Heat Waves and Extreme Drought Will Increase with Climate Change
Harry Hope
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/23807
Monday, 2 March, 2009
Heat Waves and Extreme Drought Will Increase with Climate Change
“The combination of record heat and widespread drought during the past
five to ten years over large parts of southern and eastern Australia
is without historical precedent and is, at least partly, a result of
climate change,” according to a statement endorsed by the scientists
at the meeting co- sponsored by the UN World Meteorological
Organization (WMO).
The continental United States and Mexico, the Mediterranean basin,
parts of northern China, southern Africa and Australia and parts of
South America were cited as particularly prone to harsh drought, WMO
said in a press release relaying the results of the International
Workshop on Drought and Extreme Temperatures
In addition, severe heat waves are expected to increase everywhere,
especially in the continental western US, northern Africa, the Middle
East, central Asia, southern Africa and Australia, the agency added.
More than 40 scientists from climate and agricultural research
institutes, universities and environmental monitoring organizations
participated in the conference, which ran from 16 to 17 February and
was co-sponsored by the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).
The increase in Australian droughts and heat waves could be a
temporary climate event lasting 10 to 30 years, according to several
presentations at the conference that noted that these events have
occurred in the historical climate record elsewhere in the world.
However, they added, the Australian events are also consistent with
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment
Report, which says that the world has been more drought-prone during
the past 25 years.
Several participants detailed examples of droughts and heat waves,
such as those in Europe in 2003, in south-east Australia in 2009, and
currently in northern and central China, which are the worst drought
in half a century.
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Harry