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Europe's Summer of 2003 Was Hottest in 500 Years
Yes so hot that I could not climb the Mont Blanc as I had planed
Earl Evleth wrote: Travelers can anticipate hotter weather. Earl **** Europe's Summer of 2003 Was Hottest in 500 Years, Study Shows March 5 (Bloomberg) -- The summer of 2003, when more than 20,000 people in Europe were killed by extreme heat, was the continent's warmest for five centuries, according to a study published today in the journal Science. The study's lead scientist, climatologist Juerg Luterbacher, said Europeans must prepare for worse to come, as their summers gradually resemble those of countries closer to the equator. ``The long-term trend is clear,'' Luterbacher, of Switzerland's University of Bern, said in a telephone interview. ``It's going to get warmer.'' Resulting droughts and fires will hurt farming and tourism and heat will claim more lives, he said, echoing the concerns of reinsurers such as Swiss Re, which this week put the cost of heat- related uninsured crop failures in Europe at $12.3 billion in 2003. The climate study, which took more than two years, was the first to focus on Europe, Luterbacher, 35, said. Europeans' earliest personal accounts of the weather were combined with data collected in later years to create a picture of conditions across the continent. Previous studies have looked at the entire Northern Hemisphere or the world, he said. Historians The scientists turned to historians to find what Europeans had written in their diaries about their weather and its impact on trade, crops and animals. Weather data records began in 1659, when the first thermometers and barometers were put into use, in England, followed by widespread use of instruments throughout central Europe by 1750, Luterbacher said. The researchers filled gaps in the information by sampling ice from Greenland and tree rings for evidence of changes in climate. Data was gathered as far east as Russia and as far south as Turkey. The results describe the period from 1500 to 1658 season by season. After 1659, the researchers have detailed Europe's weather month by month. Last year's soaring temperatures in Europe hit France the hardest, with the heat blamed for about 15,000 deaths during the first half of August, when the temperature reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). The thermometer hit a record 38.1 degrees Celsius in the U.K., buckling rails along the country's train lines. The drought-hit Danube river receded to a 100-year low, revealing armored vehicles abandoned during World War II. The heat wave began to envelope the continent just as Luterbacher and his team were preparing to announce that their work had determined the hottest European summer of the past 500 years was that of 1757. As temperatures rose, they decided to wait and extend their research into 2003. ``It turned out the summer of 2003 was really the hottest,'' he said. Year-Round Problem Europe is getting warmer during the other seasons, too, the study shows. The nine warmest overall years in Europe have occurred since 1989, the researchers found. Milder winters threaten European ski resorts that lie at lower altitudes, the United Nations said in a report in December on the possible impact of global warming. More than half of Switzerland's ski resorts in lower-lying areas may lose business in coming decades because of lack of snow. Scotland's Glenshee and Glencoe ski centers are for sale after the owner said mild winters were making them unprofitable. The upward trend in temperatures began more than 100 years ago and has accelerated over the past five decades, Luterbacher said. The study found the increases go beyond those that occur naturally as a result of the Sun or volcanoes and point to human activity, consistent with the rise in ``greenhouse gases'' over the same period, he said. ``The last part of the 20th century and the start of the 21st century were warmer than any time in the last 500 years,'' he said. Similar patterns have been found by researchers studying world climate or the Northern Hemisphere, he said. Pollution The study doesn't draw any conclusions about what's causing rising temperatures or how to reverse the trend. Luterbacher blames industrial and vehicle pollution and dismisses critics who say there isn't yet enough evidence to make the connection. ``We have to reduce greenhouse gases,'' he said. ``We have to do something now. We can't wait to have all the proof that humans are responsible.'' Damage caused by natural disasters increased 9 percent in 2003 to $60 billion and may rise more in coming years as global warming prompts more weather-related catastrophes, reinsurer Munich Re said in December. The Kyoto Protocol to limit global warming aims to reduce greenhouse gases, especially the carbon dioxide produced by industry and vehicles, to 95 percent of 1990 levels by 2012. The U.S., the biggest producer of greenhouse gases, hasn't ratified the treaty. ``The U.S. government is quite critical about the debate on human influence'' on climate, Luterbacher said. ``We see signals it's warming. It's warming in all seasons.'' Some scientists reject the greenhouse-gases theory, saying global warming is a naturally occurring change in the Earth's climate. The study by Luterbacher and his colleague was financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the European Union. |
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