Is Anyone Else Seeing a Pattern Here?

Recent news:

• Near-record rainfall has caused massive flooding in the Detroit area that is blamed for at least one death and has made roads impassable, swamped vehicles and flooded basements, officials said.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/michigan-floods-at-least-1-dead-1-000-cars-abandoned-1.2734986
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• The country suffered almost €2bn (£1.6bn) worth of damage to homes, infrastructure and industry in May, when heavy rains caused rivers to burst their banks, sweep away roads and bridges and set off hundreds of landslides. More than 20 people died in Bosnia and more than 60 in Serbia.  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/08/bosnia-floods-missing-emergency
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• New York's heaviest downpour on record dumped a summer's worth of rain on parts of Long Island in a matter of hours on Wednesday, swamping highways before drivers could escape, flooding basements and causing at least one death.
  The 33cm recorded at the MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma during the morning was more than the area's normal combined total for June, July and August of 27cm.
  ^{http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Just-one-major-storm-floods-Long-Island-20140814}
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  Residents of Kamloops and other parts of southern B.C. are cleaning up after torrential rains soaked the region on Wednesday, causing flash flooding, power outages and small mudslides.  Environment Canada estimates the city of Kamloops was hit with about 25 mm of rain in about 20 minutes, flooding streets with muddy rivers of water, catching many people by surprise. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kamloops-cleans-up-from-flash-flooding-1.2716899
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Yup - there's a pattern - extreme flooding.  In fact,extreme weather events are becoming more common.   

 

The work shows so-called “blocking patterns”, where hot or wet weather remains stuck over a region for weeks causing heatwaves or floods, have more than doubled in summers over the last decade.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/11/extreme-weather-common-blocking-patterns

 So - maybe we should take climate change seriously. Actually do something, I mean.   Whaddya think?  Wanna keep rolling the dice - gambling that serious effects wont' happen while you're alive?   Looks like that's a bad bet.....

 

Write your MP.    Lobby the provincial government. 

 

 

Flooding in Japan

The extreme weather I mentioned in an earlier post looks like this in Kyushu, Japan.   26 people have died, and thousands are cutoff.

The weather eased somewhat on Sunday bringing temporary relief, but the Japan Meteorological Agency warned of more heavy rain, landslides and floods on the main southern island of Kyushu.
http://m.aljazeera.com/SE/201271551348100239

 What will it take to galvanize the Canadian government into taking action on climate change? What about Canadian citizens?  I know climate change deniers,  for Pete's sakes!

From Al Jazeera

Remember those floods and droughts in  2010?  Wildfires around Moscow?  Flooding in Pakistan and Oz?  So does this writer from Al Jazeera.

2010 proved to be a model year for what the planet can expect as the result of climate change. Huge floods occurred in Pakistan, Australia, and California. A record-breaking heat wave in Russia, and the severe die-offs of coral reefs underscored the acceleration of the global trends in Climate Change. Last year was also the 34th consecutive year that global temperatures have been above the 20th-century average, and nine of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 due to what scientists attribute to a 40 per cent increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution began....On February 16 two new studies published in the journal Nature confirmed the link between climate change and more extreme precipitation events. Based on measurements taken from over 6,000 weather stations, results revealed that human-induced heating of the planet has already made rainfall more intense, which has led to more severe floods.  The studies suggest that the planet's climatic system may well be more sensitive to small temperature increases than was previously believed....Warmer atmospheric temperatures means increasing moisture in the air, and thus greater amounts in precipitation events.

But isn't this nasty winter proof that the climate isn't warming?  In a word, no.

The current string of harsh winters around much of the globe for the last decade is also attributed to climate change, according to scientists who published a report in December.

"Recent severe winters [in Europe] like last year’s or the one of 2005-2006 do not conflict with the global warming picture, but rather supplement it," Vladimir Petoukhov, lead author of the study and a physicist at the Potsdam Institute reported.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/201132141536987194.html

We're going to have wilder, more extreme weather events as cliame change continues.

Extreme Weather

Unlike northern China, Queensland, Australia has no shortage of precipiation.  Are flooding and violent cyclones connected to climate change?  Cliamte change models predict extreme weather events ......

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/feb/16/climate-change-extreme-weather

....we begin to see trends which suggest that rising temperatures are making a particular kind of weather more likely to occur. One such trend has now become clearer. Two new papers, published by Nature, should make us sit up, as they suggest for the first time a clear link between global warming and extreme precipitation (precipitation means water falling out of the sky in any form: rain, hail or snow.)

Maybe we should worry ......

Flooding In Pakistan

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/emergencies/pakistan-floods2010.html

With what we know about climate change, it is a sad fact that for Oxfam the recent floods in Pakistan are not a massive surprise.

