Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The number of weather-related disasters in 2010 provides "further evidence of advancing climate change." according to re-insurance company Munich Re. Nine hundred and fifty natural disasters were recorded last year, the second highest number of natural disasters recorded since 1980, and nine-tenths of them were weather-related events such as storms, floods or heatwaves. The death toll over 2010 exceeded 295,000 and economic losses amounted to US$130 billion.

Following a season of severe hurricane activity in the North Atlantic sector, Peter Höppe, head of Munich Re's Geo Risks Research, warned of the threat posed by rising ocean temperatures. "This long-term trend can no longer be explained by natural climate oscillations alone," he said. "The probability is that climate change is contributing to some of the warming of the world's oceans." Together with the continuing natural warm phase in the North Atlantic, he concluded, this is likely to mean a further high level of hurricane activity in coming years.

Assam tea could be at risk as climate change affects the northeast of India. Rainfall levels have decreased by more than 20 per cent over the past 60 years and temperatures have increased. "Climate changing is definitely happening," said Mridul Hazarika of the Tea Research Association. "It is affecting the tea gardens in a number of ways."

An increase in winter temperatures, for example, has affected the dormancy period. Prabhat Bezboruah, a tea planter, reports that "now what's happening is we're not getting a dormancy. There is still some leaf on the bush." Erratic weather is also a factor. "We're at the thin edge where any inconsistency in weather or cropping pattern has an immediate spiking effect on prices," said Azam Monem of McLeod Russel India. Tea production in Assam has dropped from 564,000 tons in 2007 to an estimated 460,000 tons in 2010.

The flooding in Queensland, northern Australia, which has affected 200,000 people, is the result of the combined impact of a strong La Niña and a monsoonal trough, according to Jonathan Nott from James Cook University in Cairns, Queensland. "With the La Niña and monsoonal trough, conditions were absolutely set for these floods to occur," he said.

Nott says that pockets of heavy rain are common in the state. But this time the rain was unseasonably widespread and fell over the entire catchment area. "All of the tributaries that flow into the trunk stream, Fitzroy river, have been completely soaked," he reported. There is concern that the flood water may affect the Great Barrier Reef. Michelle Devlin of James Cook University warned that the event has the potential to alter how the reef operates. "There is just going to be this cocktail of water containing a lot of things that [corals] wouldn't necessarily have seen before," she said. "It is fresh, warm water and that will stress corals out as well."