Canada and the World

        Current Events with a Canadian Perspective

 

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19 November 2010

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Storms to become more Frequent

 

It is no secret that the frequency and impact

of natural disasters is on the rise worldwide.

Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, forest fires, tornadoes, ice storms, and severe rain storms

are happening more often than ever before

 

Torrential rains caused the worst flooding in living memory in England in July 2007. Two bouts of flooding during the country’s wettest summer on record resulted in several deaths, damaged thousands of houses, and destroyed crops. Flood damage was estimated at about three million pounds (more than six million dollars).

 

A water treatment plant was closed leaving more than 130,000 people dependent on bottled water and emergency water tanks. The British government’s Environmental Agency described the floods as the worst in centuries.

  

Six months earlier, the deadliest storm to hit Europe in eight years killed nearly 50 people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

 

South Asia Hit by Heavy Rain

Heavy rains and floods across South Asia killed more than 70 people and a million more were left stranded by rising waters. Torrential downpours, plus melting Himalayan snow caused flooding in low-lying areas of Nepal, India’s northern states, and neighbouring Bangladesh.

  

By August 2007, the UN reported that the floods had affected 20 million people in India, along with another eight million in Bangladesh, and 300,000 in Nepal. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the region had twice the normal number of monsoon depressions in the first half of the four-month rainy season with devastating effects.

 

Many stations reported 24-hour rainfall exceeding 350 mm. More than two million hectares of cropland had been affected by the floods, more than 130,000 houses destroyed, and 2,000 people killed. Millions more people have been displaced as a result of the massive flooding. The figures continued to rise as the summer progressed, and disease from contaminated flood waters also became a major concern.

 

Weather Impacts Africulture

The Food and Agriculture Organization says more droughts and floods could be particularly bad for agriculture. And, even a small increase in temperature could push down crop yields in the south around the world, as agricultural productivity goes up in northern areas. That could translate into an 18 percent cereal crop loss in India, for example, where peasants rely solely on rain for irrigation.  

   

Meanwhile, the China Meteorological Administration reported that the three-day severe thunderstorm that struck the coastal province of Shandong in August 2007 was the longest ever recorded. It affected more than 700,000 people directly, with a total of 2.43 million people in 12 cities suffering the effects of the violent rainstorms that started in early July.

 

Weather and Global Warming   

As global warming takes place, rainfall patterns are changing around the world. It’s official; Environment Canada says these things are on the rise. Climatologists warn that hurricanes will become more intense and more frequent. Low-lying areas, such as Bangladesh, will be subject to more catastrophic flooding and immense loss of life.

   

One group of scientists says pollution is contributing to the kind of extreme weather and storms in coastal cities. The team at Texas A&M University believes that soot produced by burning coal in China and India is contributing to bizarre weather in Canada and the United States.

 

They say the pollution drifts upward over the Pacific, creating more large clouds higher in the atmosphere where it is colder. The result is more intense storms over the ocean, which in turn, changes the airflow patterns around the globe. The group used satellite data collected between 1984 and 2005, as well as climate models to reach their conclusions.

  

In 2005, the executive director of the UN’s environment agency also made the link between the natural disasters that hit Europe that summer and the effects of climate change.

  

The WMO notes evidence that “climate change and disasters are closely linked, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) consistently projecting the likelihood of increased frequency and intensity of hazards in the future.”

  

More Disasters

Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. And, as population grows, the human suffering multiplies.

 

The United Nations’ emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, said there were 267 natural disasters recorded during the first eight months of 2006, and 91 million people had their lives devastated. That was 31 more than the average number of annual disasters for the last decade. Of the 267 disasters, 168 were floods, 80 percent more than the average of 93 over the last 10 years.

  

“In the last generation — 30 years — five times more people have become affected by natural disasters,” he said. “This is an explosion in misery.”

  

The UN reports that serious flooding affects 500 million people every year and has become a major problem not just in Asian countries with annual monsoons and typhoons but in countries such as Sudan, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan.

 

A senior UN official said in August 2007 that floods and weather-related disasters accounted for 59 percent of all reported disasters last year. Between 2004 and 2006 there was an increase from 200 to 400 emergencies, with the number of floods up from 60 to more than 100.

 

In 2007, there were about 70 floods up to August. Heat waves were above average in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. And, the Arabian Sea near Oman had its first ever documented cyclone.

 

 

Image credit

Chascar

 

© Canada and the World, October 2007

All rights reserved

 

 

One international report says human activity is altering the world’s precipitation patterns, resulting in more rainfall to Canada, Northern Europe, and Russia, and drier weather to tropical and subtropical areas north of the Equator: a stronger water cycle is moving more water vapour away from the warmest parts of the planet and pushing it toward the poles, making wet areas wetter, and dry areas drier.

 

The Environment Canada study says precipitation increased by 10 percent in northern regions during the 20th century, a change that can’t be explained by natural variability or volcanic eruptions.

 

Canada is not immune to the growing trend toward more natural disasters. Hurricane Juan hit Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in 2003. Forest fires swept across British Columbia the following summer. In 2005, Toronto and the surrounding area were hit with a severe rainstorm and tornadoes that led to the second-largest insurance payout in Canada’s history. The largest Canadian disaster was the ice storm of 1998.

International Disaster

Database

 

Worldwatch Institute

Research Library

 

“Today’s disasters stem

from a complex mix of factors, including routine climate change, global warming influenced by

human behaviour, socio-economic factors causing poorer people to live in

risky areas, and inadequate disaster preparedness and education on the part of governments as well as the general population.”

World Health Organization Bulletin, 2006

 

 

Scientists warn that climate change could warm up the Mediterranean enough to trigger the formation of its own hurricanes.

 

Now, hurricanes that start far out in the Atlantic blow westward toward the Caribbean and the U.S. Gulf Coast, but research shows higher risk is developing along Europe’s previously calm coastline.

 

Meanwhile, United Nation’s emergency relief coordinator, Sir John Holmes, says  that a record number of floods, droughts and storms around the world in 2007 amount to a climate change “mega-disaster.”

 

In 2005 only half the international disasters dealt with by the UN had anything to do with climate, but by October 2007 all but one of the 13 emergency appeals were climate-related.

 

 

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 600,000 deaths occurred worldwide as a result of weather-related natural disasters in the 1990s, and some 95 percent of these were in poor countries.

 

 

Worldwatch Institute defines weather-related disasters as events that are caused by heat waves or cold snaps, floods, land-slides, avalanches, wild-fires, hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, and winter storms. While these events are often perceived as natural, the Institute says many human actions, including climate change, can have a hand in their creation.