I got this yesterday from someone at I-Renew.
Ready to volunteer for Howard Dean's campaign yet?
Phil
On Sunday, July 6, 2003, at 11:50 AM, Jack Eastman wrote:

> http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/
> story.jsp?story=421166&host=3&dir=507
>
> Reaping the whirlwind
>
> Extreme weather prompts unprecedented global warming alert
>
> 03 July 2003
>
> In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme weather,
> the
> World Meteorological Organisation signalled last night that the world's
> weather is going haywire.
>
> In a startling report, the WMO, which normally produces detailed
> scientific
> reports and staid statistics at the year's end, highlighted record
> extremes
> in weather and climate occurring all over the world in recent weeks,
> from
> Switzerland's hottest-ever June to a record month for tornadoes in the
> United States - and linked them to climate change.
>
> The unprecedented warning takes its force and significance from the
> fact
> that it is not coming from Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, but
> from an
> impeccably respected UN organisation that is not given to hyperbole
> (though
> environmentalists will seize on it to claim that the direst warnings of
> climate change are being borne out).
>
> The Geneva-based body, to which the weather services of 185 countries
> contribute, takes the view that events this year in Europe, America
> and Asia
> are so remarkable that the world needs to be made aware of it
> immediately.
>
> The extreme weather it documents, such as record high and low
> temperatures,
> record rainfall and record storms in different parts of the world, is
> consistent with predictions of global warming. Supercomputer models
> show
> that, as the atmosphere warms, the climate not only becomes hotter but
> much
> more unstable. "Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the
> global
> temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number and
> intensity of extreme events might increase," the WMO said, giving a
> striking
> series of examples.
>
> In southern France, record temperatures were recorded in June, rising
> above
> 40C in places - temperatures of 5C to 7C above the average.
>
> In Switzerland, it was the hottest June in at least 250 years,
> environmental
> historians said. In Geneva, since 29 May, daytime temperatures have not
> fallen below 25C, making it the hottest June recorded.
>
> In the United States, there were 562 May tornadoes, which caused 41
> deaths.
> This set a record for any month. The previous record was 399 in June
> 1992.
>
> In India, this year's pre-monsoon heatwave brought peak temperatures
> of 45C
> - 2C to 5C above the norm. At least 1,400 people died in India due to
> the
> hot weather. In Sri Lanka, heavy rainfall from Tropical Cyclone 01B
> exacerbated wet conditions, resulting in flooding and landslides and
> killing
> at least 300 people. The infrastructure and economy of south-west Sri
> Lanka
> was heavily damaged. A reduction of 20-30 per cent is expected in the
> output
> of low-grown tea in the next three months.
>
> Last month was also the hottest in England and Wales since 1976, with
> average temperatures of 16C. The WMO said: "These record extreme events
> (high temperatures, low temperatures and high rainfall amounts and
> droughts)
> all go into calculating the monthly and annual averages, which, for
> temperatures, have been gradually increasing over the past 100 years.
>
> "New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe,
> but in
> recent years the number of such extremes have been increasing.
>
> "According to recent climate-change scientific assessment reports of
> the
> joint WMO/United Nations Environmental Programme Intergovernmental
> Panel on
> Climate Change, the global average surface temperature has increased
> since
> 1861. Over the 20th century the increase has been around 0.6C.
>
> "New analyses of proxy data for the northern hemisphere indicate that
> the
> increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the
> largest in any century during the past 1,000 years."
>
> While the trend towards warmer temperatures has been uneven over the
> past
> century, the trend since 1976 is roughly three times that for the whole
> period.
>
> Global average land and sea surface temperatures in May 2003 were the
> second
> highest since records began in 1880. Considering land temperatures
> only,
> last May was the warmest on record.
>
> It is possible that 2003 will be the hottest year ever recorded. The 10
> hottest years in the 143-year-old global temperature record have now
> all
> been since 1990, with the three hottest being 1998, 2002 and 2001.
>
> The unstable world of climate change has long been a prediction. Now,
> the
> WMO says, it is a reality.
>
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