All around the mainstream media and the blogosphere there is news about the weird (and scary) things the weather is doing around the world. I was talking to my grandmother in Australia this morning and in the small NSW country town where she lives it was 41C today. (Not that one day of that is remarkable, but there’ve been a lot more of those days than usual.)
But I think this photo definitely wins the prize for the weirdest and wackiest example of the phenomenon. (And it is a flower that can even keep itself warm, it seems, should the weather turn…)
That’s the entertainment, now the bad news:
A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by The Observer, shows the frequency of devastating storms – like the ones that battered Britain last week – will increase dramatically. Sea levels will rise over the century by around half a metre; snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains; deserts will spread; oceans become acidic, leading to the destruction of coral reefs and atolls; and deadly heatwaves will become more prevalent….
The really chilling thing about the IPCC report is that it is the work of several thousand climate experts who have widely differing views about how greenhouse gases will have their effect. Some think they will have a major impact, others a lesser role. Each paragraph of this report was therefore argued over and scrutinised intensely. Only points that were considered indisputable survived this process. This is a very conservative document – that’s what makes it so scary,’ said one senior UK climate expert.
And more bad news from another study:
This evening Sir David Attenborough will explain what that means, showing in detail the alarming consequences for Britain — how climate change will affect us all. Specifically, Attenborough presents three snapshots, from 2020, 2050 and 2080. One key point is the increased likelihood of heatwaves. The murderously hot summer of 2003 is 25 times more likely to recur by 2020.
It will be regarded as a normal summer by 2050 — and might even seem cool by 2080.
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