Posted on 3-7-2003

Global Warming Fact Not Theory
By Michael McCarthy

LONDON - In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme
weather, the World Meteorological Organisation has signalled 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 coming
from an impeccably respected UN organisation that is not given to
hyperbole. 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 average.

* In Switzerland, it was the hottest June in at least 250 years,
environmental historians said. In Geneva, since May 29, 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, or 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 southwest 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.