Around The World With Global Warming

Though there is a lot of variation at the local level, the average temperature of the planet is increasing. As a result, the climate is changing and becoming more variable.

Climate change affects people everywhere in critical ways: the availability of clean water, the ability to grow enough food, the spread of infectious diseases, the occurrence of extreme weather events, and more.

Unfortunately, the people most directly affected by this environmental crisis are the least equipped to respond. They are poor and often illiterate. Their biggest worry is feeding their families. Yet because of their close connection and interdependency with the land, the rural poor also hold the key to any lasting solution.   NEW ZEALAND : It won’t be a sizzler, but at least we’ll see the sun this summer. Much of the country emerged from the record-breakingly bad 2011-12 Kiwi summer feeling shortchanged as grey skies blanketed most of New Zealand.

Auckland, Tauranga, Hamilton and Wellington endured their cloudiest summer on record, and Nelson Bays its wettest, but that is unlikely to be repeated this summer, a climate scientist says.  USA : The great U.S. drought of 2012 remained about the same size and intensity over the past week, said NOAA in their weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report issued Thursday, August 9. The area of the contiguous U.S. covered by drought dropped slightly, from 63% to 62%, and the area covered by severe or greater drought stayed constant at 46%. The area of the country in the worst drought categories (extreme to exceptional drought) doubled from 10 percent last month to 22 percent this month. The extreme dryness and excessive heat devastated crops and livestock from the Great Plains to Midwest. During July, the area of the U.S. covered by moderate or greater drought was 57%, ranking as the 5th largest drought in U.S History.  Ireland: IRELAND COULD be on course for one of the worst summers in living memory if below average temperatures and heavy rainfall continue until the end of August.

Met Éireann recorded the coolest July in many years with many weather stations reporting plenty of rain but very little sunshine.

At 13 degrees, the mean temperature recorded at Malin Head last month was 1.3 degrees below average, the lowest recorded there in 40 years. Most of the country’s other stations reported their coolest July in at least 10 to 24 years.

The monthly minimum temperature at Johnstown Castle, Co Wexford, was recorded at 7.4 degrees on July 12th, the lowest recorded in any year since 1986. Other areas in the west, southwest, south and north experienced their lowest minimum temperatures in eight to 16 years.                                                                                    INDIA:  Flooding described by India’s prime minister as the worst in recent times, has left at least 95 people dead and almost 2 million others homeless in the country’s remote Assam state.

The Brahmaputra river overflowed during monsoon rains over the past week, flooding more than 2,000 villages and destroying homes in the northeast of the country, officials said.

Most of the dead were swept away by the fast-flowing water, while 16 were reported to have been buried by landslides caused by the heavy rains.  EUROPE: Several countries in southern Europe have been hit by wildfires this week as the weather takes a tropical turn. Bosnia, Greece, Italy and Portugal are among the worst-affected areas.   

Portuguese firefighters announced a partial victory on Friday, saying they had managed to contain a wildfire in the central Figueiro dos Vinhos region. One of their colleagues, however, lost his life battling the flames on Thursday.

Authorities were also trying to contain a blaze to the north in Vimioso, while the country’s Meteorological Institute said more than 30 further districts were at risk amid the hot weather.Firefighters in Greece, Italy, Bosnia and other parts of the Balkans were similarly busy late in the week, with little let-up in sight; more hot and arid weather is forecast for the coming weekend across much of Europe.                                           CHINA: A top meteorological official has urged authorities to guard against extreme weather in China during the coming months, as unusually warm ocean temperatures caused by El Nino will impact seasonal weather patterns, state media reported Friday.

China has been under the influence of El Nino since July and will continue to feel its effects into the fall, China National Radio quoted Zheng Guoguang, director of the China Meteorological Administration, as saying.

Under El Nino, heavy rains are likely to hit the middle and eastern parts of China this August, according to Zheng, who called for strengthened flood control efforts in the Haihe River Basin in North China and along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers.

