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  Straits Times 9 Aug 07
In Singapore: No extreme conditions, but it's getting hotter and wetter
By Arti Mulchand

Straits Times 9 Aug 07
Asia bears the brunt of world's wacky weather
Storms have killed or displaced thousands in some regions, while other areas are bone-dry By Rupali Karekar

Yahoo News 7 Aug 07
Early 2007 saw record-breaking extreme weather: U.N.
By Laura MacInnis

Yahoo News 7 Aug 07
UN: Weather extremes match forecast

Floods in Asia, a cyclone in the Middle East, and extreme temperatures around the globe since the start of the year have borne out warnings in a key climate change report, an expert with the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday.

"The start of the year 2007 was a very active year in terms of extreme climatic and meteorological events," said Omar Baddour, a climatologist with the World Meteorological Organization.

In May the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its fourth report, warning that global warming would increase the number of extreme weather events and cause more natural disasters that will hit the poor hardest. Global surface temperatures in January — when Europe experienced an unusually mild winter — were the highest since records began.

According to data compiled by WMO, temperatures measurements were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit above the 127-year average. The Geneva-based agency said April temperatures around the world rose 2.46 degrees above the average since 1880.

Record storms, floods and heat waves have since occurred in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. Hundreds have died and thousands have lost their livelihoods in floods since the start of the year in China, South Asia, Mozambique, Sudan and Uruguay, while the period from May to July was the wettest in England and Wales since records began in 1766, WMO said.

It said two heat waves in southeastern Europe in June and July broke previous records, with temperatures in Bulgaria hitting 113 degrees on July 23.

Other extreme events this year include rare snowfall in South Africa and Argentina, and the first cyclone ever documented in the Arabian Sea, according to WMO.

"When we observe such extremes in individual years, it means that this fits well with current knowledge from the IPCC report on global trends," Baddour told The Associated Press.

Baddour said it was too soon to say whether global temperatures for the whole of 2007 would remain at such high levels.

But he added that climate scientists had reached a consensus that weather extremes have increased over the past 50 years and that this trend would likely continue.

"There is no other consensus model than this one," he said.

Yahoo News 7 Aug 07
Early 2007 saw record-breaking extreme weather: U.N.
By Laura MacInnis

The world experienced a series of record-breaking weather events in early 2007, from flooding in Asia to heatwaves in Europe and snowfall in South Africa, the United Nations weather agency said on Tuesday.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said global land surface temperatures in January and April were likely the warmest since records began in 1880, at more than 1 degree Celsius higher than average for those months.

There have also been severe monsoon floods across South Asia, abnormally heavy rains in northern Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay, extreme heatwaves in southeastern Europe and Russia, and unusual snowfall in South Africa and South America this year, the WMO said.

"The start of the year 2007 was a very active period in terms of extreme weather events," Omar Baddour of the agency's World Climate Program told journalists in Geneva.

While most scientists believe extreme weather events will be more frequent as heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions cause global temperatures to rise, Baddour said it was impossible to say with certainty what the second half of 2007 will bring.

"It is very difficult to make projections for the rest of the year," he said.

HEALTH CRISIS

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N. umbrella group of hundreds of experts, has noted an increasing trend in extreme weather events over the past 50 years and said irregular patterns are likely to intensify.

South Asia's worst monsoon flooding in recent memory has affected 30 million people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, destroying croplands, livestock and property and raising fears of a health crisis in the densely-populated region.

Heavy rains also doused southern China in June, with nearly 14 million people affected by floods and landslides that killed 120 people, the WMO said. England and Wales this year had their wettest May and June since records began in 1766, resulting in extensive flooding and more than $6 billion in damage, as well as at least nine deaths.

Germany swung from its driest April since country-wide observations started in 1901 to its wettest May on record. Mozambique suffered its worst floods in six years in February, followed by a tropical cyclone the same month, and flooding of the Nile River in June caused damage in Sudan. Uruguay had its worst flooding since 1959 in May.

Huge swell waves swamped some 68 islands in the Maldives in May, resulting in severe damage, and the Arabian Sea had its first documented cyclone in June, touching Oman and Iran.

Temperature records were broken in southeastern Europe in June and July, and in western and central Russia in May. In many European countries, April was the warmest ever recorded. Argentina and Chile saw unusually cold winter temperatures in July while South Africa had its first significant snowfall since 1981 in June.

The WMO and its 188 member states are working to set up an early warning system for extreme weather events.

The agency is also seeking to improve monitoring of the impacts of climate change, particularly in poorer countries which are expected to bear the brunt of floods, droughts and storms.

Straits Times 9 Aug 07
Asia bears the brunt of world's wacky weather
Storms have killed or displaced thousands in some regions, while other areas are bone-dry By Rupali Karekar

ASIA has borne the brunt of extreme weather conditions this year with exceptionally heavy downpours during the annual rainy season and drought in some areas.

