Extreme weather and earth changes - 05/01/2015

Five die in Queensland floods after downpours in Caboolture

State premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Queensland police confirm deaths after ‘off-the-scale’ downpours hit city north of Brisbane

the Guardian,

1 May, 2015

A fifth person has died as a result of an extreme downpour and flash flooding in southeast Queensland.

The 49-year-old man was in a vehicle that was swept away on Beerburrum Road at Caboolture, north of Brisbane, about 5.30pm on Friday.

Two other people, a 21-year-old woman and 16-year-old boy, managed to escape the vehicle.

An eight-year-old boy and two adults were killed after their car was swept away by flood waters also in Caboolture.

Police were called to Dances Road just after 5.30pm. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene along with a man in his 70s and a woman in her 30s.

Three hours later, a 75-year-old man was swept to his death when his vehicle was inundated by fast-moving waters at Burpengary.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk described the deaths as tragic, saying police investigations were under way. “On behalf of all Queenslanders we express our deepest sympathies,” she told reporters on Friday night.

She described the storm cell as “off the scale”.

Caboolture alone received 333mm of rain from 9am, with 277mm falling within three hours in the afternoon. The average rainfall for Brisbane for the month of May is 74mm but, as ABC weather presenter Jenny Woodward tweeted, the city has received a record amount of 181mm, with the previous mark having been 149mm in 1980. The Bureau of Meteorology has also said that some areas of Queensland experienced winds in excess of 100km/h.

At one point, the road to Caboolture hospital was cut off and new patients diverted to nearby hospitals.

The state emergency service had responded to 1,400 incidents throughout the day, and there were 19 swift-water rescues, Palaszczuk said.

The wild weather, caused by a low-pressure system, moved south to coincide with peak-hour traffic in the capital. Alistair Dawson, an assistant police commissioner of the Queensland police service offered advice to drivers. “Slow down, remember there are a lot of people trying to get home to their loved ones, and not to drive through flooded roads,” he said. “If it’s flooded, forget it. It’s better to arrive late than not at all.”

Dozens of people were rescued from flood waters, train services were suspended, flights delayed and cars were seen floating down roads that turned to rivers.

Dams including Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine were forced to release water and the NRL was forced to postpone the Anzac rugby league Test at Suncorp Stadium to Sunday.

“This has been an extreme weather event,” Palaszczuk said.

Conditions are expected to ease by midnight after the storm passes further south through the Gold Coast and hinterland, she added. But she urged Queenslanders to remain vigilant, obey road closures and keep away from creeks and waterways.

The low is expected to hit northern New South Wales in the early hours of Saturday morning with authorities preparing for the worst of the rain and winds over the next six to 12 hours, according the Bureau of Meteorology. 150 to 200mm of rain is expected in the region during that time with the possibility of 350mm in some areas.

People and vehicles wade through a flooded street during an intense rainstorm in Havana, on April 29

Heavy rains have resulted in the flooding of the Cuban capital Havana, forcing 10,000 people to leave their homes

Sputnik News,

1 May, 2015

At least three people have died after torrential rains on Wednesday caused high flooding in parts of Havana, forcing 10,000 to seek refuge.

According to reports on Thursday from local authorities, the victims included a pensioner who drowned in the Old Havana district, a 24-year-old man who was electrocuted by falling cables, and a 43-year-ol lawyer.

Winds at a speed of up to 98 miles per hour caused trees to fall and three buildings to collapse, damaging 24 more.

The floods also caused cuts to the power and water supply in parts of the city, where three shelters have opened to offer refuge to the 10,000 made homeless.

Much of the city's housing is old and in poor condition, and its buildings are prone to collapse, a problem exacerbated by overcrowding, budget constraints and the effects of a decades-long trade embargo

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England faces major rise in record hot years due to climate change – scientists

Increased effects of climate change enable scientists to predict localised changes in weather, such as at least a 13-fold increase in record hot years in England

the Guardian,

1 May, 2015

Record-breaking hot years in England have become at least 13 times more likely because of manmade climate change, scientists have discovered.

The new study suggests England faces a “significant and substantial increase” of years similar to 2014, which was the hottest on record worldwide and the warmest in England since records began more than three and a half centuries ago.

Dr Geert Jan van Oldenborgh from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, who co-authored the study, said climate change had become so influential on the world’s weather that its effects could be modelled at increasingly local levels.

“Climate change has become so strong over the last 10 to 15 years that you can really sense it now on the local level. Fifteen years ago you could only really see it if you looked at the global mean temperature. And now any old thermometer can show you that the temperatures are increasing,” he said.

The international team used computer models to compare years of natural variation with years with the current level of manmade warming. Lead author Dr Andrew King, from the University of Melbourne, said larger scale continental or global modelling tended to iron out regional variabilities.

“As a result of this low variability, it is easier to spot anomalies. This is why larger regions tend to produce stronger attribution statements, so it is remarkable that we get such a clear anthropogenic influence on temperatures in a relatively small area across central England,” he said.

Central England has the world’s longest running temperature record, dating back to 1659. Van Oldenborgh said the changes observed by weather watchers over the last 356 years matched closely with the findings of the models. He said the 13-fold increase was at the lowest end of predictions and the increase was realistically higher.

The first quarter of this year has already been warm globally, smashing all previous records just months before governments meet in Paris at the end of the year for major UN climate summit.

 Central England Temperature record. Photograph: Reading University

Van Oldenborgh said record hot years were not useful for indicating the effects of extreme weather under climate change - 2014 did not contain a single record hot month in England despite its overall record. But he said the study was a stepping stone towards being able to isolate the contribution of greenhouse gases to single events, such as the UK’s flooding two winters ago.

“It’s good to show that the Earth is getting warmer. I don’t know if anybody was really impacted by an annual mean high temperature. The numbers here are so big that we think we can go from an annual mean to even smaller scale events, like heat waves and floods,” he said.

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said the study provided further evidence that UK’s the weather had begun to respond to climate change in ways that were already affecting people’s lives, from their homes to their health.

“As the atmosphere warms, it can hold more water, leading to heavier rainfall. Many people, particularly farmers and gardeners, are already observing these impacts, for instance, through spring arriving earlier, and a gradual shifts in the location of some plant and animal species. But climate change is also increasing the risk of flooding, both inland from rainfall and along our coasts due to sea level rise, and the risk of heatwaves,” he said.

Extreme temperatures in Mérida City, Yucatán State, México

Recently we found online an image of the city of Merida, capital of Yucatan state in which it looks with insignificant vegetation cover, so some people say that the loss of plant cover is leading the warming of the city, which sounds logical. But others argue that nothing happens, that is normal reach 107.7 degrees Fahrenheit in April