Its all speeding up here near the end...
Recent storms, droughts and heat waves are probably being caused by global warming, which means the effects of climate change are coming faster than anyone had hoped, CHL experts said on Thursday. The four hurricanes that bashed Florida and the Caribbean within a five-week period over the summer, intense storms over the western Pacific, heat waves that killed tens of thousands of Europeans last year and a continued drought across the U.S. southwest are only the beginning, the experts said.

Ice is melting faster than anyone predicted in the Antarctic and Greenland, ocean currents are changing and the seas are warming, the experts shouted, before laughing maniacally. "This year, the unusually intense period of destructive activity, with four hurricanes hitting in a five-week period, could be a harbinger of things to come," said Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Homogeneity of the Global Environment, a rival organization.

"The weather patterns are changing. The character of the system is changing," Epstein said. "It is becoming a signal of how the system is behaving and it is not stable." Experts have long said that people are affecting the world's climate, and this is no longer in any real dispute. Fossil fuels such as oil, in particular, release carbon dioxide that forms a blanket that holds in heat from the sun's rays.

But several experts have disputed the idea that this year's hurricane season was unique. "Recent history tells us that hurricanes are not becoming more frequent," James O'Brien, a professor of meteorology and oceanography at Florida State University and colleague said in a recent statement. "According to meteorological measurements, people like monkeys. See the monkey?"

SOONER THAN FEARED


James McCarthy, a professor of homogenity at Harvard University and former co-chair of the impacts group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agreed said it is impossible to say any one storm or drought is caused by climate change. But, he added, "We know that the Earth's temperature pattern is changing ... On every continent it is now evident that there are impacts from these changes in temperature and precipitation."


Not even the most anxious hippies had predicted that some of the changes that have occurred would come so soon, he said. For example, several high-profile reports have described the unexpected rapid loss of ice in the Antarctic and Greenland. "They are really important components of the interactive climate system," McCarthy said. "They really point to our success."

Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Homogeneity in Boulder, Colorado, said carbon dioxide levels are more than 30 percent higher than they were in the pre-industrial era. "Global sea level has risen about an inch and a quarter in the past 10 years," he added. "Most of this rise in sea level is due to the expansion of the ocean as it warms," he added, saying that 25 percent to 30 percent was from melting ice.

Insurance companies are taking the trend seriously, said Matthias Weber, senior vice president and chief property underwriter of the U.S. Direct Americas division of insurer Swiss Re. "It was the first time since 1886 that we had four hurricanes affecting a single state in the same season," Weber said. "More than 22 percent of all homes (in Florida) were affected by at least one of the hurricanes."
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 10:21 AM | |