China disclosed yesterday that up 1,400 people have been killed so far in natural calamities as yet another powerful tropical storm approached its eastern coastline.

The casualty toll from the worst monsoon-triggered flooding in decades in South Asia, including India, Bangladesh and Nepal, exceeds 1,900.

Some parts of China have had too much rain, and others too little, this summer. Nearly two million people are facing drought in the central and southern provinces with temperatures topping out at about 40 deg C, while killer storms were unleashed on the country's northern parts. In one county of Shanxi province, it rained for 36 hours non-stop from Saturday evening, officials said.

China has already partly blamed global warming for the unusually harsh weather. Mr Song Lianchun of the China Meteorological Administration said yesterday: 'One of the reasons for the weather extremes this year has been unusual atmospheric circulation brought about by global warming.

'These kind of extremes will become more frequent and more obvious. This has already been borne out by the facts. I think the impact on our country will definitely be very large.'

Indian officials were more sceptical about global warming being responsible for the current devastating floods in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Assam states. Bangladesh and parts of Nepal are also reeling from unprecedented rains in the first half of the monsoon season.

Mr M. Rajeevan of the Indian Meteorological Department said the average annual rainfall across the country did not appear to have changed much. He said: 'What has changed - and risen significantly - is the number of extreme rainfall events.'

Four monsoon depressions, which caused the rains and subsequent flooding in South Asia, were double the normal frequency, a report by the United Nations' World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Tuesday.

Other countries in the region have also not escaped the wrath of nature. Tropical Storm Pabuk triggered landslides in the Philippines, killing at least 11 people, then blew across Taiwan's southern tip, disrupting power supplies to 3,000 households. It was heading towards the eastern coast of China yesterday.

Meanwhile, in the northern Philippines, a long dry spell that has destroyed crops and hampered power generation looks set to worsen. More than 127,000ha of farmland have withered due to lower-than-normal rainfall and officials have warned that, if the conditions persist, a drought could develop. Indonesia has also not been spared the foul weather.

Last month, continuous rain caused landslides and floods up to 3m high in Sulawesi, submerging hundreds of homes. Floods also hit Jakarta in February after several days of torrential rain, affecting more than 280,000 people.

Elsewhere, in May a series of large waves, estimated at 3.6m high, swamped almost 68 islands in 16 atolls in the Maldives off south India, causing serious flooding and extensive damage.

The Arabian Sea also had its first documented cyclone in June, touching Oman and Iran.

The Geneva-based WMO has already noted that extreme weather events worldwide this year were well outside the historical norm. It said these events were a precursor of much greater weather variability as global warming transforms the planet.

'The beginning of 2007 was very active in terms of extreme weather events,' WMO scientist Omar Baddour said on Tuesday. 'It is very difficult to make projections for the rest of the year.'

But he said climate scientists agreed that weather extremes had increased over the past 50 years and that this trend was likely to continue.

Straits Times 9 Aug 07
In Singapore: No extreme conditions, but it's getting hotter and wetter
By Arti Mulchand

SINGAPORE may have been spared the wild weather battering parts of the world which a United Nations report has attributed to climate change.

But that is not to say the country has been untouched by global warming and its effects.

In the last 50 years, the country has seen an average temperature increase of between 1 and 1.5 deg C, according to the National Environment Agency (NEA). Mean daily temperatures every month since the beginning of the year have also been higher than the long-term daily mean.

That is consistent with what is happening around the world. According to the UN's World Meteorological Organisation, the global surface temperature was 1.89 deg warmer than average in January and 1.37 deg warmer in April.

And according to a series of reports released this year by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global warming will mean more frequent hot extremes, heatwaves and heavy rain.

Singapore has experienced more severe monsoons of late, though the NEA said there was 'no conclusive evidence' that this was related to global warming.

During the north-east monsoon late last year, for instance, Singapore had its wettest December on record, with 765.9mm of rain between Dec 1 and Dec 28. Dec 19 alone had 366mm of rain, the third-highest ever for a single day. This January recorded 450.1mm compared to the average for that month of 242.4mm. March and April were also wetter than usual.

Singapore is currently experiencing a dry season which has seen more than its normal share of rain. This is due to a weak La Nina phenomenon, characterised by cooler-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean which affect atmospheric pressure and create more rain.

Last month, about three-quarters of Singapore experienced above-average rainfall. The highest was recorded in the south-west, between 120 per cent and 160 per cent more.

These events were not considered extreme, said the NEA, since the figures remained below recorded maximums.

January 1893, when 818.6mm of rain fell, remains the wettest month ever.

Singapore is conducting its first climate change vulnerability study. Among other things, this study will look at the probability of severe storms and the possibility of warm temperature extremes. Preliminary findings will be released next year.
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