Horrible isn't it here in Leyland today ....grey and miserable. Today there were more news reports of extreme weather events with parts of the UK hit by tornadoes.
This week New Scientist magazine reports that "The world gets wetter as well as warmer". Benjamin Santer, a climate scientist in California, has been studying the water content of the atmosphere. Using satellite data and computer simulations including 22 different climate models, far more than any previous study, some using such natural processes as volcaninc eruptions and fluctuations in solar radiation he found that the one which most closely matched was that using greenhouse gas emissions. He explains that extra atmospheric water fuels the development of hurricanes and also acts as a potent greenhouse gas in its own right.
Santer concludes "The climate system is telling us an internally consistent story".
In May Aqqualuk Lynge, the leader of Greenland's Inuit people presented evidence to the public inquiry into the plans to dramatically increase the number of passengers using London's third airport, Stansted. He told of the loss of Inuit villages and hunting grounds across the Arctic...
Photos courtesy of Amanda Graham,Instructor of Northern and Circumpolar Studies at Yukon College, Canada, under a Creative Commons License. More beautiful and poignant photos here.
"What happens in Britain affects us in the north...The serious consequences affecting my people today will affect your people tomorrow... The Inuit are experiencing first- hand the adverse effects of climate change. We are on the front line of globalisation.
Discussion of climate change frequently tends to focus on political, economic and technical issues rather than human impacts and consequences. I want to alert you to the impacts that Inuit and other northerners are already experiencing as a result of human-induced climate change, and to the dramatic impacts and social and cultural dislocation we face in coming years.
For generations, Inuit have observed the environment and have accurately predicted weather, enabling us to travel safely on the sea-ice to hunt seals, whales, walrus, and polar bears. We don't hunt for sport or recreation. Hunters put food on the table. You go to the supermarket, we go on the sea-ice. When we can no longer hunt on the sea-ice, we will no longer exist as a people. Already hunters are telling us the sea-ice is unpredictable in many places and they are not always sure of dealing with the different ice we see today.
Traditional hunting grounds of ice floes, in some cases, have disappeared. And they tell us that some hunting areas are impossible to get to because of eroding shorelines. Talk to hunters across the north and they will tell you the same story: the weather is increasingly unpredictable. The look and feel of the land is different. The sea-ice is changing.
We have even lost experienced hunters through the ice in areas that, traditionally, were safe.
Several Inuit villages have already been so damaged by global warming that relocation, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, is now their only option. Melting sea-ice and thawing permafrost have caused:
* damage to houses, roads, airports and pipelines;
* eroded landscape, slope instability and landslides;
* contaminated drinking water;
* coastal losses to erosion of up to 100 feet per year;
* melting natural ice cellars for food storage.
Climate change is not just a theory to us in the Arctic, it is a stark and dangerous reality..."
Further information: If you're concerned watch the documentary/film 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Al Gore.
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