World faces Hottest Year Ever, as El Niño combines with Global Warming by The Independent / UK 2:42am 5th Jan, 2007   Published: 01 January 2007    The old argument over climate change is over. Few doubt any longer that our world is heating up, and that it is primarily a result of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. The evidence is now overpowering. Last year was the warmest on record in Britain. Globally, it was the sixth hottest. Even those who live in temperate climes can sense the planet is getting warmer.    Elsewhere the signs are less subtle. Scientists revealed an unprecedented ice retreat in the Arctic last summer. By 2060 there could be no summer sea ice there at all. We learned only last week from Canadian scientists that the Ayles ice shelf - a chunk of ice measuring 41-square miles - has broken free. Meanwhile, drought in the Horn of Africa has been particularly intense in recent years.    There has been another significant boost for those advocating swift action to curtail climate change. Sir Nicholas Stern"s Treasury report two months ago has helped to discredit the argument that action to stop climate change will be prohibitively expensive. Thanks to his analysis, we now know that it will cost us far more if we do nothing. We are beginning to recognise the dire consequences of this warming of the earth. Rising sea levels, higher temperatures, drought, desertification, increasingly powerful storms and changes in rainfall patterns will make much of the planet uninhabitable within the lifetime of our children.    But despite this growing acceptance of the uncomfortable truth, little has been done about it. The international meeting last year in Nairobi to establish a successor to the Kyoto Protocol achieved nothing. Nor is there any sign that the Bush Administration is going to sign up to serious action to curb emissions. With the US, the world"s largest economy and polluter still dragging its feet, developing nations are feeling little compulsion to reduce emissions themselves. And our own Government, has recoiled from the type of radical emission-cutting measures at home that would set an example to the rest of the world.    This has to be the year of action. There are some encouraging signs. Angela Merkel has pledged to make energy one of the key themes of Germany"s Presidency of the G8 this year. But there is little time. Jim Hansen of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and one of the world"s foremost experts on climate, believes we have less than a decade to significantly cut back emissions. Scientists are deeply concerned by mounting evidence of "positive feedback" in the warming process. It could all be happening much more quickly than we expected.    The argument has been won, but unless this new consensus produces the kind of leadership necessary to curtail climate change it will prove a hollow victory indeed.    1 January 2007    World faces hottest year ever, as El Niño combines with global warming, by Cahal Milmo.    A combination of global warming and the El Niño weather system is set to make 2007 the warmest year on record with far-reaching consequences for the planet, one of Britain"s leading climate experts has warned.    As the new year was ushered in with stormy conditions across the UK, the forecast for the next 12 months is of extreme global weather patterns which could bring drought to Indonesia and leave California under a deluge.    The warning, from Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, was one of four sobering predictions from senior scientists and forecasters that 2007 will be a crucial year for determining the response to global warming and its effect on humanity.    Professor Jones said the long-term trend of global warming - already blamed for bringing drought to the Horn of Africa and melting the Arctic ice shelf - is set to be exacerbated by the arrival of El Niño, the phenomenon caused by above-average sea temperatures in the Pacific.    Combined, they are set to bring extreme conditions across the globe and make 2007 warmer than 1998, the hottest year on record. It is likely temperatures will also exceed 2006, which was declared in December the hottest in Britain since 1659 and the sixth warmest in global records.    Professor Jones said: "El Niño makes the world warmer and we already have a warming trend that is increasing global temperatures by one to two tenths of a degrees celsius per decade. Together, they should make 2007 warmer than last year and it may even make the next 12 months the warmest year on record."    The warning of the escalating impact of global warming was echoed by Jim Hansen, the American scientist who, in 1988, was one of the first to warn of climate change.    In an interview with The Independent, Dr Hansen predicted that global warming would run out of control and change the planet for ever unless rapid action is taken to reverse the rise in carbon emissions.    Dr Hansen said: "We just cannot burn all the fossil fuels in the ground. If we do, we will end up with a different planet.    "I mean a planet with no ice in the Arctic, and a planet where warming is so large that it"s going to have a large effect in terms of sea level rises and the extinction of species."    His call for action is shared by Sir David King, the Government"s chief scientific adviser, who said that 2006 had shown that the "discussion is now over" on whether climate change is happening. Writing in today"s Independent, Sir David says progress has been made in the past year but it is "essential" that a global agreement on emissions is struck quickly. He writes: "Ultimately, only heads of state, working together, can provide the new level of global leadership we need to steer the world on a path towards a sustainable and prosperous future. We need to remember: action is affordable - inaction is not."    The demands came as the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the United Nations agency that deals with climate prediction, issued a warning that El Niño is already established over the tropical Pacific basin. It is set to bring extreme weather across a swath of the planet from the Americas and south-east Asia to the Horn of Africa for at least the first four months of 2007.    El Niño, or "the Christ child" because it is usually noticed around Christmas, is a weather pattern occurring every two to seven years. The last severe El Niño, in 1997 and 1998, caused more than 2,000 deaths and a worldwide damage bill of more than £20bn.    