hot enough for you?

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Global warming may be speeding up, fears scientist

Alarm at 'unusual' heatwaves across northern hemisphere

John Vidal, environment editor

Wednesday August 6, 2003

The Guardian

One of Europe's leading scientists yesterday raised the possibility that
the extreme heatwave now settled over at least 30 countries in the
northern hemisphere could signal that man-made climate change is
accelerating.

"The present heatwave across the northern hemisphere is worrying. There
is the small probability that man-made climate change is proceeding much
faster and stronger than expected," said Professor John Schellnhuber,
former chief scientific adviser to the German government and now head of
the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall centre.

Prof Schellnhuber said "the parching heat experienced now" could be
consistent "with a worst-case scenario [of global warming] that nobody
wants to come true". He warned that several months' research would be
needed to analyse data from around the world before scientists could say
why the heatwaves are so intense this year.

"What we are seeing is absolutely unusual," said Prof Schellnhuber. "We
know that global warming is proceeding apace, but most of us were
thinking that in 20-30 years time we would be seeing hot spells [like
this]. But it's happening now. Clearly extreme weather events will
increase."

Other climate scientists across Europe suggested the present heatwave
was perhaps the most intense experienced and linked to global warming.

"We've not seen such an extended period of dry weather [in Europe] since
records began," said Michael Knobelsdorf, a meteorologist at the German
weather service. "What's remarkable is that these extremes of weather
are happening at such short intervals, which suggests the climate is
unbalanced. Last year in Germany, we were under water. Now we have one
of the worst droughts in human memory."

Antonio Navarra, chief climatologist at Italy's National Geophysics
Institute, said the Mediterranean region was 2-3C warmer than usual this
summer.

Temperatures across parts of Europe have been a consistent 5C warmer
than average for several months, but the heatwaves have extended across
the northern hemisphere. Temperatures in some Indian states reached
45-49C (113-120F), with more than 1,500 people dying as a direct result.
There have been near-record temperatures in Canada and the US, Hawaii,
China, parts of Russia and Alaska.

The intense heat in some places has given way to some of the most severe
monsoon rains on record, a phenomenon also consistent with climate
change models which predict extremes of weather. The heatwaves are
fuelling concern that climatologists may have underestimated the
temperature changes expected with global warming. According to the UN's
intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) - the consensus of the
world's leading 2,000 climatologists - the expected increase is up to 5C
over the next century.

But a recent conference of leading atmospheric scientists in Berlin
concluded that the IPCC's models may have underestimated the cooling
effect of atmospheric soot, the airborne industrial waste of the past.
The upper limit of global warming, they suggested, should range between
7C and 10C, which would severely affect food and water supplies,
traumatise most economies, and fundamentally change everyday life.

The UN's World Meteorological Organisation warned last month that
extreme weather events would become more frequent. Yesterday Ken
Davidson, director of the WMO's climate programme, said: "The world is
seeing a change in general conditions and in extremes. We are trying to
understand if it's getting more frequent."

Climate scientists at the British government's Hadley centre last week
said they had new evidence that the heatwave affecting Europe and North
America could not be explained by natural causes, such as sunspots or
volcanoes, but must be partly due to man-made pollution.

Yesterday Dr Peter Stott, who led the research team, said: "Once we
factor in the effects of human activity, we find we can explain the
warming that is observed. Now we have gone a step further and shown that
the same thing is happening on the scale of continents."

Europe battles drought and fire

* The death toll from Portugal's biggest wildfires in decades rose to 11
after two bodies were found in charred woodland, but cooler overnight
temperatures enabled firefighters to contain all but three major blazes

* 13 Spaniards have died in the heatwave, and 30 taken to hospital
because of the heat in Cordoba, Seville and Huelva in Andalusia

* Parisians thronged the bank of the river Seine which has been turned
into an urban beach with sand, cafes, deckchairs and palm trees as the
temperature in the capital neared 40C (104F) again yesterday

* Amsterdam zoo fed its chimpanzees iced fruit and sprayed ostriches
with cold water to keep them cool as temperatures in the Dutch capital
edged towards 30C (86F), the Dutch news agency ANP reported

* Italy's national electricity grid said it had cut power to some big
industrial customers amid soaring demand from air conditioners

* Polish fire crews battled 35 forest fires on Monday and about a
quarter of the country's woodlands were at serious risk of fire after
temperatures topped 30C (86F) for much of July, authorities said

* In southern Bosnia, mines left over from the 1992-95 war have barred
firefighters from coming to grips with a fire that has raged for three
days near Mostar

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Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine