Another Year Of Freakish Weather Patterns.

"Breaking news in recent years has been swamped with stories of extreme weather - flash floods in East Asia, prolonged drought in Africa, destructive hurricanes like Hurricane Katrina, heavy monsoon rainfall in South Asia, and an historic heat wave in Europe. The effects of these weather crises have been devastating and their frequency seemingly on the rise." - A NASA Feb 2007 report

As climate experts warned that higher temperatures are a taste of things to come, the new year begins ominously with wacky weather patterns occurring in major countries around the world in the first week of 2008.

Bush fires in Australia

Australia started the new year with a spate of extreme weather conditions from heatwaves, heavy rainfall to flooding. Major cities, like Perth and Melbourne, suffered heatwaves with bushfires raging in the east and west coast while in Sydney, huge waves of up to 3 m high pounded the beaches, forcing their closure to the public. In northern Darwin, Cyclone Helen wrought havoc with winds of up to 130 kmh and a stretch of New South Wales coast was declared a natural disaster zone after five rivers in the east coast broke their banks amid heavy rainfall, with the flooding forcing people to flee their homes, submerging properties and bridges.

Winter storm in US
According to Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, Australia experienced its sixth warmest year on record last year, with an average annual temperature of 21.8 deg C, some 0.67 deg C above normal. The southern states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, as well as the major agricultural zone of Murray Darling Basin, experienced their hottest year since 1910.

These areas are home to the majority of Australia's population and formed about 75 per cent of the country's irrigated farmlands. "What we have seen in the past year is a confirmation of what we have known is going on. Australia is warming; it is warming quickly," said Mr. David Jones of the National Climate Centre. What made the higher temperatures abnormal was the fact that it came about as the country experienced the La Nina phenomenon - usually associated with cooler and wetter conditions.

Heavy flooding in Malaysia

Similiar freakish weather behaviour were also reported in other countries for the new year. In the US west coast, winter storms left hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in California, Oregon and Washington without power. Emergencies were declared in three counties in California and about 160 km of the Interstate 80 highway was closed. In Malaysia, sudden monsoon storms and heavy downpours caused heavy flooding in the states of Johor, Pahang and Kelantan, submerging homes and leaving thousands of people stranded without food and power.

Harbin Ice Festival
In China, higher temperatures are even hurting the most famous tourist attraction in the northern city of Harbin - its annual ice sculpture contest. Average annual temperatures in the city, dubbed the "City of Ice", hit 6.6 deg C last year, the highest since record-keeping began. Ice sculptures and lanterns melted right after they were sculpted and as the temperatures rises, the period of ice and snow activities shortened dramatically. "The average temperature of winter in Harbin is 5 deg C higher than historical records," said a senior meteorologist from the Heilongjiang Observatory.

The unbridled burning of fossil fuels have led to higher worldwide temperatures and changing weather patterns. With the world projected to experience a warmer 2008, and unless man can come to grips with reducing carbon emissions to mitigate the effects of climate change, the freakish and unpredictable weather patterns seems like here to stay

*Sources :
- NASA
- BBC News
- Science journal Nature
- Bureau of Meterology, Australia
- Heilongjiang Observatory, China

*Related post : The Impact of Global Warming on Rainfall and Flooding.

Global Warming And The Cradle Of Life.

"Increased carbon dioxide emissions are rapidly making the world's oceans more acidic and, if unabated, could cause a mass extinction of marine life..." - Carnegie Institution's Dept of Global Ecology Report Feb 2006.

Our oceans, the cradle of life, account for about 70 per cent of the Earth's surface and are home to a diverse range of life, from marine mammals like whales and dolphins to fishes, corals, crustaceans and exotic micro-organisms. Many, like the food fishes, are crucial to us and the oceans, as natural carbon sinks, perform an important role in maintaining atmospheric gaseous equilibrium through the carbon cycle.

But rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, due to the unbridled burning of fossil fuels especially over the last two to three decades, are causing the climate to warm resulting in rising water temperatures, and the oceans to become increasingly acidic.

A recent report, "Turning Up the Heat: How Global Warming Threatens Life in the Sea," by the World Wildlife Fund and Marine Conservation Biology Institute in June 2007, indicated that rising global temperatures are impacting ocean ecosystems to a far greater extent then previously thought. Wide spread changes are occurring across the entire marine food chain, from plankton, corals, fishes, seabirds to penguins and polar bears.

Coral reefs, the most biologically diverse and beautiful marine ecosystems, are suffering unprecedented devastation due to high surface water temperatures, with large numbers in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea, losing their polyps, turning completely white and dying - a process called bleaching. As a result, thousands of species of fishes and invertebrates that depend on the habitats that the reefs provide are in danger.

Dying corals off Florida's coast 1975 - 1995

Unchecked warming would also wipe out most of the habitat of the salmon species, eg. the Pacific Sockeye salmon, as they are extremely temperature-sensitive. In the waters off Australia, warmer oceans have sparked mass migration of species like the yellow-fin tuna, stinging jellyfish and sea turtles to the cooler waters in the south while in California, reef fish and inter-tidal invertebrates including sea anemones, crabs and snails are moving toward the poles in response to warming.


The biomass of phytoplankton, tiny marine plants that many marine organisms depend on for food, has also declined as a result of warmer oceans. Data released by researchers from the Oregon State University, after a ten-years analysis, indicated that phytoplankton productivity from 2000 onwards, declined by 190 million tons of carbon each year, with carbon as a unit of measurement of the amount of carbon dioxide they remove from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

The study clearly showed that overall phytoplankton biomass decreases as the climate warms. This also creates a vicious cycle. As carbon dioxide levels rise, with decrease in phytoplankton production, there will be less ocean plants to absorb this green house gas.

Coral bleaching

The declined in plankton biomass has also contributed to decreased reproduction and increased mortality of seabirds due to starvation as these plankton form the base of the birds' food chain. Between late 1980s and early 1990s, California's Sooty shearwaters population declined by 90 percent and Cassin's auklets by more than 50 per cent. Common murres also died by tens of thousands.

Besides warmer ocean temperatures, the rising amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide is also causing our oceans to be increasingly acidic which will adversely affect many organisms that use calcium carbonate for their skeletons and shells, including corals and molluscs. Carbon dioxide, when dissolved in the oceans, becomes carbonic acid and excessive amount of carbonic acid lowers the pH of the oceans, increases its acidity and endangers marine life.

This drop in ocean pH is especially damaging to hard-shell marine animals such as corals and shellfish that use calcium carbonate, a critical mineral, for the formation of their shells and growth. However, a more acidic ocean will easily dissolve calcium carbonate, just like a piece of chalk dissolving in vinegar.

For decades, the oceans' absorption of carbon dioxide have been viewed as an environmental plus, as it mitigates the effects of global warming. But by taking up about 30 per cent of the atmosphere's carbon dioxide, mainly produced through the burning of fossil fuels, our oceans ph levels have dropped by about 0.1 units on the 14-point scale since the Industrial Revolution.

Scientists expect that carbon dioxide emissions, if left unchecked, will further reduce the oceans ph levels by another 0.3 units by 2100 and the increased ocean acidification will have serious repercussions to all marine life from the smallest marine micro-organisms, molluscs, corals to large marine mammals like whales.

Failure to check and reduce carbon dioxide emissions today may mean that there will be no place in the oceans of the future for many of the species and ecosystems that we know today.

*Sources :
-Live Science
-Science Daily
-World Wildlife Fund
-Oregon State University
-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

*Related post :
- Magical Melodies & The Songs Of Pain

The Impact Of Global Warming On Rainfall And Flooding.

