Climate change poses grave threat to security, says UK envoy

Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, special representative to foreign secretary, says governments can't afford to wait for 100% certainty.

Flooding in Thailand 2011

Climate change poses as grave a threat to the UK's security and economic resilience as terrorism and cyber-attacks, according to a senior military commander who was appointed as William Hague's climate envoy this year.

In his first interview since taking up the post, Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti said climate change was "one of the greatest risks we face in the 21st century", particularly because it presented a global threat. "By virtue of our interdependencies around the world, it will affect all of us," he said.

He argued that climate change was a potent threat multiplier at choke points in the global trade network, such as the Straits of Hormuz, through which much of the world's traded oil and gas is shipped.

Morisetti left a 37-year naval career to become the foreign secretary's special representative for climate change, and represents the growing influence of hard-headed military thinking in the global warming debate.

The link between climate change and global security risks is on the agenda of the UK's presidency of the G8, including a meeting to be chaired by Morissetti in July that will include assessment of hotspots where climate stress is driving migration.

Morisetti's central message was simple and stark: "The areas of greatest global stress and greatest impacts of climate change are broadly coincidental."

He said governments could not afford to wait until they had all the information they might like. "If you wait for 100% certainty on the battlefield, you'll be in a pretty sticky state," he said.

The increased threat posed by climate change arises because droughts, storms and floods are exacerbating water, food, population and security tensions in conflict-prone regions.

"Just because it is happening 2,000 miles away does not mean it is not going to affect the UK in a globalised world, whether it is because food prices go up, or because increased instability in an area – perhaps around the Middle East or elsewhere – causes instability in fuel prices," Morisetti said.

"In fact it is already doing so," he added, noting that Toyota's UK car plants had been forced to switch to a three-day week after extreme floods in Thailand cut the supply chain. Computer firms in California and Poland were left short of microchips by the same floods.

Morisetti is far from the only military figure emphasising the climate threat to security. America's top officer tackling the threat from North Korea and China has said the biggest long-term security issue in the region is climate change.

In a recent interview, Admiral Samuel J Locklear III, who led the US naval action in Libya that helped topple Muammar Gaddafi, said a significant event related to the warming planet was "the most likely thing that is going to happen that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about".

There is a reason why the military are so clear-headed about the climate threat, according to Professor John Schellnhuber, a scientist who briefed the UN security council on the issue in February and formerly advised the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

"The military do not deal with ideology. They cannot afford to: they are responsible for the lives of people and billions of pounds of investment in equipment," he said. "When the climate change deniers took their stance after the Copenhagen summit in 2009, it is very interesting that the military people were never shaken from the idea that we are about to enter a very difficult period."

He added: "This danger of the creation of violent conflicts is the strongest argument why we should keep climate change under control, because the international system is not stable, and the slightest thing, like the food riots in the Middle East, could make the whole system explode."

The military has been quietly making known its concern about the climate threat to security for some time. General Wesley Clark, who commanded the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo war,said in 2005: "Stopping global warming is not just about saving the environment, it's about securing America for our children and our children's children, as well." More

 

Heat Wave May Threaten World’s Hottest Temp. Record

A brutal and potentially historic heat wave is in store for the West as parts of Nevada, Arizona and California may get dangerously hot temperatures starting Thursday and lasting through next week. In fact, by the end of the heat wave, we may see a record tied or broken for the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth.

Statistics for Las Vegas, Bishop and Death Valley

The furnace-like heat is coming courtesy of a “stuck” weather pattern that is setting up across the U.S. and Canada. By midweek next week, the jet stream — a fast-moving river of air at airliner altitudes that is responsible for steering weather systems — will form the shape of a massive, slithering snake with what meteorologists refer to as a deep “ridge” across the Western states, and an equally deep trough seting up across the Central and Eastern states.

All-time records are likely to be threatened in normally hot places — including Death Valley, Calif., which holds the record for the highest reliably recorded air temperature on Earth at 134°F. That mark was set on July 10, 1913, and with forecast highs between 126°F to 129°F this weekend, that record could be threatened. The last time Death Valley recorded a temperature at or above 130°F was in 1913.

