Why is everywhere flooding at the moment?
Whether you live in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Australia or South-east Asian regions you would have noticed severe and damaging floods and flooding in many parts of those areas in only the past few days and weeks in the month of June. Surely not all areas of the world are prone to this amount of flooding, considering that many of them are halfway across the world from one another? Normally the whole world does not begin to flood coincidentally, all at the same time.
Or does it?
Consider Australia – it has been prone to devastating drought for the last five years and longer, but now all of a sudden it has switched in the opposite direction – floods ruining livestock, houses, and cities and even threatening water supplies with plumes of infected floodwater. You may well be thinking that it is a good thing for New South Wales and Victoria, the major flooding affected states of Australia, to finally be getting some rain and raising the dam levels, but doesn’t that make you wonder why it’s happening now? What could have caused this to radically change the climate? This is the wettest June in Australia’s history and rain at this time of year is moderately off season; something seems amiss…
Texas in the United States of America has also been severely affected by these floods. Multiple deaths and record-breaking rainfall have brought global media attention to the area. Just like in Victoria, Australia, Texas is still awaiting even more flood waters and the emergency teams have a hard time expecting when or where the next outbreak will happen. Austin airport recorded the wettest year ever, and the area has been in drought since late 2004. See the trend?
In the United Kingdom the outlook isn’t much better…
Hundreds of families are still unable to return to their homes as floods continue to affect parts of Yorkshire and the Midlands.
And to no surprise, Southern and Eastern England has been in terrible drought for quite some time. The government even had to enforce water restrictions and hosepipe bans to reduce water usage in residential and non-commercial areas.
This is getting a little bit repetitive; so let’s speed thing up a little.
Pakistan – worst drought in its history – cyclone causes floods
Solomon Islands – severe droughts, Australia government provides assistance – heavy flooding
And so on. Remember these floods all took place in June – all at incredibly similar time frames.
But this leads me to think – What could possibly be causing all these droughts followed by severe amounts of flooding? At the same time, all across the globe?
I only have two options in my mind for the cause. The first option leads me the La Niña and El Niño cycle.
Here is a quote from Wikipedia:
El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a global coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon … Their effect on climate in the southern hemisphere is profound … Warm water spreads from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific. It takes the rain with it, causing rainfall in normally dry areas and extensive drought in eastern areas.
Well that accounts for the droughts in Australia – but wait a second – weren’t there droughts in the United States as well – at the same time? Isn’t this cycle meant to cause opposite climate conditions across the Pacific Ocean, not natural disasters of the same type at the opposite ends of the world?
Something isn’t right. I’ll disregard that theory and hope for the best with my last option – the most infamous and notorious of all scientific theories to the present day.
Global Warming.
The answer, in relation to global warming, is probably due to the large amount of fresh water flowing into the North Atlantic ocean as the Arctic ice caps mealt. This, of course, goes into the gulf stream and as normal climate patterns are directly related, there would be noticible changes or variations to the normal climate. However, you are mistaken when you state that the United States droughts which are occuring prodominently in the south of the country are’nt caused by Southern Oscillation. El Nino has ended and La Nina has begun. If you examine the effects La Nina has around the world for the June to August Months, you will find that the southern parts of the United States and Northern Carribean receives cool wet conditions. This explains the floods in Texas. As for the Australia, La Nina also brings wetter conditions. I remind you that the world is in an La Nina period, and that it affects not just the southern hemishere. El Nina periods also bring heavy, if not the heaviest rain to south- and south east and east asia. Finally, Britain is expericening mostly local droughts. Drought would have hit Europe as well if the droughts in Britain could be attributed to any of the cycles listed above. Britain has a long history of local dorughts, as we saw only a few years ago with the flooding of Cork. Most of Europe is considered an area where large scale drought, compared to other parts of the world, seldom or only raley occurs. These cycles are common, and most likely have little to do with global warming. Global Warming is a far more gradual process, and we will be effected more so in the next twenty to forty years. Global warming has become a cliche that seems to be applied beyond the rhelms of proven scientific fact.
Lee Harwell.
PS- Excuse the Spelling.
I am REALLY sorry about the spelling, Its LA NINA, not EL NINA, LEE!