WASHINGTON
(AP) — Think of the Texas drought, floods in Thailand and Russia's
devastating heat waves as coming attractions in a warming world. That's
the warning from top international climate scientists and disaster
experts after meeting in Africa.
The
panel said the world needs to get ready for more dangerous and
"unprecedented extreme weather" caused by global warming. These experts
fear that without preparedness, crazy weather extremes may overwhelm
some locations, making some places unlivable.
The
Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a
special report on global warming and extreme weather Friday after
meeting in Kampala, Uganda. This is the first time the group of
scientists has focused on the dangers of extreme weather events such as
heat waves, floods, droughts and storms. Those are more dangerous than
gradual increases in the world's average temperature.
For
example, the report predicts that heat waves that are now
once-in-a-generation events will become hotter and happen once every
five years by mid-century and every other year by the end of the
century. And in some places, such as most of Latin America, Africa and a
good chunk of Asia, they will likely become yearly bakings.
And
the very heavy rainstorms that usually happen once every 20 years will
happen far more frequently, the report said. In most areas of the U.S.
and Canada, they are likely to occur three times as often by the turn of
the century, if fossil fuel use continues at current levels. In
Southeast Asia, where flooding has been dramatic, it is likely to happen
about four times as often as now, the report predicts.
One
scientist points to this year's drought and string of 100 degree days
in Texas and Oklahoma, which set an all-time record for hottest month
for any U.S. state this summer.
"I
think of it as a wake-up call," said one of the study's authors, David
Easterling, head of global climate applications for the U.S. National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "The likelihood of that
occurring in the future is going to be much greater."
The report said world leaders have to prepare better for weather extremes.
"We
need to be worried," said one of the study's lead authors, Maarten van
Aalst, director of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate
Centre in the Netherlands. "And our response needs to anticipate
disasters and reduce risk before they happen rather than wait until
after they happen and clean up afterward. ... Risk has already increased
dramatically."
Another
study lead writer, Chris Field of Stanford University, said scientists
aren't quite sure which weather disaster will be the biggest threat
because wild weather interacts with economics and where people live.
Society's vulnerability to natural disasters, aside from climate, has
also increased, he said.
Field
told The Associated Press in an interview that "it's clear that losses
from disasters are increasing. And in terms of deaths, "more than 95
percent of fatalities from the 1970s to the present have been in
developing countries," he said.
Losses
are already high, running at as much as $200 billion a year, said
Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, a study author.
Science
has progressed so much in the last several years that scientists can
now attribute the increase in many of these types of extreme weather
events to global warming with increased confidence, said study author
Thomas Stocker at the University of Bern.
Scientists
were able to weigh their confidence of predictions of future climate
disasters and heat waves were the most obvious. The report said it is
"virtually certain" that heat waves are getting worse, longer and
hotter, while cold spells are easing.
The
report said there is at least a 2-in-3 chance that heavy downpours will
increase, both in the tropics and northern regions, and from tropical
cyclones.
The
29-page summary of the full report — which will be completed in the
coming months — says that extremes could get so bad at some point that
some regions may need to be abandoned.
Such
locations are likely to be in poorer countries, van Aalst said in a
telephone interview, but the middle class may be affected in those
regions, which aren't specifically identified in the report. And even in
some developed northern regions of the world, such as Canada, Russia
and Greenland, cities might need to move because of weather extremes and
sea level rise from man-made warming, he said.
In
places like van Aalst's native Netherlands, citizens will have to learn
how to handle new weather problems, in this case heat waves.
And
it's not just the headline grabbing disasters like a Hurricane Katrina
or the massive 2010 Russian heat wave that studies show were unlikely to
happen without global warming. At the Red Cross/Red Crescent they are
seeing "a particular pattern of rising risks" from smaller events, van
Aalst said.
Of all the weather extremes that kill and cause massive damage, he said, the worst is flooding.
There's
an ongoing debate in the climate science community about whether it is
possible and fair to attribute individual climate disasters to manmade
global warming. Usually meteorologists say it's impossible to link
climate change to a specific storm or drought, but that such extremes
are more likely in a future dominated by global warming.
Jerry
North, a scientist at Texas A&M University who wasn't part of the
study, said he thought the panel was being properly cautious in its
projections and findings, especially since by definition climate
extremes are uncommon events. MIT professor Kerry Emanuel thought the
panel was being too conservative when it comes to tropical cyclones.
The
panel was formed by the United Nations and World Meteorological
Organization. In the past, it has discussed extreme events in snippets
in its report. But this time, the scientists are putting them together.
The next major IPCC report isn't expected until the group meets in Stockholm in 2013.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeNOAA on weather extremesSOURCE: The Associated Press
