🚀 go-pugleaf

  The Weeekly Report

  http://www.midnight-fire.net/theweeklyreport/theweeklyreport.html

   WEEK 28 June 30th to July 6th 2003

   REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
   Extreme weather prompts unprecedented global warming alert

   03 July 2003

   In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme weather, 
the World Meteorological Organisation signalled last night that the 
world's weather is going haywire.
   In a startling report, the WMO, which normally produces detailed 
scientific reports and staid statistics at the year's end, highlighted 
record extremes in weather and climate occurring all over the world in 
recent weeks, from Switzerland's hottest-ever June to a record month for 
tornadoes in the United States - and linked them to climate change. The 
unprecedented warning takes its force and significance from the fact 
that it is not coming from Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, but from 
an impeccably respected UN organisation that is not given to hyperbole 
(though environmentalists will seize on it to claim that the direst 
warnings of climate change are being borne out). The Geneva-based body, 
to which the weather services of 185 countries contribute, takes the 
view that events this year in Europe, America and Asia are so remarkable 
that the world needs to be made aware of it immediately. The extreme 
weather it documents, such as record high and low temperatures, record 
rainfall and record storms in different parts of the world, is 
consistent with predictions of global warming. Supercomputer models show 
that, as the atmosphere warms, the climate not only becomes hotter but 
much more unstable. "Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the 
global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number 
and intensity of extreme events might increase," the WMO said, giving a 
striking series of examples.
   In southern France, record temperatures were recorded in June, rising 
above 40C in places - temperatures of 5C to 7C above the average.
   In Switzerland, it was the hottest June in at least 250 years, 
environmental historians said. In Geneva, since 29 May, daytime 
temperatures have not fallen below 25C, making it the hottest June recorded.
   In the United States, there were 562 May tornadoes, which caused 41 
deaths. This set a record for any month. The previous record was 399 in 
June 1992.
   In India, this year's pre-monsoon heatwave brought peak temperatures 
of 45C - 2C to 5C above the norm. At least 1,400 people died in India 
due to the hot weather. In Sri Lanka, heavy rainfall from Tropical 
Cyclone 01B exacerbated wet conditions, resulting in flooding and 
landslides and killing at least 300 people. The infrastructure and 
economy of south-west Sri Lanka was heavily damaged. A reduction of 
20-30 per cent is expected in the output of low-grown tea in the next 
three months.
   Last month was also the hottest in England and Wales since 1976, with 
average temperatures of 16C. The WMO said: �These record extreme events 
(high temperatures, low temperatures and high rainfall amounts and 
droughts) all go into calculating the monthly and annual averages, 
which, for temperatures, have been gradually increasing over the past 
100 years. New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the 
globe, but in recent years the number of such extremes have been 
increasing�.
   According to recent climate-change scientific assessment reports of 
the joint WMO/United Nations Environmental Programme Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change, the global average surface temperature has 
increased since 1861. Over the 20th century the increase has been around 
0.6C.
  �New analyses of proxy data for the northern hemisphere indicate that 
the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been 
the largest in any century during the past 1,000 years.�
   While the trend towards warmer temperatures has been uneven over the 
past century, the trend since 1976 is roughly three times that for the 
whole period. Global average land and sea surface temperatures in May 
2003 were the second highest since records began in 1880. Considering 
land temperatures only, last May was the warmest on record. It is 
possible that 2003 will be the hottest year ever recorded. The 10 
hottest years in the 143-year-old global temperature record have now all 
been since 1990, with the three hottest being 1998, 2002 and 2001. The 
unstable world of climate change has long been a prediction. Now, the 
WMO says, it is a reality.
   Even the high predictions of the IPCC have recently been proven too 
low, by a research team in Berlin. The last prediction from IPCC three 
years ago said the temperature would increase by a global average of 
between five and six degrees Celsius within 2100. The new, updated 
predictions from the Berlin group say the increase will be ten degrees 
Celsius within 2050 and even as early as 2030.

  Amos

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
   		   THE WEEKLY REPORT
  dangerous news and articles collected from around the world
  http://www.midnight-fire.net/theweeklyreport/theweeklyreport.html
  awareness, forums and discussions about PageOne news and facts
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

   "Objection is when I say: this doesn't suit me. Resistance is when I 
make sure that what doesn't suit me never happens again".
                                        - Ulrike Meinhof, In Politics