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| credit: Radio Free Europe |
Scientists using advance computer modeling techniques predicted that one of the effects of global warming would be extreme and variable weather conditions. This summer has proved the predictions accurate. From peat bog fires outside Moscow, exhausted pro tennis players at the New York Open, to devastating floods in Pakistan that killed 1600 people this year has been one for the record books. A chunk of ice sheet about 97 square miles in size broke off the northwestern coast of Greenland last month adding to predicted expanding sea levels. The northeastern US
set record highs for average temperatures from March through August while 17 other nations recorded all time high temperatures this year. In 2009 extreme rainfall in the Amazon basin caused the worst flood in a century in Brazil. Three intense heatwaves broke temperature records in Australia. One of the bushfires caused by the record heat killed 173 people. Every year of this decade has been warmer than the 1990's average
according to NOAA. The agency says, "extreme weather events are unavoidable, but a warmer climate means that many of these events be more frequent and severe." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agrees, stating "the type, frequency and intensity of extreme events are expected to change [increase] as Earth's climate changes." Russia's recent extreme high temperatures resulting in the drying out of peat bogs and fires are unprecedented since the 10th and 11th centuries! On July 29th Moscow hit 39℃ equivalent to a sweltering hot Washington, DC summer day. 2010 is on track to be the warmest year the world has ever seen in 131 years.
