Extreme Weather

At the moment, people have been asking one main question about the weather, this being why has the weather been so unusually extreme around the world over these last couple of months. Meteorologists across the globe have been looking for a plausible explanation for it.

Man is lifted to safety in China floods

So floods and tornadoes in the US, drought in the UK, and high temperatures in many locations. Closer to home Snowdon was hot enough to  "Strip" in February but last Saturday it snowed there. China had a widespread "Once-in-a-100-year" drought. However, the Chinese government sent rockets up to seed the clouds with chemicals such as silver iodide. This caused massive flooding and 30cm of rain fell in 24 hours in some places. Floods and mudslides have killed 105 people and tens of thousands of people have lost their homes. The Chinese government has evacuated 500,000 people from the south of the country. The floods are continuing and the death toll is rising.

Temperatures in excess of 50C have been recorded in Kuwait and 49.6C was recorded in Rajasthan in India. However Colombia, the Amazon basin, Peru, Cuba, Kenya, Somalia and many other countries have all registered far more or less rainfall or major heatwaves in the past few years. Bangladesh has also encountered near record-breaking high temperatures over the last few weeks. Even Canada has seen very high temperatures with Toronto sizzling at 33C.

So what scientific explanation is to blame for all this? La Nina (Period of drifting warmer seas) is one acceptable possibility, and the increase in the extreme weather is climate change exaggerating the effects of El Nino or La Nina. So extreme temperatures, more widespread flooding, deeper snowfalls and heavier rain are to become the new "Normal" because of greenhouse gases building in the atmosphere.

However, is the warming of the world behind what is to blame for more extreme weather. The answer is yes. Environmental scientists can see the correlation between the warming of our planet and the intensifying extreme weather events. This is mainly because of warming seas which are contributing to the amount of moisture in the air, and the amount of energy being delivered to the atmosphere. Warm, wet air is the fuel of thunderstorms, hurricanes and general rain. This also leads to increasingly drier conditions in other areas, because the moisture has condensed to precipitation already.

So the World Meteorological Office concludes that the weather is going to return to normal again. But I quote John Vidal of the Guardian "The trouble is, no one is too sure what normal is any more."

Sources: John Vidal of The Guardian. There was a great article on increasing extreme weather in the Guardian on Monday and that is where I retrieved most of my information. Click on the link to see his article on the guardian online