World Meteorological Day
“It is World Water day today, and World Meteorological Day tomorrow. This piece by author Anthony John Gerst gives food for thought”: Veronica Castle
By: Anthony J. Gerst, author of “The HAARP Letters, A climate-changing reality”
The World Meteorological Organization was established March 23 1950. It developed from the International Meteorological Organization that met in Vienna, Austria, in 1873. It was initially designed to establish meteorological stations networked and linked together via telegraph. They sought to improve weather forecasting for the shipping industry. In 1951, the specialized agency within the UN became the operational center for atmospheric/hydrological and related geophysical sciences. Around the globe, the scientific community holds symposiums, conferences; awards research prizes and acknowledges leaders in various fields of study near this day.
Most readers are familiar with the fact that fossil fuel emissions are influencing our climate at an exponential rate of change. Planetary Boundary Science, a relatively new field points out other global processes that are having an impact. Key among these are, rate of biodiversity loss, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, ozone depletion, ocean acidification, land use changes, chemical pollution and atmospheric aerosol loading. Combining these processes with Climate Change, another driver, is it any wonder that the planet’s natural system is having trouble in maintaining its Holocene balance? http://www.ecointernet.org/2014/08/04/biosphere_collapse/
Here are some examples of recent themes presented by the organization. Our future climate (2003). Weather, climate, water and sustainable development (2005). Polar meteorology: Understanding global impacts (2007). Weather, climate and the air we breathe (2009). Recently 2011-2015 has seen the warmest temperature recorded since modern records began in the 1800s. According to modern records and information that can be obtained in Floods, Famines, and Emperors, we see a frequency increase in the El Nino pattern, since the late 1600s. Adverse weather events are happening all around the globe such as droughts, heatwaves, increased precipitation events etc. These are affecting health, agricultural production and encouraging invasive species migrations.
In July 2015, near Luxor Egypt, maximum temperatures hit 47.6 Celsius. In Morocco a 50% loss in the citrus crop was attributed to new temperature records being set in May and extreme heat throughout July. Hungary saw 41 days, 22 more than average of temperatures over 30 Celsius. At Heathrow on July 1, they set an all-time record of 36.7 Celsius and December’s mean temperature was 8 degrees Celsius 4.1 C above the long-term average. A conservative estimate from the World Bank suggest that temperature increases of 4 Celsius this century will impact 1 billion people in monsoonal basins and another 500 million in delta regions.
Changes in precipitation patterns according to the 2010 WMO survey show that from 1991-2010 the most frequent extreme event was flooding. In 2011, mainly in Thailand, flooding occurred costing 800 lives and economic losses of US$40 billion. The Pakistan floods of 2010 killed 2000 and affected over 20 million in the wettest year on record. In 2013, the central European floods of May and June caused roughly US$20 billion in damages.
The Arctic is currently experiencing heating roughly twice that of the global average and recent information shows near shore methane releases are accelerating. Our oceans are still storing roughly 90% of the excess trapped greenhouse gases we emit. They will continue to warm and change throughout the following centuries.
At what point do we cross an abrupt Climate Changing threshold? When will the balance of the Holocene be beyond the point of mitigating impacts? My novella The HAARP Letters (A Climate Changing Reality) explores such an event and such a time. http://myBook.to/haarp
In the end, whether we are mindful of the weather patterns or not, this will determine whether we survive the Climate Changes of our future's, self-created, weather.
