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Drowning in an Absence of Environmental Data
By Alasdair Gray, England
Images of water rushing through the streets of small English towns are telling an all too familiar tale for British residents this January. The sudden, unrelenting downpour in the later weeks of January caused rivers to burst their banks without giving enough time for adequate preparation.
Last July equally relentless rains flooded an area spanning around 250km, London to Shropshire with a provisional total of 14 inches over the summer period, over four times that of previous summers. This wettest British summer on record was apparently caused by an unusually southerly excursion of the polar jet stream. It appears that these winds (which are typically one to three miles thick and 1000 to 3000 miles long) were both further south and much stronger than expected and as such caused the rare weather patterns coming across the United Kingdom.
The head of forecasting at the United Kingdom's Met Office, Keith Groves, described these very unusual occurrences as "rather disappointing." His words understate the damage that could potentially cost the government up to £2.7bn, and what could cost homeowners a lot of sterling to repair the mess caused by these storms.
The British are now beginning to believe that they have experienced some of the aberrations associated with climate change first hand and the question on many people's lips is - Could climate change cause a permanent fluctuation of the polar jet stream?
The general consensus among British scientists is that it's very hard to attribute the cause of last year's severe weather to climate change. Further, these scientists contend that it is highly unlikely that global warming was responsible for pushing the polar jet stream 70km further towards the equator. Indeed, Jim Dale, a risk meteorologist at the British Weather Services has even gone as far as saying that the extraordinarily damp summer was "simply bad luck."
On face value it is very reassuring to learn that global warming is not affecting the jet stream. However, this does not change the fact that on some level, the introduction of massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere likely has an affect on the planet's climate system.
The UK alone produces 554.5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. This figure does not include air travel in and out of the UK nor does it include carbon dioxide emissions from international shipping. Even more terrifying is the fact that the United Kingdom is the eighth worst polluter in the world. In 2007 China overtook the United States on the carbon dioxide ‘dirty-list,' producing 6,200 million tons of the greenhouse gas to America's 5,800 million.
"Scientists contend that it is highly unlikely that global warming was responsible for pushing the polar jet stream 70km further towards the equator. Indeed, Jim Dale, a risk meteorologist at the British Weather Services has even gone as far as saying that the extraordinarily damp summer was 'simply bad luck.'quot; -Alasdair Gray
Although 80% of the scientific community contends that climate change is happening and that it is our fault, there is still not enough substantial evidence to prove this is a scientific certainty.
It seems to me that there are two actions we can take to prove or disprove that these emissions have a deleterious affect on our climate. First, we could change the way in which we live by consuming fewer fossil fuels. Either nothing would change - proving the scientists right - or we might see actual evidence of a slowing of the melt at the ice caps and a lowering of sea levels - which would prove the environmental activists right.
The second option would be to espouse a wait and see approach and hope for the best. Certainly if nothing were to change we wouldn't need to fund alternative energy research and development and other schemes to cut carbon dioxide emissions. However, we must also be prepared to understand that by waiting and hoping we might find out the hard way that we do contribute to global warming and climate change.
If we are prepared to wait and see whether sea levels rise over 6 meters displacing millions of people, including residents of London, New York, Bombay and Tokyo it will be too late. The economic depression that would result would make 1929 feel like nothing more than a misplaced piggy bank.
