Wacky Summer Weather

[indigobusiness]

Extreme weather continues to strike without warning around the world and global warming is front page news in many countries. In the U.S., we have to rely on our local weather reports, and have no way of knowing that our bizarre, unseasonable weather is being repeated around the globe. There are major floods in areas around the world and Europe, which had a killing heat wave last summer, now has winter in July.

Edmunton Alberta

Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Taiwan, southern China, India, the city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, Japan and New Jersey have all experienced extraordinary flooding within the past two weeks. Last week Edmonton, Alberta, experienced a "once in 200 years" storm with 45 inches of rain and hail that buried parts of the city under tons of ice.

July 13 was an ominous day for flooding: a ferocious thunderstorm similar in violence to the Edmonton storm swept across Shanghai, killing seven and sinking a cargo ship. In Southeast Asia, the worst monsoon flooding in memory has killed thousands and left over five million people homeless across India, Bangladesh and Nepal. A typhoon has killed at least 50 people in the Philippines and Taiwan, and left a quarter of a million homeless.

Also on the 13th, there was a 17-inch downpour in northwestern Japan, killing at least five people. Again, the rains were sudden and intense, and the sudden flooding overcame people in low-lying areas, in areas that had never experienced these kinds of floods before. On the same day, more that a foot of rain fell in a few hours in New Jersey. The flooding was so fast that, as in Edmonton, people had to flee their cars to escape rising water. The flood zone extended into Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Meanwhile, Europeans from Oslo to Budapest are having snowball fights in July. Europeans feared a repeat of last year's killer heat wave, and southern Europe has indeed experienced some intense heat. But most Europeans have had temperatures that are about half what they were last year. Read the CNN Report.

In the U.K., people are turning on their central heating. Elliot Frisby, of the VisitBritain tourism board, says, "We don't sell Britain as a sun, sea and sand destination."

Swedish ice cream maker Ingemar Folkeson is laying off workers. Danish ice cream maker Lars Fenner says sales are "10 to 15% below normal."

In Vienna, Hubert Pichler, who works in an outdoor amusement park, says, "I already made 10% less business in May and in June I was down almost 30%. We've only had three days of real summer this year..."

15,000 people died in France in last year's heat wave, so the government spent $82 million to install air conditioners in retirement homes, but most of them haven't even been turned on yet.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WEATHER/07/15/euro.wacky.weather.ap/index.html

[Moderator]

1. Thought provoking article but please remember DU copyright rules.

"DU copyright rules require that excerpts of copyrighted
material be limited to four paragraphs."

Thanks!
Moderator

[Moderator]

2. In a related vein

There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than for 55m years, enough to melt all the ice on the
planet and submerge cities like London, New York and New Orleans, Sir David King, the government's
chief scientific adviser has warned. Speaking on his return from Moscow, where he has been acting as
the prime minister's "unofficial envoy" to persuade the Russians to ratify the Kyoto protocol to fight
climate change, Sir David said the most recent science bore out the worst predictions.

An ice core 3km deep from the Antarctic had a record of the climate for 800,000 years and showed the
direct relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and warm and cold periods
for the planet.

Critical in climate records is the quantity of ice at the poles and in glaciers. Records show that at the
peak of the ice age 12,000 years ago, the sea was 150 metres below where it is now. "You might think
it is not wise, since we are currently melting ice so fast, to have built our big cities on the edge of the
sea where it is now obvious they cannot remain.

EDIT

Records of the 3km deep Antarctic ice core showed that during ice ages the carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere was around 200 parts per million (ppm), and during warm periods reached around 270
ppm, before sinking back down again for another ice age. That pattern had been repeated many times
in that period but had now been broken because of the intervention of man. Carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere had reached 360 ppm in the 1990s and now was up to 379 ppm and increasing at the rate
of 3 ppm a year - reaching a level not seen for 55m years when there was no ice on the planet because
the atmosphere was too warm."

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1260750,00.html

Meanwhile back here at the ranch, Alfred E. Neumann aka Junior has taken the position, "Global Warming? What me worry, Nah." Like he told Woodward "History, who cares we'll all be dead."

[indigobusiness]

3. OK but

Since much of that was one liners, and not real paragrahs, I thought it was limited enough. Your snippet is as long. LOL
===
Thanks for the link, great info, I've been following it for nearly 20 yrs since Bob Heironymus sent me apacket of info that had some research about the Greenland ice that said that never in the history of the planet, as revealed in the ice cores, have the CO2 levels been this high without a resulting ice-age. The cores reveal the climate can shift in a matter of a decade or two into a full blown ice-age from a temperate climate like we are in now.

That's probably all in your article, which I will go read now.

Thanks.

"What, me worry?"