Abundance and velocity and direction of rain is changing. Due to this change less crop production is noticed.
Climate has not only become warmer – it has also become more extreme, new research shows.
Keywords: Climate, Extreme weather, The Earth, The Future
By: Kristian Sjøgren
We often think of climate change as something that will occur at some point in the future. But that’s not the case. Climate change is upon us right now, according to a new, Danish-led international research project.In the study, Scandinavian researchers have collected temperature measurements from 14 monitoring stations in Greenland. The scientists have been measuring temperature on Greenalnd every three or six hours for up to 120 years. The measurements show that Greenland is warmer today than ever before. They also show that the weather has become more usntable.
”When temperature development since the 1890s is looked at, it canbe suggested that the decade from 2001 to 2010 was the warmest decade in the past 120 years. It was also the decade with the largest number of warm temperature extremes,” says the Danish lead author of the accepted and as yet unpublished study in the International Journal of Climatology, senior researcher Sebastian H. Mernild, of the Glaciology and Climate Change Laboratory, Centro de Estudios Cientificos, Chile.
Warmer today than in the 1930s and 1940s
Climate sceptics often point out that the weather in the warm period in the 1930s and 1940s was warmer than it is today. Therefore, they argue, the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere do not cause global warming as there is more CO2 in our atmosphere today than back then.
The new study refutes this argument. It is warmer today than in the 1930s and the 1940s. At the same time, there are about 50 percent more cases of extreme heat events in the 2000s than in the 1930s and the 1940s.
Sebastian H. Mernild says: ”Our findings show that it is warmer today than in the 1930s and the 1940s, at the same time, there are about 50 percent more cases of extreme heat events in the 2000s than in the 1930s and the 1940s”. As known heat makes the atmosphere more unstable. Extreme heat events are interesting for researchers, since they are directly linked with the impact of climate warming.
When atmospheric temperature rises, it becomes more unstable over time, which makes weather unstable as well. This indicates a strong link between generally higher temperatures in the atmosphere and more events with larger temperature fluctuations. One of these fluctuations came in the summer of 2012, when NASA reported that 97 percent of the Greenland ice sheet was melting. Meanwhile, large amounts of melt water has flown into Greenland fjords, which causes major damage in the area.
Can we expect to see more of these events in the future?
”My estimate is that we are moving towards a more extreme climate as the atmospheric temperatures rise,” says a Danish scientist. “Due to the expected warmer climate in the future, we can expect that e.g. the Greenland inland ice sheet will be exposed to significantly more melting events as we saw in the summer of 2012.”
Temperature extremes are defined as the 10 percent warmest and coldest temperatures that can be achieved at a given location. Researchers in this study measured how many times the temperatures in various parts of Greenland were within this threshold space. Roughly speaking, temperatures below minus 35 Celsius constitutes a cold extreme in the northern part of Greenland, whereas plus 10 degrees Celsius constitutes a warm extreme. For the southern part of Greenland these figures are minus and plus 20 degrees Celsius, respectively.
Over the past 120 years the temperature extremes have been distributed as follows:
The decade with the greatest number of cold extremes was the 1890s.
The heat period during the 1930s and the 1940s saw few cold extremes; however,
there was a great number of heat extremes, only surpassed by the 2000s.
The decade from 2001 to 2010 has seen the greatest number of heat extremes in
the past 120 years, and this decade had no cold extremes at all.
”It’s also interesting to see that not only is there a change in the extremes, but at the same time we’re seeing more of them,” he says. “Even though no cold extremes occurred in the 2000s, that decade still had more temperature extremes than the others, even when you combine the heat and cold extremes during those decades.”
The greatest change occurring in East Greenland. When the researchers separate their data for East Greenland and West Greenland, they can see which parts of the island have had the greatest changes in temperature extremes over the past 50 years.
From 1960 to 1985, East Greenland saw more cold extreme events than West Greenland, but after 1985 this changed so that East Greenland actually had more warm extreme events. This trend has continued till today.
