Extreme weather: reality of a hot world

In 2010, the worst floods in history occurred in every continent, except Antarctica. The world is heating up due to greenhouse gases: the temperature increases by 1 ⁰ C, the heavy rain increases by 3-10%. For every C increase, the area of ​​forest fire in North America doubled or quadrupled .

Prolonged flooding caused floods in South Africa, destroying about 8,000 houses and killing 70 people
network. In the picture: the amount of water from the Orange River flows into Angrabies at a speed of 5,200m3 / sec
(Photo: Reuters)

Heavy rain engulfed 1/5 of Pakistan's area. The largest flood in 1,000 years has turned Nashville (Tennessee, USA) into a swamp. Flooding in the north of Rio de Janeiro caused tremendous landslides that killed nearly 800 people in Brazil. Floods create ' land on the sea ' in northern Australia. Flooding in southern France, Sri Lanka, South Africa, China .

' Only one of these disasters has been significant enough,' said scientist Jay Gulledge of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change , "but it would be impossible without the hot sea phenomenon. up. That relationship cannot be eliminated . '

Dark future

According to estimates by University of California, Los Angeles (USA) experts, the concentration of greenhouse gases on Earth has reached a record level in the past 15 million years . Greenhouse gas keeps heat in both the air and the oceans. Warming seawater creates a lot of steam and a warmer atmosphere can also hold more steam in the air. The more water vapor in the air, the stronger the storm. When this increased amount of steam hits land, it not only turns into rain or snow but also creates storms, snowstorms and floods. ' There is a lot of tropical steam in the air, moving over very long distances and falling into many parts of the world in a terrible way ' - Gulledge scientist said.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USNOAA) said 2010 was the record hot year (equivalent to 2005), with global temperatures and sea surfaces higher than 0.62 ⁰ C compared to Average temperature of 13.9 ⁰ C of the 20th century. And flooding is not the only extreme weather phenomenon in 2010. In Russia, 15,000 people died in a record heat wave in July. Australia experienced The hottest summer in history. Both Pakistan and Los Angeles experienced the hottest days ever. The East Coast of the United States is submerged in cold snow with two winter combined. The Amazon region in Brazil suffers from one of the worst droughts in history.

Hot days in Pakistan

Since a few years ago, experts have predicted these weather phenomena. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned of severe droughts and heavy rains in many parts of the world related to the rise of greenhouse gases. Research by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) said that if the world temperature increases by 1 ⁰ C, heavy rain increases by 3-10%. Each additional Celsius will double the area of ​​forest fires in North America or four times. ' If you think the situation is now too bad when the Earth's temperature rises 0.7 ⁰ C, then wait until the temperature rises by 3-4 ⁰ C. This situation will get worse. - scientist Gulledge warns.

' We have no doubts about the intensity and severity and the number of people affected by the extreme weather phenomena will be on the rise ' - Margareta Wahlstrom, deputy secretary general of the United Nations on risk reduction Natural disasters, identified.

Influence on both La Nina and El Nino

La Nina is a phenomenon that occurs when equatorial water in the Pacific Ocean is cooler than normal, while El Nino is a warm water phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean. La Nina and El Nino ' twin brother ' are part of the natural cycle of currents and winds, which have the function of redistributing heat by transferring heat from one region to the other.

Until now, scientists have not found a clear link between the problem of global warming and changes in the phenomenon of La Nina and El Nino. However, many scientists are concerned that human-induced climate change is affecting natural weather phenomena . The terrible flood season in Australia this year is related to La Nina phenomenon. Paul Mayewsk, director of the Institute of Climate Change (CCI) at the University of Maine (USA), said that La Nina and El Nino could be affected by ' system-wide ' shocks.

' Even natural phenomena can be affected by humans ' - he stressed. CCI is investigating whether greenhouse gases cause heat imbalance, resulting in natural weather events such as El Nino and La Nina. " Human activity is putting pressure on El Nino and La Nina," Mayewsk stressed, " We may be changing this system faster and more strongly ." If that happens, global weather will be more unstable and extreme developments .

In an increasingly urbanized world, people, goods and infrastructure are increasingly concentrated, natural disasters are likely to cause unprecedented devastations. ' The losses are increasing,' said Margareta Wahlstrom. 'Now is the decisive moment. ' Natural disasters tend to cause a lot of losses in poor countries, but 2010 shows that extreme weather can strike on a global scale. ' In rich countries, many people ignore climate change because they think they live in a safe and catastrophic area that happens only in other countries. But that mindset is too wrong now, "she warned.

According to her, to cope with the risk of extreme weather, countries need to improve disaster preparedness capacity while negotiating to cut greenhouse gas emissions .