Las Vegas and Phoenix, two cities well-known for their hot and dry summers, are also predicted to approach record territory. Last Vegas’ all-time high temperature record is 117°F and Phoenix’s high is 122°F. Excessive heat warnings are in effect in both cities from Friday through Monday.

Las Vegas could come close to tying its record for the longest stretch of days at or above 110°F, which is 10 straight, set in 1961. Phoenix may approach its record for the number of consecutive days at or above 116°F, which is four, set in 1990. Reliable weather records began there in 1896. Forecast highs in Phoenix range between 115°F to 120°F for Friday through Sunday.

“While hot temperatures are a regular feature in this part of the country, a heat wave of this proportion and duration is not common,” the NWS forecast office in Phoenix said on its website. “Several days at or near 100°F are common for the southwest Arizona [and] southeast California deserts in the summer. But periods of temperatures at or above 115°F are more rare."

Forecast atmospheric pressure dpeartures from average (geopotential height anomalies) at about 18,000 feet for Saturday, June 29. The red area shows the "heat dome" or area of higher than average pressure, across the West.

While each heat wave has ties to short-term weather variability, increasingly common and intense heat waves are one of the most well-understood consequences of manmade global warming, since as global average surface temperatures increase, the probability of extreme heat events increases by a greater amount. Data already suggests that heat waves have are becoming more common worldwide.

One study, published in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences in 2012, found that the odds of extremely hot summers have significantly increased in tandem with global temperatures. Those odds, the study found, were about 1-in-300 during the 1951-1980 timeframe, but that had increased to nearly 1-in-10 by 1981-2010.

The heat during the weekend and during the first week in July will also affect inland areas of Southern California, where excessive heat watches and warnings have been issued. The NWS said on Thursday that the strong heat dome may migrate northward through the 4th of July holiday, potentially locking the near-record high temperatures in place for a week or more, raising the risk of wildfires, and bringing a heat wave to places like Portland and Seattle.

The heat is also likely to aggravate already dire drought conditions in the Southwest. Fortunately, the hottest weather is not likely to affect Colorado and parts of New Mexico, where the largest wildfires have been burning to date. More

 

Storms in US leave thousands without power

More than 200,000 homes and businesses in the US have been without power after storms with damaging winds, lightning and baseball-sized hail struck parts of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

A 63-year-old woman sheltering in a bathtub also died after powerful winds tossed her around her trailer in South Dakota.

Storms developed in the Dakotas on Friday and drove through Minnesota into Wisconsin, producing wind gusts of up to 137kph and large hailstones, some in excess of 10cm in diameter, as well as short-lived tornadoes.

"Some 200,000 customers were still without power in Minnesota on Saturday, mainly in the Minneapolis area, and another 1,000 were without power across the border in Wisconsin," said Tom Hoen, a spokesman for Xcel Energy, which serves the area.

Hoen said there would be customers without service going into Tuesday because of the massive scale of the damage.

He added that the outages had affected 492,000 customers since the storm formed.

Other utility companies reported scattered outages in Minnesota and Wisconsin. More

 

Singapore mulls legal action over smog from Indonesia fires

Officials in Singapore say they are exploring whether to charge two Singapore-based companies in connection with severe smog triggered by forest fires in Indonesia.

Smoke in Singapore

The companies own land on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Singapore's foreign minister said he had asked the attorney-general to consider the legal options.

However, he said it was mainly up to Indonesia to take action against the companies.

The firms, Asia Pacific Resources International (April) and Sinar Mas, are headquartered in Singapore but have Indonesian owners.

"The majority of hotspots in Riau (province) are inside April and Sinar Mas concessions," Indonesian presidential aide Kuntoro Mangkusubroto told Reuters news agency.

Asia Pacific Resources International has issued a statement to the BBC denying the allegations.

Pollution has reached record levels in Singapore as a result of the smoky haze, affecting millions of residents.

Correspondents say the fires come from illegal burning in Sumatra that takes place in the dry season to clear space for palm oil plantations.

Foreign Minister K Shanmugam also said he would bring up the issue at a meeting of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) taking place in Brunei next week, and he has not ruled out appealing to other international bodies.

A senior official in the Indonesian president's office said fires had been spotted on land owned by 32 companies in the region, some of them based in Malaysia and Singapore.

