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Heat Waves to Worsen Across America, Europe - Study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Heat waves like those that have hit Paris and Chicago in recent years are likely to get worse, roasting more and more cities with ever-higher temperatures, climate researchers predicted on Thursday.

While some may like it hot, the forecast means misery for many, and hotter weather can affect crops, drive up fuel prices and can kill the old and weak. The heat wave that hit France a year ago killed an estimated 15,000 people.

A similar heat wave that hit the U.S. Midwest last year damaged the corn and soy crops, and 739 people died in a head wave that broiled Chicago in 1995.

Using a new computer model that takes into account increasing levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, Gerald Meehl and Claudia Tebaldi of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, found heat waves might become more common as global warming heats the Earth.

Writing in the journal Science, they said they tried to see if other pollutants such as sulfur dioxide might reflect sunlight away from the planet and perhaps offset some of the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide. But their model shows no such effects.

Regions already prone to heat waves, such as the U.S. Midwest and Southeast and Europe's Mediterranean areas, will suffer even more, and longer, the model predicts.

The average Paris heat wave lasting eight to 13 days, they predict, will last 11 to 17 days. In Chicago, heat waves will last on average a day longer, from eight days to nine days, and there will be two a year by 2080 instead of about one.

"But other areas (e.g. northwest United States, France, Germany and the Balkans) could see increases of heat wave intensity that could have more serious impacts because these areas are not currently as well adapted to heat waves," the researchers wrote.

For their study, Meehl and Tebaldi used data from 1961 to 1990 to predict future weather patterns in 2080 to 2099. They assumed there will be few policy changes to affect global warming.

During the Paris and Chicago heat waves, atmospheric pressure was higher than usual over Lake Michigan and Paris, producing clear skies and hot days, with little relief when the sun went down.

A COOLING SOLUTION

Another team of scientists said that governments can turn this pattern around right now, if they choose to.

Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow of Princeton University identified 15 technologies, from wind, solar and nuclear energy to conservation techniques, that could each help reduce global warming.

Their report, also published in Science, counters the common argument that a major new technology needs to be developed before greenhouse gases can be controlled, said Pacala.

"It certainly explodes the idea that we need to do research for a long time before getting started," Pacala said in a statement.

"If we decide to act, we will need to reduce carbon emissions across the whole global economy," added Socolow.

Each of the options could on its own prevent 1 billion tons a year worth of carbon emissions by 2054, they said.

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Last Update: Wednesday, August 4, 2004. 6:53pm (AEST)

Dead zone' spreads across Gulf of Mexico

A huge "dead zone" of water so devoid of oxygen that sea life cannot live in it has spread across the Gulf of Mexico in what has become an annual occurrence caused by pollution.

The 15,020 square kilometres of uninhabitable water may be contributing indirectly to an unusual spate of shark bites along the Texas coast, experts say.

A scientist at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium said measurements showed the dead zone extended from the mouth of the Mississippi River in south-eastern Louisiana 400 km west to near the Texas border and was closer to shore than usual because winds and currents.

"Fish and swimming crabs escape [from the dead zone]," said Nancy Rabalais, the consortium's chief scientist for hypoxia, or low oxygen research.

"Anything else dies."

In the past 30 years, the dead zone has become an annual summer phenomenon, fed by the rising use of nitrate-based fertilisers by farmers in the Mississippi watershed, Ms Rabalais said.

The nitrates, carried into the gulf's warm summer waters by the river, feed algae blooms that use up oxygen and make the water uninhabitable.

The dead zone's size has varied each year depending on weather conditions, but averages about 12,950 sq km and remains in place until late September or early October.

Virtually nothing is being done to stop the flow of nitrates into the river, meaning the dead zone will reappear every year, Ms Rabalais said.

The dead zone forces fish to seek better water, which may be a reason for the recent shark bites on Texas beaches.

Three people have been bitten by sharks along the upper Texas coast this year, a high number for a state that has recorded only 18 shark attacks since 1980.

Terry Stelly, an ecosystem biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said increasing numbers of sharks have been found in recent years in the waters along the Texas-Louisiana border, near the edge of the dead zone.

Along with other factors, "chances are good they [sharks] were looking for higher dissolved oxygen in the water", he said.

Ms Rabalais agreed, saying: "The higher number of sharks in shallow waters may very likely be due to the low oxygen being close to the shore at the time of the attacks.

"The available habitat for the sharks is definitely less when the low oxygen is so widespread," she said.

--Reuters

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The fourth angel poured his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire; they were scorched by the fierce heat, but they cursed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory.

-the Apostle John (c. A.D. 100) from the Book of Revelations 16:8-9
from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible

The world's got a pretty simple choice here. It's between President Bush and our grandchildren.

-Australian Senator Bob Brown
calling for a U.S. oil boycott because of President George W. Bush's
refusal to sign the Kyoto climate change treaty

Quotations on Global Warming

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rex said:
I really do not believe that "we" are causing this. I see it all as hippie propoganda. The earth can take care of itself.

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whomod said:

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The fourth angel poured his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire; they were scorched by the fierce heat, but they cursed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory.

-the Apostle John (c. A.D. 100) from the Book of Revelations 16:8-9
from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible

The world's got a pretty simple choice here. It's between President Bush and our grandchildren.

-Australian Senator Bob Brown
calling for a U.S. oil boycott because of President George W. Bush's
refusal to sign the Kyoto climate change treaty

Quotations on Global Warming

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I keep forgetting that there's no way to leave paritsan politics out of any thread around here.