Extreme Weather Events Live Up to Climate Predictions

2010 is looking like a watershed year for extreme weather, living up to the worst climate change predictions. The first half of 2010 was the hottest on record and was way above average for the number and intensity of extreme weather events. A single weather event is not proof of climate change but the sum total of events constitutes a clear chain of evidence which is backed up by additional meteorological readings, according to Munich Re. Tourists and residents at a popular vacation resort in the French Alps have been warned that they could be drowned if a giant water pocket under a glacier on Mont Blanc bursts.

Report from NewsCore (4 August 2010):

TOURISTS and residents at a popular vacation resort in the French Alps have been warned that they could be drowned if a giant water pocket under a glacier on Mont Blanc bursts.

The pocket, under the Tete-Rousse glacier on the French Alpine slopes, contains the equivalent of 26 Olympic swimming pools and was described by the National Center for Scientific Research as a “pressure cooker.”

It would take just 15 minutes for the pocket to flood St. Gervais valley, a noted vacation spot and home to 3000 people, researchers said.

There would be “a brutal emptying of water which carries along everything in its path,” said Christian Vincent, a geophysics engineer with the center. Vincent said a torrent of mud six to eight times bigger than the original volume of water would be created if the water was released.

Although sirens were set up, the evacuation plan was greeted with skepticism.

“We’d have no chance,” a tourist said.

At least 175 valley dwellers were drowned by an estimated 80,000 cubic meters of water the last time a similar pocket burst, on July 12, 1892.

The pocket, which contains 65,000 cubic meters of water, was discovered by scientists using magnetic resonance imaging. Glaciologists will spend two months trying to pump out 25,000 cubic meters of water from one part of the pocket and hope to obtain a precise location for the remaining 40,000 cubic meters.

Vincent said that the most likely explanation for the formation of the pocket was a period of particularly cold temperatures within the glacier, freezing the water’s escape routes. This may be a result of global warming, which has reduced the snow covering on the glacier and exposed it to the cold.

Source: www.heraldsun.com.au

From Munich Re: Analyses performed by Munich Re’s natural catastrophe database, the most comprehensive in the world, substantiate this increase (in extreme weather events): the number of extreme weather events like windstorm and floods has tripled since 1980, and the trend is expected to persist.

Here’s a slice from a report from Dr Sandra Schuster, a meteorologist with Munich Re, Sydney, who has just been appointed as a Lead Author (WG2) for IPCC AR5. It is based on a paper on natural catastrophes and climate change she presented at a seminar for the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

Conclusion:

Natural catastrophes, especially weather related events, are increasing dramatically in number and magnitude, both globally and in Australia.

• There is more and more scientific evidence for causal links between global warming and increasing frequencies and intensities of natural catastrophes.

• For Australia/Oceania the Southern Oscillation Index shows a correlation with loss frequency and severity.

• We have to mitigate global warming and adapt to the changing risks in respect to the regionally specific risk patterns.

• Mitigation and adaptation measures open up great economic chances for companies and countries being on the forefront in these processes.

• Natural catastrophes are still insurable. However we have to adapt our risk assessment, our modeling, our rates, our risk selection and accumulation control continuously.

• With our long experience we have created a unique expertise on natural catastrophe risks in the changing world and are happy to share this within our industry, with government authorities and the UNFCCC- community.

For more from this report and further information on climate change impacts, visit the Munich re website.

Source: www.munichre.com