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Hunter Cutting

Unprecedented heat wave in Africa, Asia sets more all-time highs - 0 views

  • Extreme heat wave in Africa and Asia continues to set all-time high temperature recordsA withering heat wave of unprecedented intensity and areal covered continues to smash all-time high temperatures Asia and Africa. As I reported earlier this week, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Chad, Niger, Pakistan, and Myanmar have all set new records for their hottest temperatures of all time over the past six weeks. The remarkable heat continued over Africa and Asia late this week. The Asian portion of Russia recorded its highest temperate in history yesterday, when the mercury hit 42.3°C (108.1°F) at Belogorsk, near the Amur River border with China. The previous record was 41.7°C (107.1°F) at nearby Aksha on July 21, 2004. (The record for European Russia is 43.8°C--110.8°F--set on August 6, 1940, at Alexandrov Gaj near the border with Kazakhstan.) Also, on Thursday, Sudan recorded its hottest temperature in its history when the mercury rose to 49.6°C (121.3°F) at Dongola. The previous record was 49.5°C (121.1°F) set in July 1987 in Aba Hamed.We've now had seven countries in Asia and Africa, plus the Asian portion of Russia, that have beaten their all-time hottest temperature record during the past two months. This includes Asia's hottest temperature of all-time, the astonishing 53.5°C (128.3°F) mark set on May 26 in Pakistan. All of these records are unofficial, and will need to be certified by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). According to Chris Burt, author of Extreme Weather, setting six national heat records in one month is eight in one summer is unprecedented. The only year which can compare is 2003, when five countries (the UK, France, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein) all broke their all-time heat records during that year's notorious summer heat wave. Fortunately, the residents of the countries affected by this summer's heat wave in Asia and Africa are more adapted to extreme high temperatures, and we are not seeing the kind of death tolls experienced during the 2003 European heat wave (30,000 killed.) This week's heat wave in Africa and the Middle East is partially a consequence of the fact that Earth has now seen three straight months with its warmest temperatures on record, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. It will be interesting to see if the demise of El Niño in May will keep June from becoming the globe's fourth straight warmest month on record.
Hunter Cutting

Extreme heat wave sets all-time high records in Africa and Middle East - 0 views

  • Welcom
  • Extreme heat wave sets all-time high temperature records in Africa and Middle EastA withering heat wave of unprecedented intensity and areal covered has smashed all-time high temperatures in four nations in the Middle East and Africa over the past week. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Chad, and Niger all set new records for their hottest temperatures of all time, and several other Middle East nations came within a degree of their hottest temperatures ever. The heat was the most intense in Iraq, which had its hottest day in history on June 14, 2010, when the mercury hit 52.0°C (125.6°F) in Basra. Iraq's previous record was 51.7°C (125.1°F) set August 8, 1937, in Ash Shu'aybah. It was also incredibly hot in Saudi Arabia, which had its hottest temperature ever on Tuesday (June 22): 52.0°C (125.6°F), measured in Jeddah, the second largest city in Saudi Arabia. The previous record was 51.7°C (125.1°F), at Abqaiq, date unknown. The record heat was accompanied by a sandstorm, which caused eight power plants to go offline, resulting in blackouts to several Saudi cities.In Africa, Chad had its hottest day in history on Tuesday (June 22), when the temperature reached 47.6°C (117.7°F) at Faya. The previous record was 47.4°C (117.3°F) at Faya on June 3 and June 9, 1961. Niger tied its record for hottest day in history on Tuesday (June 22), when the temperature reached 47.1°C (116.8°F) at Bilma. That record stood for just one day, as Bilma broke the record again on Wednesday (June 23), when the mercury topped out at 48.2°C (118.8°F). The previous record was 47.1°C on May 24, 1998, also at Bilma.Three countries came within a degree of their all time hottest temperature on record during the heat wave. Bahrain had its hottest June temperature ever, 46.9°C, on June 20, missing the all-time record of 47.5°C (117.5°F), set July 14, 2000. Temperatures in Quatar reached 48.8°C (119.8°F) on June 20. Quatar's all-time record hottest temperature was 49.6°C (121.3°F) set on July 9, 2000. It was also very hot in Kuwait, with temperatures reaching 51°C (123.8°F) in the capital on June 15. Kuwait's all-time hottest temperature was 51.9°C (125.4°F), on July 27,2007, at Abdaly. According to Essa Ramadan, a Kuwaiti meteorologist from Civil Aviation, Matrabah, Kuwait smashed this record and had Asia's hottest temperature in history on June 15 this year, when the mercury hit 54.0°C (129.2°F). However, data from this station is notoriously bad, and each year bogus record highs have to be corrected, according to an email I received from weather record researcher Maximiliano Herrera. Asia's hottest temperature in history will very likely remain the 53.5°C (128.3°F) recorded at MohenjuDaro, Pakistan on May 26 this year.
Hunter Cutting

