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7 July 2012 | NewScientist | 5
EDITORIAL
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IT HAS been yet another week of extraordinary weather. Torrential rainfall caused chaos across the UK. A record-breaking heatwave drifted across the US, broken by freak thunderstorms that left a trail of destruction from Chicago to Washington DC. Meanwhile, in India and Bangladesh more than 100 people were killed and half a million fled when the monsoon arrived with a vengeance.
We have become used to reports of extreme weather events playing down any connection with climate change. The refrain is usually along the lines of “you cannot attribute any single event to global warming”. But increasingly this is no longer the case. The science of climate attribution – which makes causal connections between climate change and weather events – is advancing rapidly, and with it our understanding of what we can expect in years to come.
From killer heatwaves to destructive floods, the effects of global warming are becoming ever more obvious – and we ain’t seen nothing yet. Our weather is not only becoming more extreme as a result of global warming, it is becoming even more extreme than climate scientists predicted.
Researchers now think they are starting to understand why (see page 32). Human activity cannot be held solely responsible for all of these extreme events, but by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we have loaded the climate dice. Only political leaders and corporate masters have the power to do anything about that – but they are doing little to help.
Those opposed to cutting emissions sometimes argue that we will simply adapt to a warming world. That is fast becoming a
necessity, rather than a choice, but we are doing a lousy job of it. Take the recent devastating forest fires in Colorado. Recent weather conditions have been ideal for them, but they were worsened by forest-management practices that led to a build-up of combustible fuel (see page 6). Elsewhere in the US, subsidised insurance encourages development in coastal areas that are increasingly at risk from storms and flooding.
China, too, is failing. Most of rapidly growing Shanghai is
barely above sea level. The land is sinking and the sea is rising. In a century or two, it will be another New Orleans.
And what sort of extreme events will we have to endure by 2060, when the planet could already be 4 °C hotter and counting? We need to start planning for a future of much wilder weather now, to prepare for ever more ferocious heatwaves, storms, floods and droughts.
For example, building codes should be toughened so that homes and offices can withstand whatever is thrown at them. Vital infrastructure should be situated in areas far from the risk of floods and other natural disasters, as Thailand learned the hard way last year when an economically important industrial site was destroyed by floodwater.
We are in this position as a result of decades of foot-dragging over emissions cuts and clean-energy investment. That was perhaps understandable given the distant and abstract nature of the threat. Now the threat has become a real and present danger. Those who offer blithe reassurances of our ability to adapt need to start putting their money where their mouths are. n
Adapt or dieFreak weather is fast becoming normal. Brace yourself for a rough ride
IN 1908, a small asteroid exploded in the sky above Siberia, flattening a vast area of remote forest. Had the airburst happened over a big city, countless people would have been killed without warning.
If a similar object were hurtling towards Earth today, it would probably be spotted in good time to evacuate anyone living in harm’s way – at least for the time being. Next month the only
telescope scanning the southern hemisphere sky for dangerous space rocks will shut down for lack of money. It won’t be replaced until 2017 at the earliest. In the interim, Earth’s defences will have a blind spot.
Panic stations? Not quite. The chance of another asteroid on the scale of 1908 hitting before 2017 is minuscule, and any threat will probably be visible from the
northern hemisphere at some point. The real worry is that without continuous monitoring, evacuation time will be lost.
That is still ample reason not to accept the closure and just hope for the best. Keeping the telescope running for five more years would cost about $1 million. In the same period, global “defence” spending will be about $7.5 trillion. It seems we have our priorities wrong. n
Our mistaken defence priorities
“The effects of global warming are becoming ever more obvious – and we ain’t seen nothing yet”
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