TIME EUROPE
November 13, 2000, Vol. 156 No. 20
Stormy Weather
Are Europe's floods, gales and droughts here to stay? Yes, say the experts — and it could get worse
By JAMES O. JACKSON London
What a week of weather it has been. What a month. What a year. Raging rivers in Italy. Gales in France. Fires in Greece. Water, water everywhere in Wales. Rain in Spain. A tornado in Bognor Regis. What? A tornado in Bognor Regis? That's supposed to be an English seaside resort of sunny shores and gentle showers, not some dusty town in America's Tornado Alley. And stately, centuries-old oaks in the gardens of Versailles in Paris are not supposed to be ripped up like palm trees in a Key West hurricane. All over Europe it's the same story. Last month flash floods and mudslides wiped away the heart of the village of Gondo in southwestern Switzerland, and Italy's River Po overflowed from the Alps to the Adriatic, carrying away $2.6 billion in losses of homes, fields and businesses. It was the opposite problem last July in Greece, where heat waves with temperatures hitting 42°C produced drought and devastasting, wind-driven wildfires. Deluges, droughts, fires, landslides, avalanches, gales, tornadoes: Is it just our imagination, or is Europe's weather getting worse?
The short answer is yes, the weather certainly is getting worse. The cause is air pollution that pours greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere to produce global warming that can alter weather patterns. Whether the specific storms that knocked down trees in Paris last Christmas, flooded the Po Valley last month and battered Britain last week can be attributed to the warming trend is a subject of serious — and contentious — scientific debate. But most climate experts agree that so-called extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, and that the weather worldwide over the coming 100 years will change drastically.
Europeans can expect more rain and flooding in the north as well as drought and desertification in the south. Glaciers will melt in the Alps, parts of Spain and Italy will turn as dry as the Sahel, forests will thrive in Sweden and, yes, tornadoes will rip up trees in places like Bognor Regis. The scientists say that even if the world's governments and industries meet international goals on reducing greenhouse gases — which they probably will not — it still won't be enough to prevent severe changes to the world's weather. Their advice to governments, businesses and private citizens about this is grim: get used to it.
A landmark report released last week by a team of 27 European climatologists warns that the trend in global warming may be irreversible, at least over most of the coming century. That, they say, means governments should start planning immediately to adapt to the new extremes of weather that their citizens will face — with bans on building in potential flood plains in the north, for example, and water conservation measures in the south. "We make almost 50 recommendations for policy and research in this report," says Martin Parry, a scientist at Britain's University of East Anglia who edited the so-called Acacia report assessing effects and adaptation to future weather changes in Europe. "It really is imperative that we take the first steps in adapting to climate change now."
That represents a subtle but significant shift in attitudes toward global warming, and some activists are dismayed at the suggestion that the world should adapt to the warming trend rather than try to halt or reverse it. Next week at the Hague, representatives of 160 countries will gather to assess progress since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. In that undertaking, governments pledged to cut greenhouse emissions worldwide by 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012. They are far from meeting that goal, and the Hague conference is likely to turn into a wrangle of finger pointing over who is at fault. Campaigners for drastic cuts in emissions fear that talk of "adapting" rather than "mitigating" will ease political pressure on the big polluters such as the U.S. and Japan.
Parry rejects the suggestion that he and his scientific colleagues are giving up on mitigation. "This doesn't mean we're throwing up our hands and walking away," he says. "Kyoto is only the first step, and there will be successes in mitigation in the future. But in the meantime we must adopt policies of adaptation. We want to have two strings in our bow."
The adaptation string will have to shoot many arrows if the changes predicted by Parry and his colleagues take place. They say there will be a general warming of Europe, with much wetter weather in the north and much drier conditions in the south. That will mean extensive northern flooding, while parts of the agriculturally productive south will turn into near-desert. In the Alps, much less water will be held on mountains in the form of snow and instead will run off to feed devastating flash floods. Alpine glaciers will melt and tundra from Lapland to Siberia will vanish. The level of the Mediterranean Sea will rise half a meter by 2050, inundating coastal wetlands and wiping out whole species of bird and sea life.
All this because, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global temperatures could rise by as much as 6°C in the 21st century, 10 times as fast as temperatures have risen in the last 100 years. "Who wants to look forward to a world where things are changing 10 times as rapidly as they did in the previous 100 years?" asks Tom Wigley, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. "I just don't want to go there."
Neither will he — nor anybody else — want to go to the regions hardest-hit by climate change, some of which are already the poorest in the world. "There will be a south to north shift of climatic resources," says Parry. "This will change the political geography of the Continent. The most adverse effects will be in poor, rural areas, the least adverse in wealthy urban areas. That's the global situation as well — dry areas getting drier, wet areas getting wetter." MORE>>
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November 13, 2000
COVER STORY
Stormy Weather
Are Europe's floods, gales and droughts here to stay? Yes, say the experts — and it could get worse
Any Better Ideas?
Possible solutions to global warming
EUROPE
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Lloyd's of London has won its landmark legal battle with investors. Now it must rebuild its fortunes
Interview: Max Taylor
The chairman of Lloyd's, on winning
Sitting Pretty
Once dismissed as a Barbie Doll, Socialist star Elisabeth Guigou is a premier contender
A Brief History of the Higgs Hunt
Fast Forward Europe: Scientists in Switzerland may have solved one of the great mysteries of particle physics. Why should we care?
Digital Democracy
A young German entrepreneur is campaigning to bring people all politics, all the time — online
AFRICA
Above the Waterline
New investment helps Mozambique recover from natural disaster and years of economic stagnation
BUSINESS
Middelhoff's Vision
The Bertelsmann boss pulls off a shocking deal with renegade Napster. And he's just warming up
The Bertelsmann Spirit
The Napster deal reflects the corporate culture and entrepreneurial spirit inculcated by Reinhard Mohn
New World, Old Faces
Established firms team up with online specialists to venture into the terra incognita of the Internet
SPORT
Football's Crewe Cut
Seeking an end to transfer fees, the European Commission tackles soccer's governing bodies
THE ARTS
The Best of Both Worlds
Is it possible to be upwardly mobile yet keep hold of your principles? The new élite thinks it is
DEPARTMENTS
On Your Own Time
Copenhagen
World Watch
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
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