Sea Surface Temperatures at the Start of 2010 Hurricane Season : Image of the Day - 0 views

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    This color coded satellite image illustrates the warmth of Atlantic waters at the start of the 2010 hurricane, a season forecast to be "active to extremely active" due in part to record sea surface temperatures. Note the extreme high temperatures off the west coast of Africa, the main hurricane formation region for Atlantic hurricanes
Hunter Cutting

Record sea surface temps for June in hurricane alley - 0 views

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    Record sea surface temperatures recorded for May off the coast of West Africa, the main formation region for Atlantic hurricanes, in map published by the Met Office Hadley Centre June 2010 Sea surface temperatures help determine hurricane strength, and higher sea surface temperatures can drive more powerful hurricanes.
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    The intensity of Atlantic hurricanes is closely related to Sea Surface Temperatures, and the region off the west cape of Africa is where a majority of Atlantic hurricanes form. Santer et. al demonstrated that anthropogenic climate change is helping to drive increased sea surface temperatures in this region.
Hunter Cutting

Declining rainfall over 30 years helped fuel conflicts in sub-Sahara - 0 views

  • Some experts call the genocide in Darfur the world's first conflict caused by climate change. After all, the crisis was sparked, at least in part, by a decline in rainfall over the past 30 years just as the region's population doubled, pitting wandering pastoralists against settled farmers for newly scarce resources, such as arable land.
  • Agricultural economist Marshall Burke of the University of California, Berkeley and his colleagues have analyzed the history of conflict in sub-Saharan Africa between 1980 and 2002 in a new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
  • "We find that civil wars were much more likely to happen in warmer-than-average years, with one degree Celsius warmer temperatures in a given year associated with a 50 percent higher likelihood of conflict in that year," Burke says. The implication: because average temperatures may warm by at least one degree C by 2030, "climate change could increase the incidences of African civil war by 55 percent by 2030, and this could result in about 390,000 additional battle deaths if future wars are as deadly as recent wars."
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  • In fact, temperature change offered a better prediction of impending conflict in the 40 countries surveyed than even changes in rainfall, despite the fact that agriculture in this region is largely dependent on such precipitation. Burke and his fellow authors argue that this could be because many staple crops in the region are vulnerable to reduced yields with temperature changes—10 to 30 percent drops per degree C of warming.
  • "If temperature rises, crop yields decline and rural incomes fall, and the disadvantaged rural population becomes more likely to take up arms," Burke says. "Fighting for something to eat beats starving in their fields."
  • Whereas 23 years in 40 countries provides a relatively large data set, it does not exclude other possible explanations, such as violent crime increasing with temperature rise, a drop in farm labor productivity or population growth. "Fast population growth could create resource shortage problems, as well," notes geographer David Zhang of the University of Hong Kong, who previously analyzed world history back to A.D. 1400 to find linkages between war and temperature change. Those results were also published in 2007 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But "the driver for this linkage," Zhang says," is resource shortage, mainly agricultural production, which is caused by climate change." Burke and his colleagues specifically excluded records from prior to 1980, because of the conflict rampant in the wake of Africa's emerging colonial independence after World War II. "A lag of a couple of decades would leave sufficient time for post-independence turmoil to wear out," Burke argues. "We took the approach that the best analogue to the next few decades were the last few decades."
  • Proving the link—and providing a specific mechanism for the increase in conflict, whether agricultural productivity or otherwise—remains the next challenge. "I believe that the historical experience of human society of climate change would provide us [with] the evidence of how climate cooling and warming during the last thousand years created human crisis, and also the lessons for human adaptive choices for climate change," Zhang notes. "We feel that we have very clearly shown the strong link between temperature increases and conflict risk," Burke adds. But "what interventions will make climate-induced conflict less likely?"
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    Article in Scientific American, based on study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Study also addresses role of rising temperatures
Hunter Cutting

