WMO and others at Montreal climate change conference
While 20m waves at sea used to be the "high", we now have 40m waves being seen. The sea-level rise after the year 3000 will be as much as 6m, Eric Brun calculated, if Greenland's ice melts. He is one of the thousands of experts who have completed their conference in Montreal.
The WMO (World Meteorological Organisation) were discussing the future weather. While newspapers worldwide have reported the basics, here's the full programme that the WMO followed at- the WMO/WWOSC conference.
Aerial turbulence such as we've never seen, ice storms and heatwaves bringing severe drought whirled around the room as the potential excesses of global warming were exposed. The Kyoto Protocol was designed to reduce greenhouse gases, but any effects on slowing climate change will be slow in coming. Temperatures have risen 0.47 degrees Celsius to date but much more water vapour is already evaporating into the warm atmosphere. The driving force behind all air currents is therefore giving us stronger winds and extreme weather, as most of us well know. Clouds form faster and there are more flash floods because more rain falls.
The effect is a multiplying of weather events. North American winter temperatures have dropped considerably while droughts in most continents have been hotter and will be even drier soon. Computation of the effects will be a difficult tasks for these meteorologists in the future, such as trying to assess climates effect on the familiar westerly jetstreams. Paul Williams at Princeton University has calculated a doubling of in-flight turbulence for flights by 2050, for example. Much more change is expected from the jetstreams' meanderings.
Side-effects of climate change vary from submergence of property and reduction in crop yields in the US (costing $500 billion) to deaths and water shortage in Africa as the desert expands with great droughts. To combat all of this, city design and agricultural planning must acknowledge climate change as a new but major factor to take into account.
We have given ourselves this problem and we have to deal with the consequences together, as best we can. The Earth Times has a plethora of material on these problems and possible "solutions" for you in - our climate change articles.
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