Is it climate change?
Is climate change responsible for all of the floods, destructive hurricanes and droughts? Or are they more of a coincidence? A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tries to find the answer.
Climate and the weather
When do you call it climate change? When it rains cats and dogs for days on end? When huge patches of land are covered in floodwaters? When one hurricane after another leaves nothing but destruction in their wake? Researchers have trouble saying whether climate change is really responsible for particular weather events.
Increased risks
Still, scientists don't doubt that climate change increases the risk of severe weather events. In one study, they analyzed 12 catastrophes from the year 2012. Their results: climate change was responsible for half of them.
Responsible for heat waves and droughts
Climate change, for instance, apparently is responsible for the heat wave and drought in the United States. Record high temperatures were recorded in July 2012. It also rained very little, and corn and wheat harvests were devastating. Tens of thousands of fish perished in dried-up rivers; cattle found nothing to graze on in parched pastures.
Melting of the Arctic continues
Or rather, the ice in the Artic. It melted more in the year 2012 than in any previous year. That was not an exceptional event, climate researchers say unanimously, but was part of a development over time due to several unusually hot summers. Their assessment: climate change is responsible.
Hurricane Sandy
Sandy was the biggest hurricane to ever hit the northeastern United States. The maelstrom was 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles) wide. Most of the hurricanes in the tropics do not normally reach such dimensions. Sandy was so powerful because the Atlantic Ocean was unusually warm in 2012. The scientists determined in their study that climate change was the reason.
Rain and floods
With other dramatic weather events, however, researchers aren't so sure. For the heavy rainfalls and floods in Europe, China, Japan and Australia, researchers believe natural variations in weather events were responsible.
Droughts in Somalia and Kenya
Scientists consider the devastating droughts in Somalia and Kenya to have been more coincidental, natural variations in weather, and not a result of climate change. But they admit they cannot be absolutely sure since it is very difficult to make a clausal relation between climate change and specific severe weather events.
Facts and myths
The climate is complex. Too many factors influence the global situation to be able to say with certainty what is happening. But one thing is certain: the climate is changing. Another fact is that human beings are contributing to that. Furthermore, things are changing on Earth as a result of climate change. The level of the ocean, for instance, is rising, putting islands at risk.
Risky prospects
Coral, shells and sea slugs are at risk as acidity in the oceans rises due to increased carbon dioxide. The acidity causes the lime in the animals' shells and skeletons to dissolve. Those are facts. But it's perilous when scientists hazard concrete climate prognoses, like 'it will be so many degrees warmer in so and so many years' or 'the ocean level will increase by so and so many centimeters.'
Losing credibility?
Climate change has slowed down in the past 15 years. Contrary to the prognoses of leading climate researchers, the global temperature in this period has not increased. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report says that the reason for that is that the oceans are storing more heat than expected. That had not been planned for in previous models.
Exaggerated claims reduce credibility
Less and less people are afraid of climate change, recent surveys have found. That could be the result of too much scaremongering on the issue. It's a shame, because the stakes are high. Not just the credibility of science is at risk, but also the state of our planet.