‘Massive temperature hikes, but also extreme events like floodings, have become the new normal’
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-global-warming-record-temperatures-nothing-like-shocked-2016-a7157891.html
Every month this year has set a new record high temperature for the month, continuing a streak that now extends over 14 months.
“What concerns me most is that we didn’t anticipate these temperature jumps,” Dr Carlson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“We predicted moderate warmth for 2016, but nothing like the temperature rises we’ve seen.
“Massive temperature hikes, but also extreme events like floodings, have become the new normal.”
The WCRP was set up by the International Council for Science and the World Meteorological Organization in 1980.
Scientists have expressed concerns at a number of tipping points that could dramatically increase the rate of warming.
For example, the melting of ice at the poles reduces the amount of sunlight that is reflected with the darker water or land absorbing more of the sun’s energy and increasing the temperature. Experts have warned the warming in the Arctic – far higher than the global average – could have a “possibly catastrophic” effect on the number of dangerous storms in the northern hemisphere.
Vast amounts of methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – that has been frozen for thousands of years in the tundra of Siberia has also started to be released as it melts. Methane has also been seen bubbling to the surface in the ocean off the northern coast of Russia following dramatic reductions in sea ice cover.
And Dr Carlson said the way humans react to warmer weather could make things worse.
“Also critical is the fact that people survive the heat by using more energy for cooling, thus further depleting the world’s resources,” he said.
He said the increased frequency of extreme storms was starting to attract world leaders’ attention.
“The question is shifting from ‘has the climate changed?’ to ‘by how much?’” he said.
“Statistically we need to get better at predicting not only how frequent and intense these events will be – but how long they will last.”