Kindly remember, that MPL is apolitical, so I’m not making a statement as to whether climate change is real or not.
HOWEVER, what has happened in the past two months has affected many countries where our MPL Members reside. Devastation, seems too mild a word to explain – but frankly cannot come up with a stronger one.
Let’s look at these events, starting with Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. All three countries, suffered terrible flooding, with unspeakable results.
A major storm system waivered over Western Europe on July 24-25, which led to record setting rain over Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Some parts of Germany got two months’ worth of rain in 24-48 hours, which caused rivers to overlap their banks. There was flash flooding throughout communities, leaving hundreds of people injured or dead. In the end, the storm system dumped 40 gallons of water per 10 square feet, the equivalent of 148 liters of water per square meter in 48 hours. This was almost double the usual rainfall per month. The absolute scale of the flooding shocked climate scientists globally, where they drew direct links between this and human caused climate change.
The Ahr, Dussel and Volme rivers all engulfed their banks producing record-setting water levels. This led to evacuation orders and declarations of emergency in numerous cities. As water levels increased and flowed downstream, dams were filled to past their capacity, which led to further evacuations, where the infrastructure was stretched to beyond breaking point. The most serious was at a dyke near the Juliana Canal in southern Netherlands’ Limburg region. Sirens sounded as villages and hospitals evacuated ahead of the water rushing in.
As of the 11th August, more than 229 deaths were confirmed in Europe, with the majority being in Germany. Areas of the Mediterranean and central Europe have experienced intensely high temperatures this summer.
Devastation in Greece, Turkey and Sicily have been hit by crushing wildfires as a direct result of some of these places reporting 48+ Celsius. Such conditions never having been registered before.
As rising temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere increases, so too do wildfires.
Western North America
An extreme heat wave hit much of Western North America from late June through to mid-July. It is of the opinion by scientists that this would have been virtually impossible without human global warming. The heat affected Northern California, Idaho, Western Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Whilst in Canada, it fell on British Columbia and other areas. It resulted in temperatures has high as 49+°C.
The heat sparked numerous extensive wildfires, which spread to wide disruption and loss of lives. It disrupted road and rail infrastructures and forced closure of many businesses. The exact death toll for Northern America which of course includes Canada is not known precisely, but is considered to be well in excess of 600.
In other parts of the world the affects of ‘what might be climate change’ has shown itself in a completely diverse way. Let’s look at those as an example:
INDIA
Over 180 people have died in western India due to torrential monsoon rains caused landslides and flooded low-lying area, cutting off hundreds of villages.
An estimated 38 people died, 180 kilometers southeast of the financial capital Mumbai, when landslides flattened surrounding areas. In nine other areas 59 people died and a further 15 were killed in accidents linked to heavy rainfall, which resulted in water levels rising and submerging low-lying areas in the regions.
More than 200,000 people have been evacuated and meanwhile 100s of villages and towns were without electricity and drinking water. The National Disaster Response Force, the Indian Army, Coast Guards, Navy, Air Force and state authorities have all been deployed as part of the rescue effort.
Parts of India’s west coast received up to 594 millimeters (23 inches) of rainfall over 24 hours, forcing authorities to evacuate people from vulnerable areas as they released water from dams that were threatening to overflow.
“Unexpected very heavy rainfall triggered landslides in many places and flooded rivers,” Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who heads Maharashtra’s state government, told journalists.
JAPAN
Is suffering from floods and the death toll rises as the rain triggered further landslides. Torrential rain triggered mudslides and more floods across Japan. leaving people presumed dead and forcing the evacuation of dozens of residents.
USA/Water Shortage
The Colorado River is declared an historic draught. This now means cuts to water consumption for States in the Southwest. Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the US by volume, has depleted at an incredible rate this year. The Colorado River reservoir is at its lowest level since the lake was filled when the Hoover Dam was finished completion in 1930.
Lake Mead provides water to approximately 25 million people in Arizona, California, Nevada and New Mexico.
“There’s no doubt that climate change is real — we’re experiencing it every day in the Colorado River Basin and in other basins in the West,” said Tanya Trujillo, assistant secretary for water and science at the US Department of the Interior. “I think the best strategy for planning is to think about a broad range of scenarios and a broad range of potential hydrology, and to work closely with our partners in the basin to try to think through all of those scenarios.”
GREENLAND
For the first time ever, rain has been reported at the summit of Greenland. Scientists confirmed that rain was seen on Saturday 14th August. The rare rainfall caused significant melting at the summit. It affected the ice sheet’s southeastern coast. This occurred only weeks after the area experienced separate extensive melting at the end of July. This warm spell adds to the worries that climate change is speedily melting ice in the in artic, which in turn accelerates sea-levels rising around the world. Subsequently this could have a detrimental affect on low lying countries such as The Netherlands and places like Venice, in Italy.
PUFFIN – THE BIRD
Finally, on a completely different track, but still related to the possibility of Climate Change, is the story of the PUFFIN.
The Puffin are birds that live by diving for fish. They normally are found in huge colonies on islands and crevasses around the Atlantic Ocean, in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in places such as Alaska, Britain, Iceland and Norway. They are famous for coupling for life, with a far smaller divorce rate than humans. 😊
Unfortunately, recently they have been dying in unprecedented numbers. Scientists believe these birds are dying due to Climate Change, because the fish they normally eat have moved away because the ocean is becoming too warm.
Whether any of the above can be directly linked to Climate Change and what the Scientists say is the cause, is up to you individually to decide. Whatever your thoughts on the matter, think you would all agree, that everything I’ve written here is incredibly sad and catastrophic!!
Sandy McInnes
MPL Newsletter Editor