Schools in parts of Malaysia and Indonesia have closed temporarily.

Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong warned on Thursday that the haze could remain for weeks.

The Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) hit 401 at 12:00 on Friday (04:00 GMT) - the highest in Singapore's history.

On Saturday at 10:00 local time (02:00 GMT) the PSI was at 326 - a level still considered hazardous. More

This is not extreme weather, but it is an extreme health hazard, as well as contributing to environmental destruction and adding massive amounts of carbon to the atmosphere. Editor

 

Alberta flood: 'I watched a refrigerator go by. It's insane'

Torrential rains and widespread flooding in southern Alberta have left people throughout the province in awe at the power and scope of the devastation.

More floods for Alberta

The floodwaters have washed out roads and bridges, left at least one person missing and caused cars, couches and refrigerators to float away. Several communities are under states of emergency, and as many as 100,000 people could be forced from their homes in Calgary alone.

'I watched a refrigerator go by, I watched a shed go by, I watched couches go by. It's insane.' —Canmore resident Wade Graham

There were flashpoints of chaos from Banff and Canmore and Crowsnest Pass in the Rockies, to Calgary and beyond in the north and south to Lethbridge.

John E. Marriott, a photographer who lives along Cougar Creek in the mountain town of Canmore, about 100 km west of Calgary, said on Thursday that the raging torrent had moved within metres of his house.

The creek rose from centimetres deep and about three metres wide to being 150 metres wide and about five metres deep, he said.

Canmore resident Wade Graham said he woke up at about 3 a.m. Thursday to a rumbling sound "and it was the creek."

"At first it was just intense, pretty powerful, amazing thing to watch. As daylight came, it just got bigger and bigger and wider and wider, and it's still getting bigger and bigger and wider and wider.

"All you can hear is like boulders and trees. I watched a refrigerator go by, I watched a shed go by, I watched couches go by. It's insane."

He told CBC News he was looking directly at Grotto Mountain, "which has no waterfalls on it ever. From my bedroom window I can count ... seven major waterfalls from here."

Mike Crawford, who lives on Bow Crescent in Calgary, said he had to leave his home just after noon Thursday.

"Early this morning the river was going over the bike trails, but it wasn't looking to be a concern," he told CBC's Ian Hanomansing.

"Noon it was higher, but still not a concern, and within hours it had risen several feet and water started seeping up onto the streets and running through the neighbour's yard into my yard."

He said he decided to leave while it was still safe, saying water was starting to cover the streets. Crawford's home was built over the last year, and he moved in only three weeks ago. "I'm not really sure what I'm going to be walking into tomorrow or the next day," he said.

Bruce Burrell, director of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency, said water levels on the Bow River (Cougar Creek is a tributary) aren't expected to subside until Saturday afternoon.

Evacuees in Calgary were being asked to stay with friends or relatives, though recreation centres were being set up to accommodate those who had no place to go. More

 

Could big bills from extreme weather drive climate action?

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Could the growing costs of damage from extreme weather – in rich countries as well as poor – be the push that finally drives action on climate change?

House inundated by the Elbe river

Worst-in-a-decade flooding that swept through Germany as U.N. climate talks took place there this month will cost Germany’s government and its insurance companies up to $8 billion, experts estimate. In the United States, the bill for recovery from Hurricane Sandy is estimated at more than $50 billion, with agricultural losses from that country’s widespread drought last year even more costly.

“When you add up what all the extreme weather events cost last year (in the United States), it’s in excess of $250 billion,” said Rachel Kyte, vice president for sustainable development at the World Bank. “You’re talking about economic devastation that at some point is going to start hitting.”

So far, such heavy losses have not led to widespread political support for action on climate change in the United States, or other hard-hit countries. But a new report from the World Bank on the expected impacts of climate shifts suggests that so-called “loss and damage” from extreme weather is just starting, and the costs – in lives, economic damage and even potentially political stability – could rise dramatically around the world.

In South Asia, the once-regular Asian monsoon is growing less predictable, leading to deepening concerns that shifts could affect the food security and lives of 1.6 billion people. This year, the monsoon arrived almost a month early, causing severe flooding in some parts of India. At other times it has come late, leading to widespread power blackouts as desperate farmers switch on irrigation pumps, said Erick Fernandes, an adviser on climate change and natural resources for the World Bank.

