Zmena klímy – možný dopad (nielen) na obyvateľstvo - Prohuman

Abstract
Many regions of the world have experienced an increased incidence of extreme
weather in recent years. This year, the most serious drought since 1939 hit the United
States of America, while in 2011 the state Texas was affected by record wildfires
in consequence of exceptional drought. The summer of 2012 has proven to be the
most severe wildfire season Russia has faced in a decade. Unlike 2010, when severe
fires raged in western Russia because of extreme temperature and prolong
heat waves, most of the fires in 2012 have burned through taiga in remote parts
of eastern and central Siberia. More than 17,000 wildfires had burned more than
30 million hectares (74 million acres) through August 2012. However, it is not only
a temperature what seems to be more extreme, but also the water cycles related
phenomena. Devastating torrential rainfall has become more frequent, and
moreover in terms of total amount of water, they have also reached more extreme
values. Disturbed and unbalanced temporal and spatial distribution of rainfall
caused a high number of disastrous floods in recent years. In 2010 disastrous floods
affected more than 20 million people in Pakistan and at the turn of 2010/11 the
widespread floods occurred in state of Queensland, in Australia, where the region
of total area of France and Germany combined was stricken. The British Islands
experienced the wettest summer since 1912 this year, while the worst flash-floods in
60 years hit the capital city of China, Beijing. Demonstrably higher number of extreme
weather incidences seen across the world in the period of the last decade has
become a breeding ground for discussions between experts and lay people about
whether this phenomenon could be actually linked to global warming. The article
will show us that in case of certain types of extremes, constantly increasing number
of scientific studies have brought us the evidence of existing causal relationship
between the frequency as well as intensity extremes and progressive changes in
the basic physical parameters of the Earth´s atmosphere. The following review of
the scientific literature published in recent years attempts to summarize current
knowledge on the links between climate change (changes caused by human activities,
especially greenhouse gas emissions), and extreme weather.
Key words: extreme weather, climate anomalies, statistics of extremes, heat waves,
extreme precipitation, drought
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