Year 2007 likely to be hottest year on record
By James Randerson science correspondent
hindu.com
GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE: Global temperatures will rise to their highest levels ever recorded this year, according to scientists at the UK Met (Meteorological) Office. They believe there is a 60% chance that 2007 temperatures will top the previous hottest year, 1998.
The forecast follows news that the UK experienced the warmest year onrecord in 2006, with an average temperature of 9.7C - 1.1 degrees celsiusabove average. The duration of sunshine over Britain was 13% higher than average.
The scorching predictions for 2007 are due partly to global warming andpartly to a moderate El Nino event. This is a climatic phenomenon focused on the tropical eastern Pacific that affects climate globally and leads tohigher temperatures.
The previous hottest year, 1998, was also a strong El Nino year with aglobal average temperature of 14.52C. The Met Office is predicting that this year will be 0.02 degrees higher.
Predicting the global average temperature is not as difficult as youmight imagine because it does not vary much from year to year, said Phil Jones, director of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, England.
``It's much harder to predict temperatures in Britain - it's almostimpossible. This is a global average and the larger the average you do it over the smaller will be the error bars on the prediction," he said.
Britain will probably experience a relatively warm year too, however.``We are warming up like the rest of the world and the sea temperatures around our coast are quite warm - a lot warmer than they should be based onthe 30-year period 1961 to 1990." Global warming is happening at around 0.2degrees per decade and the top 10 warmest years on record have happened inthe past 12 years.
The moderate El Nino event will lead to local and regional climaticchanges around the world. Many parts of the tropics will be warmer: for example, the west coast of the United States will be prone to flooding andAustralia will continue to suffer drought. El Nino years also tend to bring fewer hurricanes in the North Atlantic, but more typhoons in the Pacific.
The prediction will be seen by environmentalists as more evidence that the world must act quickly to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change. Last year's report for the British government by Sir David Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank, said the economic cost of not acting on climate change far outweighed the cost of cutting emissions. He predicts that global GDP will drop by 10% if the world doesnothing because of the economic fallout from adverse climatic events and refugees displaced by a rise in sea levels.
In addition to it being the warmest year on record in Britain, other UK climate records have tumbled in 2006. July, for example, was the warmest month ever recorded with a mean temperature of 19.7C. Britons also saw thewarmest September and warmest (northern) autumn with temperatures of 16.8C and 14.6C respectively. |
