On Sep 26, 7:55*am, David Allan wrote:
Just heard the weather of the last couple of days described on BBC radio as the "...worst September storms for 30 years...", which, if true, sort of answers my previous question of just how unusual is this sort of weather.
Added to the year when we were crying 'drought' at the end of winter, experiencing 'summer' in spring, the dire weather that pervaded throughout the summer months, and now the worst September storms in 30 years. It's almost like a living nightmare of Daily Express front-page headlines!
Anyone like to hazard a guess as to what might arrive on our doorsteps for the closing months of 2012?

Whatever is causing unusual weather, it isn't burning oil. It might be
burning oil selfishly:

"The DRC contains half of Africa’s tropical forest and the second
largest continuous tropical forest in the world. Because of unrest and
economic instability, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has mostly
escaped the industrial-scale deforestation that has taken place in
other tropical countries such as Brazil and Indonesia. The exception
is near the country’s eastern border, around Virunga National Park.

Home to critically endangered mountain gorillas, the forests have been
disappearing quickly as population growth and violence have driven
people into the resource-rich forest in and around the park.
Subsistence slash-and-burn agriculture and charcoal production have
eaten away at the trees, transforming deep green forests into pale
savanna grasslands.

The Landsat 5 satellite obtained the top image on February 13, 1999,
and the lower image on September 1, 2008. (More recent images of the
region were cloudy.) The city of Beni is tan and gray, while the
forested Virunga National Park is dark green. The blue Semlike River
meanders northeast through the park. The rate of forest loss shown in
these two images is the highest among all national parks in the
country."

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOT...6&src=eoa-iotd

Personally I can't see that exchanging grassland for trees will have
an immediate effect, as albedo levels will be similar. Even
transpiration will be doable, if massively down. But soil retention
properties will change drastically, so the effect will only show up
long term.

Thunderstorms in the world's most lightning struck region will be the
first to go and one of the most easily measured changes.

Next, flooding and tales of woe that don't necessarily include AK47s
will abound and then it will become pretty obvious that what has
happened in South America in the last few decades is on its way to a
much larger continent that already hosts the worst deserts on earth.