16 December 2004journalnow.com / Associated Press
The year 2004, punctuated by four hurricanes in the Caribbean and deadly typhoons lashing Asia, was the fourth-hottest on record, extending a trend since 1990 that has registered the 10 warmest years, a United Nations weather agency said yesterday.
The year was also the most expensive for the insurance industry in coping worldwide with hurricanes, typhoons and other weather-related natural disasters, according to new figures released by U.N. environmental officials.
The release of the report by the World Meteorological Organization came as environmental ministers from about 80 countries gathered in Buenos Aires for a U.N. conference on climate change, looking at ways to cut down on greenhouse gases that some say contribute to Earth's warming.
Scientists say that a sustained increase in temperature change is likely to continue disrupting the climate, increasing the intensity of storms, potentially drying up farmlands and raising ocean levels, among other things.
Michel Jarraud, the secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said that warming and increased storm activity could not be attributed to any particular cause but was part of a warming trend that is likely to continue.
Scientists have reported that temperatures around the world rose an average of 1 degree over the past 100 years, with the rate of change increasing rapidly since 1976.
The World Meteorological Organization said it expects Earth's average surface temperature to rise 0.8 of a degree above the normal 57 degrees Fahrenheit in 2004, adding this year to a recent pattern that included the four warmest years on record, the hottest being 1998.
October 2004 also registered as the warmest October since accurate readings began in 1861, said the agency, which is responsible for assembling data from meteorologists and climatologists worldwide.
During the summer, heat waves in southern Europe pushed temperatures to near-record highs in southern Spain, Portugal and Romania, where thermometers peaked at 104 degrees as the rest of Europe also sweltered through higher-than-average temperatures.
The extreme weather of 2004 extended to storms.
The Caribbean had four hurricanes that reached Category 4 or 5 status - those capable of causing extreme and catastrophic damage. It was only the fourth time in recent history that so many were recorded. The hurricanes of 2004 caused more than $43 billion in damage in the Caribbean and the United States.
The worst damage was on Haiti, where as many as 1,900 people died from flooding and mudslides caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne in September.
Japan and the Philippines also had increased extreme tropical weather, with typhoons lashing both island nations. Japan registered a record number of typhoons making landfall this year with 10, and back-to-back storms in the Philippines killed at least 740 people in the wettest year for the world since 2000, the agency said.
Statistics released at the climate-change conference showed that the world's natural disasters in the first 10 months of the year cost the insurance industry just over $35 billion, up from $16 billion in 2003.
Munich Re, one of the world's biggest insurance companies, said that the United States had the highest losses at more than $26 billion, but small developing nations such as the Caribbean islands of Grenada and Grand Cayman were also hit hard.
Other parts of the world also had extreme weather, with droughts in the western United States, parts of Africa, Afghanistan, Australia and India.
The higher temperatures and deadly storms were matched by harsh winters in Peru, Chile and southern Argentina.
