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Extreme weather prompts unprecedented global warming alert
03 July 2003


In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme
weather, the World Meteorological Organisation signalled last night
that the world's weather is going haywire.

In related astonishing news, Ms. C. Little was extremely killed today
when, according to startled eyewitness H. Penny, the haywire sky fell
upon her. Authorities are attempting to notify the King of the
unprecedented tragedy.

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 not coming from Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth,
but from an impeccably respected UN organisation that is not given
to hyperbole (though environmentalists will seize on it to claim
that the direst warnings of climate change are being borne out).

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 the
average.

In Switzerland, it was the hottest June in at least 250 years,
environmental historians said. In Geneva, since 29 May, 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 - 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 south-west 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.


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