| CHANNELS SERVICES |  
Global warming continued through 2003 as Europe's hottest summer on record helped fuel the third warmest year on record worldwide, international weather experts at the UN said on Tuesday. The UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said in its annual statement on the global climate that the rising average temperatures helped generate exceptional drought, floods, hurricanes and typhoons. Meanwhile, global insurers counted the cost of the impact of extreme weather, as storm damage accounted for eight billion dollars in damage claims in 2003, according to one of the world's largest re-insurance companies, SwissRe. "This year was very warm but it was not the warmest ever, very probably it will be in third place among the warmest years," said Michel Jarraud, deputy secretary general of the WMO. "Temperatures since 1976 have progressed three times more than during the 20th century, so the rate of increase in temperatures is accelerating," he added. The global average temperature this year was expected to have risen by 0.45 degrees Celsius by the end of December, WMO said. The warmest year so far was recorded in 1998, with a rise of 0.55 degrees Celsius in global temperatures, capping the warmest century in the millennium, according to the agency, which groups the world's national weather forecasters. The second warmest was 2002. Average temperatures rose more sharply in the northern hemisphere in 2003 than in the southern hemisphere, with unprecedented highs in western Europe over the summer, WMO found. "In France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Britain and Spain, there were an estimated 21,000 deaths linked to this heatwave, so it was really something exceptional," Jarraud told journalists. The heat also melted glaciers in Europe's mountain ranges twice as fast as the record set in 1998, while the Arctic ice pack shrank in September, approaching the record low of 5.3 million square kilometres (2.2 square miles) set in 2002, WNMO said. But Europe's weather was matched by heatwaves in parts of the United States including Alaska, Canada, parts of China, Russia, and Africa as well as unusually intense heat in the Indian subcontinent before the monsoon season. There were more typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes than average in the Pacific and Atlantic regions, although the pattern matched an increase recorded since the 1990s, WMO said. SwissRe reported in preliminary estimates released Tuesday that storms accounted for the bulk of the 15 billion dollars in damages caused by natural catastorphes. The five most costly disasters during 2003 happened in the United States and Canada, and they were all weather-related, it added in a statement. Each led to claims of more than one billion dollars. They included a record series of 400 tornadoes that ravaged the US Mid-West in May and Hurricane Isabel which swept into the northeastern US and Canadian province of Ontario in September, while wildfires raged in California a month later. "Global warming is likely to lead to more frequent extreme events and... to more intense extreme events, but that doesn't mean climate change is an explanation of any particular extreme," Jarraud commented. The exceptional weather conditions also triggered unusually cold weather in the Gulf state of Oman, parts of Asia around Japan, and Russia where temperatures plunged to minus 45 degrees Celsius during the winter. The extreme temperatures helped generate floods and drought in several parts of the world, including the United States and China. The WMO also blamed the heat for triggering massive bushfires in Australia which burnt for 59 days in January and February. Yet the shifting weather patterns also brought welcome respite from long standing drought for some. Rain and snowfall ended four years of drought in Afghanistan, filling water reservoirs that had been dry for years, while the Sahel region of the Sahara desert, once the scene of famine, experienced record rainfall. The WMO's data on annual temperature change is based on an average of temperatures between 1961 and 1990, which is used as a reference. All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Quick Links   Nov 02, 2006 |
|
The contents herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2004 - SpaceDaily. AFP Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |