992, the number of disasters causing more than 1 percent GDP damage had increased two to three times for the weather-related disasters in comparison to the earthquake disasters (United Nations 1994).
While real global GDP increased by a factor of three since 1960, the total sum of extreme weather-related damage increased by a factor of eight."
So, there is a lot more then just building levees, lakes, dams, pipelines and canals, to these disasters. We need to get to the root cause and we need to get there quick. All the scientific data is showing we are running out of time. It probably is still not too late. Lets open our eyes and hold each others hands, since, we all are in this together.
About the Author
Navaid I. Syed is the owner and CEO of Woodbridge, Virginia based corporation ExcitingAds! Inc., which has it's blog on http://search.excitingads.com and the main website of company is at http://www.excitingads.com He writes on a very wide variety of topics including, politics, Economics, Finance, news and current affairs, and health, Medical, fitness and weight loss. His articles are marked with broad based research and knowledge. He always tries to cover all the possible aspects of his topics and all the available points of view. He keeps a neutral and unbiased approach.