Worsening drought in the Amazon threatens rainfall in food-producing areas of South America as far south as Argentina, he said, during a seminar on the World Bank report at the offices of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London.

Brazil’s crops – which are widely exported to other countries as well as feeding Brazilians – are 95 percent rainfed, Fernandes said, and the country relies heavily on hydropower for its energy.

Ocean acidification, as the world’s seas absorb excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, has risen by 30 percent from pre-industrial times, the seminar heard. Acidification could prevent many shellfish from growing shells while an expected global temperature rises of at least 4 degrees Celsius would kill most coral reefs around the world, threatening tourism income and leaving coasts now protected by reefs more vulnerable to storms.

The Caribbean alone earns $5 billion a year from its coral reefs, Fernandes said.

TWO DEGREES HOTTER

Much of southern and southwest Africa is expected to see worsening drought by 2030 that could make growing maize – the region’s staple – impossible in 40 percent of the area it is now cultivated, the report said. Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also likely to turn many of Africa’s grass savannahs to brushy woodlands, affecting pastoralists.

In Southeast Asia, where coastal cities are seeing a big population surge, particularly in informal settlements, rising temperatures are expected to make life extremely uncomfortable for those without access to air conditioning, and to drive a serious increase in the severity of storms that could flood homes and workplaces – as happened in Thailand in 2011, said Fernandes.

Such shifts, besides causing huge financial losses, are likely to force a complete revamp of existing development plans.

“The development paradigm we’ve been peddling for years, that it’s easier to deal with the poor in urban settings than rural, because they’re easier to find and reach with services” may now be wrong, Kyte said.

“This report says that perhaps the most dangerous place to be if you’re poor is in the slums of a southeast Asian city.”

Changes are coming faster than expected, Fernandes said, noting that there was now a chance that a 4 degree Celsius rise in temperatures could arrive by 2060, and that “we could experience a 2-degree (hotter) world in our lifetimes”.

The increasingly extreme weather of recent years is the result of a 0.8 degree Celsius rise in the world’s temperature since pre-industrial times, which suggests that “even 2 degrees is not going to be a picnic”, he said.

Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, and a senior fellow at the IIED, said he saw the World Bank report as “all about loss and damage” – a relatively new term that describes the costs associated with failure to reduce or adapt to climate change.

Who might pay those costs remains a huge political question. Rich countries at the U.N. climate talks have so far refused to accept any liability for their higher carbon emissions, fearing it could lead to them having to pay billions in compensation, experts say.

That suggests many countries, companies and communities will be asked to shoulder the rising costs of extreme weather themselves – and those costs could lead to growing pressure for action, experts predicted. More

 

Race to save India Uttarakhand flood victims

A massive rescue operation is under way to reach survivors in the flood-hit Indian state of Uttarakhand, where nearly 150 people have died.

More than 62,000 pilgrims are stranded after the floods swept away buildings and triggered landslides.

A large number of them are reported to be trapped in the holy town of Kedarnath, located in a valley.

State Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has described the floods as a "Himalayan tsunami".

Flood-related deaths have also been reported in Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh states and neighbouring Nepal.

The monsoon season generally lasts from June to September, bringing rain which is critical to the farming output, but this year the rain in the north of India and parts of Nepal has been heavier than usual.

Media reports say military helicopters and the army are mainly targeting Kedarnath in Rudraprayag district, where portions of a famous Hindu temple have been washed away and the shrine is "submerged in mud and slush".

'Unprecedented'

State-run broadcaster Doordarshan reported that about 90 guest houses for pilgrims in Kedarnath and neighbouring areas had been swept away, raising fears of more deaths.

"I heard a loud explosion and a lake above Kedarnath town burst its banks. The floods arrived minutes later and everything was gone in 15 minutes," Dinesh Bagwari, a priest at the temple, told the BBC Hindi.

"We spent 36 hours without water or food. I saw several hundred people trapped in inhuman conditions. Five of my family members are missing and my 17-year-old son is stranded there."

