2007 seen as second warmest year as climate shifts

[SarahB]

Source: Reuter's

OSLO (Reuters) - This year is on track to be the second warmest since records began in the 1860s and floods in Pakistan or a heatwave in Greece may herald worse disruptions in store from global warming, experts said on Friday.

"2007 is looking as though it will be the second warmest behind 1998," said Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia, which provides data to the U.N.'s International Meteorological Organization.

"It isn't far behind ... it could change, but at the moment this looks unlikely," he told Reuters, based on temperature records up to the end of April.

Jones had predicted late last year that 2007 could surpass 1998 as the warmest year on record due to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases emitted mainly by burning fossil fuels and an El Nino warming of the Pacific.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL2931856920070629

[DixieBlue]

1. I'd believe that.

We're in the midst of an awful drought. It started months ago with no real let up in sight. It's so bad the gov has actually set aside a week for folks here to pray for rain.

Pray. For. Rain.

I really feel like I'm living in some sort of parallel universe to the one I thought I was in.

[kestrel91316]

2. What's "rain"??

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. It got sent to one corner of England - a sixth of annual fall in 12 hours

The Environment Agency said the damage was caused when Victorian sewers were overwhelmed on Monday. But water also breached flood barriers on some rivers. The agency's flood expert, Phil Rothwell, said: "We've had a sixth of the annual rainfall in 12 hours. Experts tell us this is the sort of thing we need to expect in the future." A recent National Audit Office report found that more than half the flood defences in high-risk areas were not up to scratch.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2714778.ece

[triguy46]

8. I've found out. 18 days of rain in a row here in OK.

We've had over 33 inches where I am, annual average is 37, 5 inches in past 24 hours, predicted to get up to 5 more over next 48. Its bizarre, it just keeps coming. We had 4 major snowstorms this year, very unusual. That coming off 3 drought years.

Seasonal variation? I tend to believe the global warming theory that we will have more extremes. My current opinion is that Oklahoma has become a climatological Louisiana.

[ClintonTyree]

3. I live in the northeast.....

and we've already had 5 days of 90+ degree temperatures. It's still June. We usually don't get temps like that until the end of July or the first part of August and we might have 4 or 5 90+ days TOTAL in a year's time. Something's up, that's for sure.

[Lisa]

4. welcome to "the new normal"?

That's what the UK weather office said -- summers that presently are considered warmer than usual, could well be run-of-the-mill in a couple of decades.

[rainbow4321]

5. Think all of the hot air was sucked out of TX

and sent around the country/world...high 70's/mid 80's in **late June, almost JULY** coupled with the never ending rain-floods??? That alone should be making people believe there's some seriously dangerous global disruptions going on. Mother Nature is sending us all clues and they're (for the most part) being ignored by the global warming naysayers.

[loser_user]

7. Not to mention the whole southwest.

Hell we had two feet of snow and a tornado here in nothern New Mexico so far this, a place that never seen either.