Storms and Floods

Tropical Storms

No current tropical storms.

A Stormier-Hotter World Linked to Climate Change

Britain’s national weather service says there is no longer any doubt that recent larger and more damaging storms are connected to a warming global climate.

Much of the U.K. is suffering from the worst in a series of inundations that have submerged vast tracts of the nation during the past three years.

A barrage of winter storms in recent months has seen some flood-weary communities swamped more than once.

While the Met Office's chief scientist, Dame Julia Slingo, says it is not possible to blame any specific storm on global warming, she said a trend toward more volatile weather patterns due to climate change is clear.

“We have records going back to 1766 and we have nothing like this,” she said at a press conference in London.

Slingo’s comments came just before Australian researchers announced that human greenhouse gas emissions were the likely cause of last year’s record-breaking heat in the country.

The previous Australian summer was the hottest on record and the year 2013 brought the highest average annual temperature in over 100 years of observations.

Climate experts Sophie Lewis and David Karoly told the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society’s annual conference that human activities, particularly emissions of carbon dioxide, are clearly to blame for the record heat.

NewsBytes:

UK - Floods in southwest England and elsewhere have submerged crops and destroyed cattle bedding and feed, with the consequences likely to be felt for months, or even years, in terms of lower production of both crops and meat. Britain’s Environment Agency had issued 416 flood warnings and alerts, as of early Thursday, including 16 under its most serious category, indicating danger to life. Thousands of acres of farmland in Britain are under water, with some submerged for weeks.