JP and Ryland

CLIMATE CHANGE !IS WEATHER BECOMING MORE EXTREME?!

A. ARE MAJOR STORMS (SUCH AS HURRICANES) BECOMING MORE FREQUENT AND/OR MORE INTENSE?B. ARE THERE MORE EPISODES OF DROUGHTS AND FLOODING AROUND THE WORLD THAN THERE WERE IN THE PAST?C. ARE TEMPERATURE EXTREMES GREATER THAN THEY HAVE BEEN HISTORICALLY?

a. Are major storms (such as hurricanes) becoming more frequent and/or more intense?

Yes they were pretty frequent

But not as frequent now

One of the big factors of them is the climate change

In some places a climate change can trigger a hurricane

They have not been as frequent around 2013

Here is a graph of them from 1925-2007 During 1948 they were not very frequent

As well as 2001 they occurred a bit more

But in 2007 they started to pickup

They were very frequent

As seen in the last slide they are more frequent

They were very uncommon during 1948-1957

And became very frequent from2001-2007

But around 2013 they started to stop

This graph is from 1880-2013

And it is clear there have been way less

b. Are there more episodes of droughts and flooding around the world than there were in the past?

Yes they are slowly becoming more frequent in the current day

Both droughts

And flooding's

They are both slowly stating to not become as frequent

Here is a graph of flooding's

They are still common but not as common as they were before

There were a bunch of flooding's in 2011 and 2012

And dropped off around 2013

They have also not been very frequent

Flooding's in 2015

Recently in Queensland a major flood happened

An 8 year old boy and 2 adults were killed in it

The wild weather caused by a low pressure system moves south to coincide with peak hour traffic

And luckily not too many people were harmed

2 Flooding in January

January 16 2015 135,000people had ben affected in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe

The flood had caused damage to not only crops but also livestock

Zimbabwe had the flood go across their country

And that affected 500 households that became in need of urgent assistance

While in Madagascar weeks of the high rainfall already made it perfect for a flood

With high river levels and soil saturation. The flood happened

And at least 14 people died from the flooding

With multiple neighborhoods being evacuated

Here is a graph of droughts from 2000-2009 This graph shows droughts from

2000-2009

They have slowly become less frequent

The U.S.A is supposed to face their worst drought in1,000 years

As seen in the picture on the left the risk of droughts in 2050-2099 are insanely high

California is already on their 4th year of drought

And projected droughts are to be far worse than California's

But the predicted ones are projected to last for decades not years

And with the demand for water have drastically reduced the ground water source

Conclusion

Droughts are slowly becoming more frequent than they were

As well as flooding's they have almost stopped and don’t occur as much as they used to. But have occurred recently

So in conclusion floods are slowly coming back. And droughts are projected to be back in the U.S.A around 2050

But maybe next year or in a few years they could become frequent again

And if there is a drought it is exceptional (As seen in photo)

c. Are temperature extremes greater than they have been historically?

Now the temperature is greater than before. Here is four examples.

First: Population

Second: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide

Third: ice cores , and most recently from the Mauna Loa station.

First

Global population. Look at the graph, at first 1300, population was lower than one million but now,,, over than 7million.

Second

from the 2013 US national climate assessment shows two thousand years of atmospheric concentrations for carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide: for 0~1800years Carbon Dioxide was not that much high. But only for 500 years Carbon Dioxide jumped up. It means global warming is getting worse and worse.

Third

shows over 10,000 years of carbon dioxide concentrations with measurements taken from ice cores , and most recently from the Mauna Loa station.

Sources

A

www.commdiginews.com (picture)

B

www.ncdc.noaa.gov (picture)

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/12/us-faces-worst-droughts-1000-years-climate-change-predict-scientists (webpage)

http://reliefweb.int/disaster/fl-2015-000006-mwi

C http://scienceblogs.com/significantfigures/index.php/2013/04/10/iconic-curves-2-on-exponential-curves-hockey-sticks-and-environmental-crises/(webpage)