Ice cap on Uganda's Rwenzori Mountain range split after melting 2010 - 0 views

  • Ugandan wildlife authorities say the ice cap on the country's western Rwenzori mountain range has split after extensive melting caused by global warming.Nelson Guma says ice covering Mount Margherita, the second highest peak in Africa, has melted forming a large crevasse some 6 metres (nearly 20 feet) wide.Guma said Tuesday the split occurred on the climbing route to Mount Margherita and that tourists can no longer climb that peak, but authorities are working to create another route to the peak. The East African peak has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.Environmental protection officer Henry Mujuzi says that because of global warming, the ice cap, which in the 1950s had covered four square miles, now covers less than a square mile.
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    Associated Press article
Hunter Cutting

Cholera cases increase as temperatures rise in Zambia - 0 views

  • According to a recent press release from AlphaGalileo, a resource for European research news, a study lead by researchers from the Madrid Carlos III Institute of Health shows cholera cases in Zambia are increasing as temperatures rise. Their study results confirm that an increase in environmental temperature six weeks before the rainy season also increases the number of people affected by cholera at a rate of 4.9%. “This is the first time that it has become evident in the sub-Saharan region that the increase in environmental temperature is related to the increase in cholera cases,” says Miguel Ángel Luque, one of the study’s authors, in the press release. The research project, which was done in Zambia between 2003 and 2006, analyzes data from three cholera epidemics. The results show that climatic variables, such as rain and environmental temperature, are related to the increase in cholera cases during the epidemic period. Experts affirm that cholera has a seasonal component associated with the rain season. An increase in temperature six weeks before this period is related with a 4.9% increase in the number of cases of this sickness within the population. The study also showed that  a 1º C increase in temperature six weeks before the beginning of the outbreak explains the 5.2% increase in cholera cases during an epidemic.
  • According to a recent press release from AlphaGalileo, a resource for European research news, a study lead by researchers from the Madrid Carlos III Institute of Health shows cholera cases in Zambia are increasing as temperatures rise. Their study results confirm that an increase in environmental temperature six weeks before the rainy season also increases the number of people affected by cholera at a rate of 4.9%.
Hunter Cutting

Temperature up, water supply down in Tanzania - 0 views

  • AVAILABILITY of water in the country has been decreasing over the years due to a number of factors including increased demand. The Minister for Water and Irrigation, Prof Mark Mwandosya, said here on Wednesday that the shortage was also caused by climate change which led to a rise of temperatures, drought and decreased levels of lakes and rivers. He said according to studies, Tanzania's temperature has been rising by one degree for the past 60 years.
Hunter Cutting

New Moore Island lost to sea level rise - 0 views

  • From Africa to the Himalayas, everyone's worried about global warming's potential to drive world conflict. But what about the disputes it will solve? A long-running argument between India and Bangladesh over a small island in the Bay of Bengal has just been resolved: the island's not there anymore: 
  • New Moore Island [also known as South Talpatti] in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said. "What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.
Hunter Cutting

Sea level rise particularly high for Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and... - 0 views

  • Sea-Le
  • Sea-Level Rise in Indian Ocean Observed
  • A new study concludes that Indian Ocean sea levels are rising unevenly and threatening residents in some densely populated coastal areas and islands. The study, led by scientists at the University of Colorado (CU) at Boulder and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., finds that the sea-level rise is at least partly a result of climate change.
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  • Sea-level rise is particularly high along the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, as well as the islands of Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java, the authors found. The key player in the process is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, an enormous, bathtub-shaped area spanning a huge region of the tropical oceans stretching from the east coast of Africa to the International Date Line in the Pacific. The warm pool has heated by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, or 0.5 degrees Celsius, in the past 50 years, primarily because of human-generated emissions in greenhouse gases.
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