By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 17 2008 (IPS)

A new U.N. study on climate change reveals that 2008 was one of the warmest years since 1850 when scientists started to keep weather records.

A lightning strike over Norman, Oklahoma. Credit: NOAA/ National Severe Storms Laboratory

The WMO research shows that this year, the average land and sea temperature on Earth was 0.31 degree centigrade higher than the levels recorded between 1961 and 1990. The preliminary information for 2008 is based on climate change data from networks of land-based weather stations, ships and buoys, as well as satellites.

“2008 again was a year with above-average temperatures all over Europe,” said WMO’s Carine Richard-Van Maele. “A large geographical domain, including northwestern Siberia and parts of Scandinavian region, recorded a markedly mild winter.”

In most parts of Europe, January and February were “very mild” with the average temperature rising above 7 degrees C. in Scandinavia. In fact, for the Scandinavians it was the warmest winter in more than 100 years.

By contrast, last winter happened to be unusually cold for a large part of Eurasia. Researchers note that people in some parts of Turkey had their coldest January in nearly 50 years.

The data shows that February was a cold month across most of the United States, as well. The Midwestern part of the country, for example, had average daily temperatures ranging from 4 to 5 degree centigrade below normal in some areas.

In looking at the abrupt changes in climatic conditions, the WMO researchers found that in the middle of the summer, some parts of Central America were hit by the cold wave with temperatures dropping to below 6 degree C.

Conversely, the data shows that in the middle of July, some areas in South America suffered from the worst kind of heat wave with temperature levels going up by 3 percent, making it the warmest month in the last 50 years.

Similar conditions occurred in southern Australia, which experienced a record heatwave that brought scorching temperatures across the region, with Adelaide facing the longest hot summer on record.

According to the data compiled by WMO researchers, this year changes in climate patterns brought prolonged drought, floods, and devastating storms in many parts of the world.

The southern part of the Canadian province of British Columbia, for example, suffered from its fifth driest period in more than half a century. In Europe, Portugal and Spain had their worst drought winter in decades. In South America, a large part of Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina also faced a similar situation.

The report explains at length how a number of countries across the world suffered from the devastating effects of flooding and cyclones as a result of climate change. It mentions India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Bangladesh as the worst-hit nations where tens of thousands of people lost their homes and more than 10 million were displaced.

In their attempt to explain the impact of the climate change, WMO researchers said their findings show that this year the Antarctic ozone hole had become larger than in 2007. Similarly, the Arctic sea ice dropped to its second lowest level since satellite measurement began in 1979.

Keeping in view such dramatic changes in climate conditions and their impact on the global environment and economy, the U.N. announced Tuesday some new guidelines to help countries collect essential information vital for facing natural disasters.

“So that these natural hazards do not become man-made disasters, we require effective systems to identify needs, manage data, and help drop calibrate response,” said John Holmes, the top U.N. official responsible for handling humanitarian operations across the world.

In a foreword to a new book “Data against Natural Disaster”, launched Tuesday, Holmes suggests that such systems could prove useful in coordinating the influx of aid to ensure timely and efficient delivery assistance to those who need help most.

“The emphasis on effectiveness is particularly important in the context of disaster response because, as is now clear, vulnerability to natural disasters and inefficiencies in aid distribution may lead to unnecessary economic losses, increased suffering and greater poverty,” Holmes said.

Based on case studies from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, recent hurricanes in Guatemala, Haiti and Mozambique, and the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, the book stresses the need to build information management systems for effective response to disasters.

“Baseline data should be assembled in advance as part of the process of becoming prepared for disasters,” the book’s authors stress. “Search and rescue operation, evacuations, and care for victims of trauma must be coordinated.”

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