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Is all this rain a sign of climate change? |
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A research project for DEFRA was carried out in 2001 by the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Change and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, to look at the extreme flooding in October and November 2000. It concluded that, though the events were extreme, they could not in themselves be attributed to climate change. However, heavy rainfall and peak river flows of similar duration have been increasing in frequency and magnitude over the past 50 years. This pattern is consistent with model predictions of how human-induced climate change affects rainfall. |
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Why, if we're meant to have global warming, is the weather so miserable? |
| The evidence is mounting that the climate is changing.
Globally, 1998 was the hottest year ever recorded, and nine out
of the ten hottest years ever recorded have occured since 1990.
Here in the UK, four out of five of the hottest years ever recorded
over a 330-year period have occured since then.
The average global surface temperature has risen by 0.6 °C in the past 140 years. Scientists say the Earth is warming faster than it has in the past thousand years. But climate change is a better description than global warming, as some areas may, in fact, cool. It also describes other effects like rising sea levels and wilder weather. |
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Will climate change mean that we will see more severe weather events? |
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Experts predict that fierce storms and floods — such as those that brought chaos to parts of the UK in October 2000 — are likely to become more frequent in the future. Over the past 100 years, warming has been accompanied by a reduction in the frequency of frosts and an increase in the number of heatwaves in many parts of the world. The amount of rainfall is getting heavier in some countries in terms of volume per downpour. |
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Is tropical cyclone activity increasing as an effect of global warming? |
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Both theoretical and high resolution computer modeling studies indicate there is the potential for tropical cyclone intensity (measured by windspeed) to increase with global warming. However the frequency of tropical cyclones is projected to decrease globally, therefore there may not be any increase in overall risk. This global average picture may mask regional variation; some areas of the world may see increased frequency, intensity and risk. |
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Is the 'greenhouse effect' the same as global warming? |
| NO: The 'greenhouse effect' is the way the atmosphere traps some of energy we receive from the Sun (infrared radiation (heat), ultraviolet and visible light) and stops it being retransmitted back out into space. This makes the Earth warm enough for life. The problem is that scientists believe we are adding dangerously to the natural greenhouse effect with the gases from industry and agriculture (chiefly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide). This traps more solar energy and hence increases the temperature. | |
