Climate change is Happening Now
“All extreme weather events are now subject to human influence,” said Dr. Peter Gleick, a climate & water scientist and president of the Pacific Institute, at a Capitol Hill briefing on Monday organized by the American Meteorological Society.
Dr Gleick one of a growing number of climate experts who has stepped beyond a discussion of "predicted effects" of global warming and stated outright that the extremes of weather seen over the last few years are caused by global warming.
Munich Re, a global player in the re-insurance business, released a press statement last year - associating large numbers of extreme weather events with climate change:
"there is evidence that, as a result of warming, events associated with severe windstorms, such as thunderstorms, hail and cloudbursts, have become more frequent in parts of the USA, southwest Germany and other regions. The number of very severe tropical cyclones is also increasing. One direct result of warming is an increase in heatwaves such as that experienced in Russia this summer."
Prof. Peter Höppe, Head of Munich Re’s Geo Risks Research/Corporate Climate Centre: “It’s as if the weather machine had changed up a gear".Unless binding carbon targets stay on the agenda, future generations will bear the consequences"
In 2010, 20 countries experienced the hottest weather on record. in 2011 Weather Underground report that only 3 weeks into 2011 there has already been a years worth of mega floods. Farmers in the the UK have serious concerns about crops yields after a spring where some parts of East Anglia have had no rain for over 2 months and the Met Office report the warmest April since records began - with many places experiencing temperatures of 3-5oC warmer than normal
