http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0426-02.htm
Published on Friday,
April 26, 2002 in the London Telegraph
Global Warming
2002 'Warmest for 1,000 Years'
by Charles Clover
QUOTE:
"In recent years more and more people have accepted that
climate change is happening and will affect the lives of
our children and grandchildren. I fear we need to start
worrying about ourselves as well."
Margaret Beckett
UK's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary
THE first three months of this year were the warmest globally
since records began in 1860 and probably for 1,000 years,
scientists said yesterday.
Dr Geoff Jenkins, director
of the Meteorological Office's
Hadley Center, said the record on land and sea was consistent
with computer
predictions of the effects of man-made global
warming.
The three months were
about 0.71C warmer than the average
for 1961 to 1990, itself the warmest period for 1,000 years
according to ice-core analysis, he added.
The record warm period
was the more remarkable because
there was no sign of the cyclical El Nino in the tropics,
which has attended the succession of record warmest years
in the past decade.
The global record comes
in the wake of observed changes
in the British climate since 1900: a lengthening of the
growing season for plants by one month in central England,
a temperature increase of 1C, and a 10cm sea level rise.
Margaret Beckett, the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Secretary, said: "In recent years more and more people have
accepted that climate change is happening and will affect
the lives of our children and grandchildren. I fear we need
to start worrying about ourselves as well."
She was speaking at
the publication of a report, The UK Climate
Impacts Program, a joint venture between her department, the
Hadley Center, and the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research
at the University of East Anglia.
Scientists, who compiled
different scenarios for high, medium
and low emissions of greenhouse gases, predicted the following
changes in the British climate by 2080:
- A rise in
average temperature of 2-3.5C, probably with greater
warming in the south and east. Generally, the climate will be
like Normandy, the Loire or Bordeaux, according to the amount
of global emissions.
- Hot days
in summer will be more frequent, with some above 40C
(104F)
in lowland Britain under the high emissions scenario.
- Summer rainfall
will decrease by 50 per cent and winter rainfall
increase by 30 per cent under the highest emissions projection.
- Snowfall
will decrease throughout Britain, by 90 per cent
in Scotland according to the highest greenhouse gases scenario.
- Sea levels
will rise by 26-86cm (10-34in).
- The probability
of a storm surge regarded as extreme will increase
from one in 50 years to nine in 10 years under the high emissions
scenario.
A cooling of the British
climate over the next 100 years
because of changes to the Gulf Stream is now considered
unlikely.
Mrs Beckett said some
of the predicted impacts were already
irreversible, but others could be slowed by international
action under the Kyoto climate treaty.
© Copyright of
Telegraph Group Limited 2002
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