Message #114288

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Climate change and extreme weather link cannot be ignored

By KIRAN CHUG - The Dominion Post | 3:05PM - Thursday, 14 July 2011


EXTREME WEATHER: Scientists say more events like the tornado
that caused this destruction in Waikanae will occur as a result
of climate change. — ANDREW GORRIE/The Dominion Post.

HUMAN-INDUCED climate change will see more disastrous storms, heatwaves and floods afflict the globe.

Scientists have drawn the strongest link yet between climate change and extreme weather events, and say the connection can no longer be ignored.

  • Related story: Seven biggest storms to hit Wellington

New Zealander Kevin Trenberth,  scientist who is the head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, based in Colorado, said events of the past year and a half had been extraordinary.

"It's as clear a warning as we're going to get about prospects for the future."

Dr Trenberth said the world could expect more droughts, floods, intense storms, hurricanes and tornadoes.

More heat waves would bring consequences such as wild fires in their wake.

Although the scientific community had not reached a consensus yet on whether climate change was to blame, he said more work was being done in the area and it took scientists time to get to such a point.

Since the 1970s, water vapour in the atmosphere had increased by about four per cent, and he said the world was now noticing that "when it rains, it pours."

Professor Martin Manning of Victoria University's Climate Change Research Institute said countries were now looking at ways to prepare for the risks they faced, and the insurance industry in particular was taking notice.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5285118/Climate-change-and-extreme-weather-link-cannot-be-ignored


• While the “anti-warmalists” and “climate-change deniers” fiddle, Rome burns!