The WMO said its latest readings showed that a "moderate" El Niño, with sea temperatures 1.5C above average, was taking place which, in the worst case scenario, could develop into an extreme weather pattern lasting up to 18 months, as in 1997-98. The UN agency noted that the weather pattern was already having "early and intense" effects, including drought in Australia and dramatically warm seas in the Indian Ocean, which could affect the monsoons. It warned the El Niño could also bring extreme rainfall to parts of east Africa which were last year hit by a cycle of drought and floods.    Its effect on the British climate is difficult to predict, according to experts. But it will probably add to the likelihood of record-breaking temperatures in the UK.    The return of El Niño    * Aside from the seasons, El Niño and its twin, La Niña, are the two largest single causes of variability in the world"s climate from year to year.    Both are dictated by shifts in temperature of the water in the tropical Pacific basin between Australia and South America. Named from the Spanish words for "Christ child" and "the girl" because of their proximity to Christmas, they lead to dramatic shifts in the entire system of oceanic and atmospheric factors from air pressure to currents.    A significant rise in sea temperature leads to an El Niño event whereas a fall in temperature leads to La Niña.    The cause of the phenomenon is not fully understood but in an El Niño "event" the pool of warm surface water is forced eastwards by the loss of the westerly trade winds. The sea water evaporates, resulting in drenching rains over South America, particularly Peru and Ecuador, as well as western parts of the United States such as California.    Parts of the western Pacific, including Indonesia and Australia, suffer drought. The effects can last for anything from a few weeks to 18 months, causing extreme weather as far afield as India and east Africa.    The co-relation with global warming is as yet unclear. Archaeological evidence shows El Niños and La Niñas have been occurring for 15,000 years. But scientists are investigating whether climate change is leading to an increase in their intensity or duration.    1 January 2007    If we fail to act, we will end up with a different planet, by Steve Connor.    One of the world"s leading experts on climate change has warned that the Earth is being turned into a "different planet" because of the continuing increase in man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.    In an interview with The Independent, Jim Hansen, who was one of the first scientists to warn of climate change in scientific testimony to the US Congress in 1988, claimed that we have less than 10 years to begin to curb carbon dioxide emissions before global warming runs out of control and changes the landscape forever.    Last year, Dr Hansen, director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies, part of Columbia University in New York, complained that Nasa public relations officials appointed by the Bush administration had tried to gag him by limiting his access to the media. But in talking to this newspaper he was outspoken, warning that there are already worrying signs that global warming is beginning to trigger dangerous "positive feedbacks" within the climate, which can accelerate the rate of climate change.    Dr Hansen said: "We just cannot burn all the fossil fuels in the ground. If we do, we will end up with a different planet. I mean a planet with no ice in the Arctic, and a planet where warming is so large that it"s going to have a large effect in terms of sea level rises and the extinction of species."    Positive feedbacks in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere are already starting. One is the loss of sea ice, which means less sunlight and heat is reflected back into space, making the Arctic even warmer. Another is the release of methane from the frozen tundra. Methane gas is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, Dr Hansen said.    "The greatest concern is that positive feedbacks at high latitudes do in fact seem to be coming into play. We can"t just let those feedbacks get out of control or we will have passed a tipping point," he said.    "If we go another 10 years, by 2015, at the current rate of growth of CO2 emissions, which is about 2 per cent per year, the emissions in 2015 will be 35 per cent larger than they were in 2000. But if we want to get on a scenario that keeps global temperature in the range that it"s been in for the last million years, we would need to decrease the emissions by something of the order of 25 per cent by the middle of the century, and by something like 75 per cent by the end of the century."    The continuing rise in carbon dioxide emissions and average global temperatures is on schedule to cause the eventual collapse of the ice sheets on both Greenland and the west Antarctic, with a catastrophic rise in sea levels.    "If we follow business as usual, and we don"t get off this course where year by year we"re getting larger and larger emissions of CO2, then we"ll have large sea-level rises this century and I think that will become more apparent over the next decade or two," Dr Hansen said.    "The last time it was 3C warmer, sea levels were 25 metres higher, plus or minus 10 metres. You"d not get that in one century, but you could get several metres in one century," he said.    "Half the people in the world live within 15 miles of a coastline. A large fraction of the major cities are on coastlines. And the problem is that once you get the process started and well on the way, it"s impossible to prevent it. That"s why we need to address the issue before it gets out of control."    Many species of animals and plants are not going to cope with rising temperatures, which are causing isotherms - lines of equal temperature - to travel polewards at the rate of 50km a decade, compared with the average rate of species migration of 6km per decade.    "Those species at high latitudes have no place to go to. Many of them will be in trouble. They will effectively be pushed off the planet," Dr Hansen said.    Dr Hansen, who last year received the WWF Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal, said that although he is now free to speak out, many other US government scientists feel gagged.
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