Europe set for years of wet winters - scientists
Date: 31-Jan-02
Country: UK
Author: Patricia Reaney
Thanks to global warming and rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), the torrential rains, severe storms and record rainfall seen during the autumn and winter in England and Wales in 2000/2001 could be an indication of things to come, they said.
"Over the UK and much of Europe, a (very wet) winter that maybe would have occurred once every 50 years in the 20th century is likely to occur in Europe once every eight years, assuming CO2 doubles," said Tim Palmer of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast based in Reading, England.
"The probability of this type of very wet winter will increase from roughly two percent to about 12 percent."
Palmer and Jouni Raisanen of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute in Norrkoping based their findings on an analysis of 19 global climate models.
Their predictions were reported in the science journal Nature as severe storms and strong winds were blamed for killing at least 10 people across northern Europe earlier this week.
In addition to Europe's more frequent severe winters, the scientists believe very wet Asian summer monsoons are also likely to occur more often, increasing the possibility of flooding, particularly in Bangladesh.
Palmer said increased levels of CO2 were the only factor that could account for the predicted change in extreme weather.
Co2, released when burning fossil fuels, is one of the major so-called greenhouse gases which scientists blame for global warming.
In a separate report in Nature, Christopher Milly and his colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey in Princeton, New Jersey, warned of the possibility of more great floods in very large river basins around the globe over the next 100 years.
"We find that the frequency of great floods increased substantially during the 20th century," they said in the report, adding that the trend was likely to continue.
Reiner Schnur, of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, said the two studies increased confidence in projected changes in extreme rainfall and flooding but more reliable estimates were needed.
"Much larger ensembles are needed for more reliable estimates of extreme events, particularly for very rare events that have a great potential for a disastrous impact on a country's economy and inhabitants," he said in a commentary.