Local authorities in areas south of the Yangtze River should also take precautions against summer droughts and arid weather, Zheng said.

Lower-than-average rainfall and higher temperatures will appear in the fall, except in the northern parts of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and the northeastern provinces, said Zheng.

Zheng said El Nino is not to blame for the recent typhoons and will actually lead to weaker typhoon activity after the autumn season.                                       SOUTH AMERICA: Brazil — Sea-level rise. Shoreline receded more than 6 feet (1.8 m) per year from 1915 to 1950 and more than 8 feet (2.4 m) per year from 1985 to 1995. The dramatic land loss was due to a combination of sea-level rise and loss of sediment supply following dam construction, harbor dredging, and other coastal engineering projects.

Andes Mountains, Peru — Glacial retreat accelerates seven-fold. The edge of the Qori Kalis glacier was retreating 13 feet (4.0 m) annually between 1963 and 1978. By 1995, the rate had stepped up to 99 feet (30.1 m) per year.

 Chiclayo, Peru – Large increase in average minimum temperatures. Average minimum temperatures along Peru’s north coast increased 3.5F (2C) from the 1960s to 2000. The temperature in the high plateau region in extreme southeastern Peru has also risen 3.5F (2C), from an average of 48F (9C) in the 1960s to 52F (11C) in 2001. Northwestern South America has warmed by 0.8-1.4F (0.5-0.8 C) in the last decade of the 20th century.

Tropical Andes (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and northernmost Chile) – Increase in average annual temperature. Average annual temperature has increased by about 0.18F (0.1C) per decade since 1939. The rate of warming has doubled in the last 40 years, and more than tripled in the last 25 years, to about 0.6F (0.33C) per decade.

 Argentina – Receding glaciers. Glaciers in Patagonia have receded by an average of almost a mile (1.5 km) over the last 13 years. There has been an increase in maximum, minimum, and average daily temperatures of more than 1.8F (1C) over the past century in southern Patagonia, east of the Andes.

 Venezuela – Disappearing glaciers. Of six glaciers in the Venezuelan Andes in 1972, only 2 remain, and scientists predict that these will be gone within the next 10 years. Glaciers in the mountains of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru show similar rapid rates of retreat. Temperature records in other regions of the Andes show a significant warming of about 0.6 F (0.33C) per decade since the mid-1970s.                                                        CANADA: As a northern country, Canada is particularly vulnerable to global warming. Canada’s Arctic landscape and people are already being severely affected by rising temperatures. Arctic sea ice, once considered permanent, is melting. The animals that depend on Arctic ecosystems, such as polar bears, are in danger of dying out as their living space changes beyond recognition. Many bird species are already in decline from the effects of a changing climate. The sustainability of northern communities is threatened.                                                                            RUSSIA: Russians are not used to heat waves. When the high temperatures that have overwhelmed Russia over the past six weeks first arrived in June, some 1,200 Russians drowned at the country’s beaches. “The majority of those who drowned were drunk,” the Emergencies Ministry concluded in mid-July, citing the Russian habit of taking vodka to cool off by the sea. But while overconsumption of vodka is a familiar scourge in Russia, extreme heat is not, and as the worst heat wave on record spawns wildfires that are destroying entire villages, Russian officials have made what for them is a startling admission: global warming is very real.

 AUSTRAILIA :The last 60 years have been the hottest in Australasia for a millennium and cannot be explained by natural causes, according to a new report by scientists that supports the case for a reduction in manmade carbon emissions.

In the first major study of its kind in the region, scientists at the University of Melbourne used natural data from 27 climate indicators, including tree rings, corals and ice cores to map temperature trends over the past 1,000 years.

“Our study revealed that recent warming in a 1,000-year context is highly unusual and cannot be explained by natural factors alone, suggesting a strong influence of human-caused climate change in the Australasian region,” said the study’s lead researcher, Dr Joelle Gergis.                                                                             GLOBAL WARMING FACTS