2007 seen as second warmest year ever!

[Rico]

Interesting story here from Reuters....

2007 seen as second warmest year as climate shifts

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent2 hours, 54 minutes ago

This year is on track to be the second warmest since records began in the 1860s and floods in Pakistan or a heatwave in Greece may herald worse disruptions in store from global warming, experts said on Friday.

"2007 is looking as though it will be the second warmest behind 1998," said Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia, which provides data to the U.N.'s International Meteorological Organization.

"It isn't far behind ... it could change, but at the moment this looks unlikely," he told Reuters, based on temperature records up to the end of April.

Jones had predicted late last year that 2007 could surpass 1998 as the warmest year on record due to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases emitted mainly by burning fossil fuels and an El Nino warming of the Pacific.

Almost all climate experts say that the trend is towards more droughts, floods, heatwaves and more powerful storms. But they say that individual extreme events are not normally a sign of global warming because weather is, by its nature, chaotic.

"Severe events are going to be more frequent," said Salvano Briceno, director of the Geneva-based secretariat of the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

The 10 warmest years in the past 150 years have all been since 1990. Last year ranked number six according to the IMO. NASA, which uses slightly different data, places 2005 as warmest ahead of 1998.

STORMS

Among extreme events, more than 500 people have died in storms and floods in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India in the past week.

Temperatures in Greece reached 46 C (114.80F) this week as part of a heatwave across parts of southern Europe. Parts of China have also had a heat wave in recent days.

And torrential rains have battered northern England and parts of Texas, where Austin has had its wettest year on record so far.

The U.N. climate panel, drawing on the work of 2,500 scientists, said this year that it was "very likely" that human activities led by use of fossil fuels were the main cause of a warming in the past half-century.

It gave a "best estimate" that temperatures will rise 1.8-4.0 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit) this century.

Briceno told Reuters that the world had to work out better policies to prepare for disasters, saying that climate change was adding to already increasing risks faced by a rising human population of about 6.6 billion people.

Irrespective of warming, many people were cramming into cities, for instance, settling in plains where there was already a risk of floods or moving to regions vulnerable to droughts.

"We need to reduce all the underlying risk factors, such as by locating communities out of hazard-prone areas," he said. "We now have a clearer picture of what is going to happen and it's urgent that governments give this higher priority."

In Germany, average temperatures for the 12 months to May 2007 smashed records for the past century, raising questions about whether climate change was quickening, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said.

"If this trend continues in the near future, we will be experiencing an acceleration of global warming in Germany so far unexpected by climate scientists," it said in a statement.

source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070629/ts_nm/climate_weather_dc

[Bryancd]

No big suprise there, it's going to be 111 degrees today and 114 by Monday here in Phoenix!

[Rico]

What's the temp. at night there Bryan?  Any humidity at all?

[Bryancd]

This morning when I woke up at 4:00am, it was 84, so that was the low last night. We average low to mid 80's at night at this time of year. In July-Sept, we can even go low 90's as a low. Humidity is in the mid 20% range and will build as we move into summer to around the 40-50% range. This is our rainy season, or as we call it, the summer monsoon's. We get these MASSIVE fast moving and very powerful storms come rolling into the valley causing dust storms and flash flooding. If you like lightning, there is no better place than Phoenix in the summer! Combine extreme heat with a fast moving cold front and whammo!

[Geekyfanboy]

Wow.. I thought we had it bad here in SoCal.... we are barely hitting the hundreds here but night does cool down to the 60's. And at least we have a dry heat most of the time when it comes to humiitiy.

That story is kind of scary... the top 10 hottest years have been since the 90's. It's only going to get worse.  :(

[Ktrek]

I fully admit that I am not convinced about global warming and the human equation. I will fully admit that temperatures seem to be generally higher in some locations but this could be a natural occurrence. In fact I think it's amusing how now it's called "climate change" instead of "global warming". Ever since they discovered that the polar ice caps on Mars are melting they seemed to redefine their terminology. Well, if Mars is being affected by the sun, a natural occurrence, then why can't we assume that Earth is also affected by the same influences that are causing changes on Mars? Now one other thing I would like to say is that here in North Texas we have had some of the coolest temperatures on record for the last couple of years. So how does that figure into the equation?

Kevin

[JoSpiv]

That's actually the reason for the change in terminolgy.   Global Warming sounds like the entire Earth will just get hotter.  Well the Earth doesn't have a big thermostat.  As the climate changes, different parts of the planet will do different things.  Some places will get more rain, some will have longer droughts.  That film The Day After Tomorrow, while insane, is based on a very real phenomenon that's been documented in Earth's history.  It will NOT occur over days like in the film, but it is extremly possible that if enough fresh water from melting ice caps gets dumped into the North Atlantic the North Atlantic current will shutdown.  Now this would NOT cause giant hurricane like storms of cold that chase people with lazers of ice.  But, The Eastern US, and Western Europe would get much colder.

While that's happening, the warm water would stay in the south, and the increased moisture would cause more and more hurricanes causing the Caribean, and south eastern US to get hit with many Katrinas. 

The worst part is that if glaciers and snowcaps melt once and for all.(like they are) there will be less fresh water to drink.  Tough to get billions of bottles of Poland Spring if the mountain where the spring orginates has no more snow to melt. 

Now, this all will take a long time.   BUT we can change things now, and EVEN if you don't think humans are to blame what's the harm in working to use cleaner energy.  At the very least we won't be dependent on Oil anymore.

[Darth Gaos]

WHAT?!?!?  Intellegent, rational discussion regarding climate change??  It's a shame we don't run the world......yet.....problems might actually get solved.

It's refreshing to read/hear people actually discussing the matter rather than the normal "THE SKY IS FALLING AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE THEN YOU'RE A MORON"  rhetoric that seems so prevalent these days.

[JoSpiv]

WHAT?!?!?  Intellegent, rational discussion regarding climate change??  It's a shame we don't run the world......yet.....problems might actually get solved.

It's refreshing to read/hear people actually discussing the matter rather than the normal "THE SKY IS FALLING AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE THEN YOU'RE A MORON"  rhetoric that seems so prevalent these days.

Well Star Trek fans, and Sci-Fi fans as a whole are smarter, and more open it seems to me. 

[Rico]

Quite true!  Weird thing here in Michigan is the last week or so has only been at most in the low 80's.  Today it's barely 70F.!

[Darth Gaos]

Quite true!  Weird thing here in Michigan is the last week or so has only been at most in the low 80's.  Today it's barely 70F.!

What  I thought was funny in an ironic way and something I filed under "God really does have a sense of humor" was the Congressional hearings and sessions on Global Warming were postponed due to a blizzard in D.C.  I wonder if that has anything to do with the terminaology change.    ;)  ;D

[iceman]

No Doubt a result in part to global warming