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Extremes of Climate - Droughts Global warming results in more frequent and more severe droughts There are strong implications from scientific climate models that global warming due to increased greenhouse gas emissions has been associated with the more frequent occurrence of extreme climatic events, and that humankind is the cause of global warming.
Warming is expected to pose serious challenges to global security and stability. Sub-Saharan Africa will be worst hit by impacts of climate change. In the Sahelian region of African, warmer and drier conditions have led to shorter growing season, reduced crop harvests and crop failure. Longer dry seasons and more uncertain rainfall are prompting urgent adaption measures in Africa.
Fires to Follow Floods as Wild Weather Hits
Australia: Feb 06 2009 AFP
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| Washbasins to help irrigate crops in China 2009 (AP Photo) | China's worst drought in five
decades hitting eight wheat-growing provinces (2009) |
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China has declared the highest-level emergency for the first time to combat the country's worst drought in five decades that has hit eight wheat-growing northern provinces and left more than 4 million people without proper drinking water. AP - Hier,
Effects of these extremes will bring costly consequences
Frequent droughts will adversely affect sea and land ecosystems, coastal systems, freshwater security, food security and land degradation.
The impacts incurred on environmental and ecological systems during the 1999 drought in the United States may provide a clearer picture of the probable drought effects. Shortage of fresh water increased the salinity of river waters posing risks to river habitats. It also created stress on fresh water supplies for consumption and agriculture. As future sea level rise shifts the saltwater-freshwater boundary farther inland, droughts will exacerbate the geographic extent and impacts of saltwater encroachment into coastal aquifers.
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Global warming may increase the intensity and frequency of wildfires. Forest fires can have adverse effects on climate change. Fire accounts for about 50% of greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and about 20% of anthropogenic emissions from report in the journal Science. Besides the emissions effect and reduced carbon sink effect, a number of criteria pollutants which can have a substantial impact on human health. The fires will also seriously affect future vegetation activities on the same spot. |
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), nearly 8% of the United States (including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico) was experiencing moderate to severe drought as of March, 2010. Drought affected 57% of Hawaii's land, with certain part of the Big Island moving into exceptional drought for the first time since 1999.
In 1997 and 1998 unprecedented forest fires broke out in Indonesia. 24.1 million acres of forest were destroyed, releasing 0.81 - 2.57 Gt of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is equivalent to 13-40% of the mean annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuels, and contributed greatly to the largest annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration detected since records began in 1957.
The accompanying underground peat fires made it almost impossible to put off the fire. Consequential haze covered the neighboring countries of Singapore, Malaysia, Sumatra, Sabah and Sarawak, creating health hazards for months before the fires were finally put off with international help and efforts. There were many other forest fires in Java and Sulawesi on the same year. Nature: Forest Fires in Indonesia 1997
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Forest fire
haze brings misery to Indonesia and
beyond Malaysia had to declare a "haze emergency" , closing schools in several areas...and five fire engines were sent to Indonesia to help tackle the fires! |
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A report, Global Warming Contributes to Australia's Worst Drought by WWF-Australia and leading meteorologists has shown that human-induced global warming was a key factor in the severity of the 2002 drought. Comparison with other major droughts found higher temperatures caused a marked increase in evaporation rates from soil, watercourses and vegetation.
Syrians head for cities
amid severe drought/ June 2010
A severe four-year drought is devastating
Syria’s rural communities, forcing them to head
for urban centers to seek for employment. The UN
estimates the mass exodus of migration amounts
to more than a million people, who simply were
not cultivating enough food or earning enough
money to sustain themselves. Prolonged drought
has caused the spread of a wheat crop disease
and disappointing wheat and cotton harvests.
Worst drought in Thailand
since years /June 2010
Thailand too is experiencing probably the
worst drought in the last 10 years. The drought
is affecting 9.6 million Thai farmers very badly
as more than 60% of the population depends on
agriculture. The drought is affecting 66 of
Thailand's 76 provinces, forcing local
authorities to stop supplying water for
irrigation. Alarmingly, the current water
supplies are not sufficient to have a second
dry-season crop cultivation this year.
The drought is affecting other countries in South-east Asia.
Drought adds to Vietnam's Power Woes /June 2010
Vietnam is confronted with its worst water
shortage in decades, with the dry spell pushing
temperatures to a near 40°C, making the drought
the worst in a century. Water levels at the
reservoir was just above the “dead point”. This
had severely restricted output of power much
needed in Vietnam which is undergoing robust
economic development.
Cambodia
has called for international assistance.
Cambodia is suffering its second year of
drought, with the Mekong River water levels
dropping below normal levels, and many farmers
expect to lose their crops.
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References and related
news:
China Struggles With Drought -
Los Angeles: Worst Drought Ever Recorded -
Climate Progress
Brutal Drought Where It’s Normally We
- Climate
Progress
Warming Will Worsen Water Wars
- Climate Progress
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