”There has been a shift in the Greenland climate. The greatest change occurred in the eastern part of the island, where the weather appears to be dominated by the conditions around the Atlantic Ocean and Northern Europe. On the other hand, there hasn’t been the same degree of changes in the western part of the island, where the weather appears to be dominated by the North American continent,” says Mernild, pointing out that any speculation about why this is so must wait until the latest data have been incorporated into larger regional climate models.
Hence Ramachandra, yes in the subcontinent of Greenland, climate is changing in many modes. With more frequent massive ice sheet meltdowns.
In the meantime manu countries around teh Arctic waiting till the Arctic sea is iceless. The they can move in pump up gas end oil, to allow even higher emissions of CO2 in the atmosphere. Humankind is merciless for the Earth's climate.
CHeers,
Frank
Phase shifts in raining period is very much evident with the northeast monsoon along Tamilnadu coast
Number of rainy days reduced, with bulk rain fall on few days leading to water flooding of water without much ground recharges
to observe climate change not only in Algeria but also in different countries, I recommend you to visit website http://www.tutiempo.net/
You need to do a statistical analysis to determine the significance of changes
Here are some amateur observations from someone who lives in Eastern Canada. My home is approximately 45 degrees north latitude. The province lies adjacent to an ocean current that flows from the Arctic, and this delays the change of seasons (each of which begins later than would be normal at this latitude). I have noticed that leaves on deciduous trees break out about 2 weeks earlier now than 30 years ago, and we are less likely to have snow at Christmas (December 25). Tomatoes are more likely to ripen properly in the garden, but I don't know whether this is due to climate change or to improvement of short-season varieties. Regarding overall crop production, it is probably unaffected because there are some gains (due to slightly longer productive season) and some losses (due to slightly greater frequency of damaging storms).
dear colleagues,
here in the Netherlands (or more generally, western Europe, such changes have definitely been documented. On the one hand, the Dutch meteorological institute has published about such trends in timing of seasons, and incidence of extreme weather, and on the other hand its consequences for biota is monitored (e.g. website "natuurkalender.nl",, which means nature-calendar). a good example of effects of climate change on biological systems is also our two papers on the effect of climatic warming on color polymorphism in the 2-spot ladybird beetle (de jong & brakefield, 1998; brakefield & de jong, 2011). I guess you may expect a lot of responses to your question, since such effects are now quite ubiquitous, it seems...
Hi Prof Mohan and et al. My discussion is related to Australia
Australia’s rainfall is highly variable. Australia has the lowest average annual rainfall of all inhabited continents; please note that about half of the country receives an average of less than 300 mm per year. There has been a recent 13-year drought in the southern Murray-Darling Basin. Rainfall over much of the populous eastern coastal region (eastern and south-western Australia) has declined since the 1950s, on the other hand North-western Australia has seen a substantial increase in annual rainfall in the same period. The future projection is that there will be a reduction in rainfall for southern areas of Australia (in winter), and in southern and eastern areas (in spring). However, there is some uncertainty in future changes in summer tropical rainfall in Northern Australia
such climatic changes are visibly observed in Nigeria too. i feel the world is gradually coming to terms with climatic changes taking place with a call for world leaders to take drastic steps to mitigate the resultant effect of these changes
Climate has not only become warmer – it has also become more extreme, new research shows.
Keywords: Climate, Extreme weather, The Earth, The Future
By: Kristian Sjøgren
We often think of climate change as something that will occur at some point in the future. But that’s not the case. Climate change is upon us right now, according to a new, Danish-led international research project.In the study, Scandinavian researchers have collected temperature measurements from 14 monitoring stations in Greenland. The scientists have been measuring temperature on Greenalnd every three or six hours for up to 120 years. The measurements show that Greenland is warmer today than ever before. They also show that the weather has become more usntable.
”When temperature development since the 1890s is looked at, it canbe suggested that the decade from 2001 to 2010 was the warmest decade in the past 120 years. It was also the decade with the largest number of warm temperature extremes,” says the Danish lead author of the accepted and as yet unpublished study in the International Journal of Climatology, senior researcher Sebastian H. Mernild, of the Glaciology and Climate Change Laboratory, Centro de Estudios Cientificos, Chile.