More than 5,500 soldiers and hundreds of paramilitary and disaster management officials are working to rescue and provide emergency supplies to thousands of tourists and pilgrims stranded in towns and temples. Twenty helicopters have been deployed.

Uttarakhand police official RS Meena said that 15,000 people have been evacuated from the flood-hit areas by land and air so far.

Rescue operations were halted on Thursday morning due to rains and bad visibility, but resumed later in the day after the weather improved.

Senior Uttarakhand official Om Prakash said the death toll in the floods in the state had gone up to 150.

Mr Bahuguna said the death and destruction in the floods was "unprecedented", and that the toll would rise further.

The vice chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority told The Indian Express the rains in Uttarakhand had been the "heaviest in 60 years".

India's PM Manmohan Singh has described the situation there as "distressing" and announced a 10bn rupee ($170m; £127m) aid package for the state. More

 

Baked Alaska: Unusual Heat Wave Hits 49th State

6/19/13, A heat wave hitting Alaska may not rival the blazing heat of Phoenix or Las Vegas, but to residents of the 49th state, the days of hot weather feel like a stifling oven — or a tropical paradise.

With temperatures topping 80 degrees in Anchorage, and higher in other parts of the state, people have been sweltering in a place where few homes have air conditioning.

They're sunbathing and swimming at local lakes, hosing down their dogs and cleaning out supplies of fans in at least one local hardware store. Mid-June normally brings high temperatures in the 60s in Anchorage, and just a month ago, it was still snowing.

The weather feels like anywhere but Alaska to 18-year-old Jordan Rollison, who was sunbathing with three friends and several hundred others lolling at the beach of Anchorage's Goose Lake.

"I love it, I love it," Rollison said. "I've never seen a summer like this, ever."

State health officials even took the unusual step of posting a Facebook message reminding people to slather on the sunscreen.

Some people aren't so thrilled, complaining that it's just too hot.

"It's almost unbearable to me," said Lorraine Roehl, who has lived in Anchorage for two years after moving here from the community of Sand Point in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. "I don't like being hot. I'm used to cool ocean breeze."

On Tuesday, the official afternoon high in Anchorage was 81 degrees, breaking the city's record of 80 set in 1926 for that date.

Other smaller communities throughout a wide swath of the state are seeing even higher temperatures.

All-time highs were recorded elsewhere, including 96 degrees on Monday 80 miles to the north in the small community of Talkeetna, purported to be the inspiration for the town in the TV series, "Northern Exposure" and the last stop for climbers heading to Mount McKinley, North America's tallest mountain. One unofficial reading taken at a lodge near Talkeetna even measured 98 degrees, which would tie the highest undisputed temperature recorded in Alaska.

That record was set in 1969, according to Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the online forecasting service Weather Underground.

"This is the hottest heat wave in Alaska since '69," he said. "You're way, way from normal."

It's also been really hot for a while. The city had six days over 70 degrees, then hit a high of 68 last Thursday, followed by five more days of 70 degrees and up.

The city's record of consecutive days with temperatures of 70 or above was 13 days recorded in 1953, said Eddie Zingone, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service who has lived in Anchorage for 17 years.

The heat wave also comes after a few cooler summers — the last time it officially hit the 80 mark in Anchorage was 2009. Plus, Tuesday marked exactly one month that the city's last snow of the season fell, Zingone said.

"Within a month you have that big of a change, it definitely seems very, very hot," he said. "It was a very quick warm-up."

With the heat comes an invasion of mosquitoes many are calling the worst they've ever seen. At the True Value Hardware store, people have grabbed up five times the usual amount of mosquito warfare supplies, said store owner Tim Craig. The store shelves also are bare of fans, which is unusual, he said.

"Those are two hot items, so to speak," he said.

Greg Wilkinson, a spokesman with the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, said it's gotten up to 84 degrees at his home in the Anchorage suburb of Eagle River, where a tall glass front lets the sunlight filter through.

"And that's with all the windows open and a fan going," he said. "We're just not used to it. Our homes aren't built for it."

Love or hate the unusual heat, it'll all be over soon.

Weather forecasters say a high pressure system that has locked the region in clear skies and baking temperatures has shifted and Wednesday should be the start of a cooling trend, although slightly lower temperatures in the 70s are still expected to loiter into the weekend. More