"Breaking news in recent years has been swamped with stories of extreme weather - flash floods in East Asia, prolonged drought in Africa, destructive hurricanes like Hurricane Katrina, heavy monsoon rainfall in South Asia, and an historic heat wave in Europe. The effects of these weather crises have been devastating and their frequency seemingly on the rise." - A NASA Feb 2007 report

When i was a boy, the year-end monsoon season always started somewhere in late October and will end around February of the following year, followed by the hot months from March to September. But the timing of this raining season has become unpredictable and had in fact, shifted in recent years. Together with sudden occurrences of heavy thunderstorms in what is suppose to be hot months and hot days during the traditional monsoon period, it all points to changes to our weather patterns and i am sure these freakish climate changes are not isolated to my country alone.

Global warming, the result of unbridled emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, leads to higher rainfall because a warming atmosphere contains more water vapour and more energy. An increase in global temperatures will cause an increase in evaporation and higher levels of water vapour. In addition, a warmer atmosphere is also capable of holding more water vapour. The excess water vapour will in turn lead to more frequent heavy and intense downpours which results in flooding, soil erosion, landslides and damage to structures and crops.

Besides causing increased rainfalls, global warming also leads to heavy flooding due to the impact of the massive amount of CO2 - the principle greenhouse gas - has on vegetation. During photosynthesis - the process in which plants make food and produce oxygen - CO2 enter plants thorough tiny holes in their leaves called stomata. Plants take water from the ground and secrete the excess thorough the stomata. But higher levels of CO2 in the air cause these tiny holes to open far less widely, leading to reduced water loss from the plants.

And with plants extracting less water from the soil in a warmer world, the soil becomes saturated and surplus water will then drain into rivers. "This will increase global flows by a further 6 per cent on top of the 11 per cent rise already predicted due to global warming," said a meteorologist at Britain's Met Office. Together with more water staying in the ground and the runoff into rivers, areas with increased rainfall will suffer severe flooding and flash floods.

According to recent study published by the British science journal Nature in Aug 2007, the risks of flooding may increase more than previously expected because intense precipitation events - heavy downpours - would be more likely to occur over areas with saturated ground.

Flooding is a major problem, especially in poor countries that do not have the money to invest in drainage systems to cope with runoffs from saturated soils. Since June this year, more than 3,200 people in South Asia have been killed as a result of heavy monsoon rains and snow melt and many more left homeless.

*Sources :
- NASA
- British science journal Nature
- Union of Concerned Scientists
- Climate Ark

*Related post : The Melting Of Our Polar Ice Caps.

Calculating Your Carbon Footprints.

Small lifestyle changes can go a long way in saving Earth from the effects of global warming and the easiest way is to reduce your carbon footprints - the amount of carbon dioxide that you emit from everyday activities.

From the moment you wake up each day, everything you do - eat, drink, shop to driving a car consumes energy that produces carbon dioxide and has an impact on the environment. Your carbon footprint represents the impact that you and your lifestyle have on our planet in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide.

In line with global target, aim to limit your carbon dioxide emissions to no more than 2.5 tonnes a year. As a guide, the average American has a footprint of 20 tonnes while the average Briton produces about 5 tonnes. Less energy consumed means less fossil fuels being burned which means less carbon dioxide emissions. You can calculate your carbon footprint at resurgence.org which provides calculators that can convert your utility bills and transport use into CO2 emissions. This should give you some idea of where you stand and you can then take steps to try and reduce it.

Other than reducing your carbon footprint, you can also offset your emissions. Many companies, example airlines and travel agencies, allows you to compensate for unavoidable emissions by contributing to projects that remove an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases from the environment. These include re-forestation and energy-savings initiatives. For example, you can offset your carbon emissions from your holiday to Japan by planting some trees in Indonesia. Some airlines even offer carbon offsetting when you are purchasing your tickets.

Genuine carbon offset companies are endorsed by organisations like the United Nations and include carbonfootprint.com, carbonfund.org and climatecare.org.

*Related post : Reducing Your Carbon Footprints - Going Green At Home


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