Warmer today than in the 1930s and 1940s
Climate sceptics often point out that the weather in the warm period in the 1930s and 1940s was warmer than it is today. Therefore, they argue, the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere do not cause global warming as there is more CO2 in our atmosphere today than back then.
The new study refutes this argument. It is warmer today than in the 1930s and the 1940s. At the same time, there are about 50 percent more cases of extreme heat events in the 2000s than in the 1930s and the 1940s.
Sebastian H. Mernild says: ”Our findings show that it is warmer today than in the 1930s and the 1940s, at the same time, there are about 50 percent more cases of extreme heat events in the 2000s than in the 1930s and the 1940s”. As known heat makes the atmosphere more unstable. Extreme heat events are interesting for researchers, since they are directly linked with the impact of climate warming.
When atmospheric temperature rises, it becomes more unstable over time, which makes weather unstable as well. This indicates a strong link between generally higher temperatures in the atmosphere and more events with larger temperature fluctuations. One of these fluctuations came in the summer of 2012, when NASA reported that 97 percent of the Greenland ice sheet was melting. Meanwhile, large amounts of melt water has flown into Greenland fjords, which causes major damage in the area.
Can we expect to see more of these events in the future?
”My estimate is that we are moving towards a more extreme climate as the atmospheric temperatures rise,” says a Danish scientist. “Due to the expected warmer climate in the future, we can expect that e.g. the Greenland inland ice sheet will be exposed to significantly more melting events as we saw in the summer of 2012.”
Temperature extremes are defined as the 10 percent warmest and coldest temperatures that can be achieved at a given location. Researchers in this study measured how many times the temperatures in various parts of Greenland were within this threshold space. Roughly speaking, temperatures below minus 35 Celsius constitutes a cold extreme in the northern part of Greenland, whereas plus 10 degrees Celsius constitutes a warm extreme. For the southern part of Greenland these figures are minus and plus 20 degrees Celsius, respectively.
Over the past 120 years the temperature extremes have been distributed as follows:
The decade with the greatest number of cold extremes was the 1890s.
The heat period during the 1930s and the 1940s saw few cold extremes; however,
there was a great number of heat extremes, only surpassed by the 2000s.
The decade from 2001 to 2010 has seen the greatest number of heat extremes in
the past 120 years, and this decade had no cold extremes at all.
”It’s also interesting to see that not only is there a change in the extremes, but at the same time we’re seeing more of them,” he says. “Even though no cold extremes occurred in the 2000s, that decade still had more temperature extremes than the others, even when you combine the heat and cold extremes during those decades.”
The greatest change occurring in East Greenland. When the researchers separate their data for East Greenland and West Greenland, they can see which parts of the island have had the greatest changes in temperature extremes over the past 50 years.
From 1960 to 1985, East Greenland saw more cold extreme events than West Greenland, but after 1985 this changed so that East Greenland actually had more warm extreme events. This trend has continued till today.
”There has been a shift in the Greenland climate. The greatest change occurred in the eastern part of the island, where the weather appears to be dominated by the conditions around the Atlantic Ocean and Northern Europe. On the other hand, there hasn’t been the same degree of changes in the western part of the island, where the weather appears to be dominated by the North American continent,” says Mernild, pointing out that any speculation about why this is so must wait until the latest data have been incorporated into larger regional climate models.
Hence Ramachandra, yes in the subcontinent of Greenland, climate is changing in many modes. With more frequent massive ice sheet meltdowns.
In the meantime manu countries around teh Arctic waiting till the Arctic sea is iceless. The they can move in pump up gas end oil, to allow even higher emissions of CO2 in the atmosphere. Humankind is merciless for the Earth's climate.
CHeers,
Frank
During the 1970's thru the 1990's the weather fronts in the western
United States came from the North West.
After 2000, the moisture started coming from South West from the Pacific,
over the Baja
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