This is not the same as saying this particular flood is due to climate change - the world’s atmosphere is so complex that it is currently impossible to draw such direct, concrete conclusions. However as Oxfam research in three regions of Pakistan shows, people there are suffering more intense and heavier rainfall in coastal areas, more intense cyclones, more intense flooding in flood-prone areas along the Indus, and more pronounced droughts in the arid areas of Khuzdar. It is this flooding along the Indus that is causing such massive upheaval now.

This trend of more frequent, more intense weather patterns - and the increased suffering it brings - is a global phenomenon. Oxfam’s ‘Right to Survive’ report indicates that we can expect the number of people being affected by climate related disasters to rise by 50% from 250 million people in 2010 to 375 million people in 2015.

And that’s why as we react to the immediate needs of people suffering today and this week we need to help the people rebuild in a way that will build in future resilience to the more intense, more frequent climatic disasters that are expected in the future.

Climate models predict more frequent extreme weather events - looks like they are right.   So when is Canada going to take some meaningful steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?

Climate CHange

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/13/peru-glacier-ice-lake-tsunami

A massive ice block broke from a glacier and crashed into a lake in the Peruvian Andes, unleashing a 23-metre tsunami and sending muddy torrents through nearby towns, killing at least one person.....César Álvarez, governor of Ancash region, which includes the affected area, blamed climate change. "Because of global warming the glaciers are going to detach and fall on these overflowing lakes. This is what happened,"...It was the latest evidence that glaciers are vanishing from Peru, which has 70% of the world's tropical icefields. They have retreated by 22% since 1975, according to a World Bank report, and warmer temperatures are expected to erase them entirely within 20 years.  The same phenomenon is under way in neighbouring Bolivia, where the Chacaltaya glacier, 5,000 metres (17,400ft) up in the Andes, used to be the world's highest ski run. Predictions that it would survive until 2015 seem to be optimistic: according to recent pictures a few lumps of ice near the summit are all that remains.  The World Bank report warned that the disappearance of Andean ice sheets would threaten hydro-electric power and the water supplies of nearly 80 million people.

More evidence - are we going to do something? 

Write the Prime Minister a letter instructing him to meet the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil.
Ditto your Premier.   Explore starting or getting involved in a Transition Town at your local level.
Belonging to a community that shares your concerns  about the effects of climate change is very empowering. The last is probably the most important step you can take for two reasons.  It is realatively easy to influence local politics - and you won't feel  insignicant , alone, and powerless.  Your community will create the velvet climate revolution!

Easy Like Water - From Al Jazeera (Original Post Jan 19, 2010 )

Floating schools, alternate energy , solar power, access to healthcare, and the empowement of  women: watch this!  Yes, it is long - but worth it. 

Bangladesh is living with climate change right now and adapting with acumen and determination.  The developed world emitted the greenhouse gases that are causing Bangladeshi  land to disappear under the waters.  Therefore, is it not up to us in the developed world to do our part by reducing greenhouse gas emissions?

Expect More

More flooding, that is. 
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/11/24/bc-duncan-cowichan-flood-damage.html

About 300 households in Duncan and North Cowichan were issued evacuation orders last Friday after heavy rains, melting snow and a high tide led two local rivers to overflow their dykes and flood some low-lying neighbourhoods with up to one metre of water.
As the cleanup efforts continued, some residents questioned whether the North Cowichan Regional District could have reacted more quickly to the threat, and want to know what it plans to do to prevent similar disasters.

Sounds quite familiar to anyone who browses the provincial Ministry of Environment website at
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/climate/about/impacts-bc.htm
The Ministry of Environment for BC suggests that effects of climate change will include:

 increased river flood risks in the spring and coastal flooding associated with storm surges.

The residents of the Cowichan Valley are right to wonder what plans all levels of governmnet are making to prevent similar disasters.   These disasters will become all too familiar if we don't reduce our production of greenhouse gas emissions forthwith.  Please email the Prime Minister and as him to commit to binding, science based targets at the UN Conference in Copenhagen.

Floods in Cockermouth, Britain and Climate Change

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6622961/Cumbria-floods-Gordon-Brown-pledges-extra-1m-for-stricken-area.html

David Balmforth, a flooding expert at the Institution of Civil Engineers, said deluges on a similar scale will become more frequent as a result of climate change. He said: "Climate change means that is only going to get worse. We cannot hope to defend ourselves from flooding on this scale. "Instead we need to make our communities much more resilient to flooding and this must be placed at the heart of the way we plan, design and build our towns and villages."

Climate change is real - and its effects will get much worse if we don't act now.  Email the Prime Minister - or, perhaps, Barack Obama since the Right Honorable Stephen Harper seems to be awaiting his lead.