Do the several natural disasters that have occurred recently have anything to do with global warming?

Question

Do the several natural disasters that have occurred recently have anything to do with global warming?

Answer 1

No single event can be attributed to global warming. However, global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme storms[1], floods, and droughts.[2]

Answer 2

All of those disasters were caused by human stupidity not GW. When you build a normal slab floor house without proper venting in tornado ally you can expect to get it wiped out and scattered around the neighborhood. Same problem when you build in a flood plain, why do you think they call it a flood plain anyway. Same as New Orleans building in a sink hole below sea level, that really took brains and what gets me these same people will build the same way in the same place again and when they get wiped out again anyone but themselves will be to blame for it.

Answer 3

Natural disasters have always occured, so no, these are definitely not caused by global warming.  Maybe the close timing of them would lead some people to think so.

Answer 4

well the idiots that said we arnt causing global warming are retards, and are the ones who need to die because they cant blame themselves for anything cuz they are to stuck up.

their is evidence that global warming is causing bigger storms the increased amount of tornadoes and hurricanes.

i find it kinda weird that when global warming is really starting to hit us, it is also when more storms and not to mention bigger and more powerful storms are starting to hit us. this is no coincidence its happening. warmer airfronts more frequently making storms faster and more powerful and last longer. this warm air is beign caused by none other then global warming.

the fact that hurricane katrina was cat 3 over florida and thought to be losing power over gulf like most do when hitting the gulf, but suddenly hit cat 5 and kills thousands of people. lots of those people probably didnt beleive in the strange phenomina im talking bout now either.

airs warming major storms created by warm air more warm air more storms more powerful storms, this all equals world disaster at an unpresidented level, how many more people will die from what i speak of before jackasses realize whats going on and put 2 and 2 together.

Answer 5

Absolutely!  A recent news article states that "Extreme weather will increase with climate change".  See the story on my blog at http://theearthblog.spaces.live.com/blog...

Additionally see the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" available for download via iTunes.

Answer 6

No.

Natural disasters happen all the time and they have happened for longer than humans have been on the planet.

How dare people say that man caused them.

Truly amazing.

Answer 7

NO !!! I am 77 and it has been much worse.

Answer 8

I believe the answer is somewhere in between Yes and No.

there's an interesting article in Newsweek that say this year's floods are linked to global warming.

The problem is we've always had droughts, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes, but it's hard to tell yet if the frequency of these events is linked.

Answer 9

The frequency of hurricanes making landfall is increasing along with the increase in tornadoes across 'Tornado Alley' in the last 8 years.

"In 2004, 4 major Hurricanes slammed the coast of Florida, each one of these Hurricanes was a minimum Cat 3 when it made landfall, and one, Hurricane Charley was actually a Cat 4. In the first quarter of 2005 there were 3 Hurricanes that made landfall in the USA, 2 of those Hurricanes (Katrina and Rita) reached Cat 5 levels."

Most storms per season: 28 in 2005 season (previous: 21 named storms in 1933).

Season with most hurricanes: 2005 with 15 Hurricanes (previous record: 12 in 1969)

Most Category 5 Hurricanes in a season: 4 in 2005 (Emily, Katrina, Rita, Wilma) (previous record: two in 1960 and 1961)

2005 had three of the six strongest hurricanes on record.

This is coupled with substantil increases in greenhouse gases and changes in sea temperatures at 'hurricane latitudes' (between 5 and 30 latitude) , causing higher temperatures in small areas (for now) leading to more intense hurricanes. More pollution in the atmopshere also accounts for the increased cloud cover of hurricanes and thus faster hurricane formation.

The hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 also lasted much longer over land than previous hurricanes.

Hurricanes form when the air temperature is at least 26c, so any regional climate changes will have large affects on the number and strength of hurricanes.

Heat waves and avalanches are caused by rapid warming, with increasing air temperatures the occurance of these is likely to increase. Droughts are caused by changes in weather patterns and increased temperatures, which in the last few years has lead to an increase in the desertification of the Sahel region in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert.

Increased temperatures also cause forest fires.

The floods such as those in Gloucstershire, Oxfordshire etc, last year are most likely a result of a change in weather patterns, bringing storms to the UK that would not be as intense, due again to increased sea temperatures. Landslides are similar to this, with increased rainfall over certain areas.

The IPCC report released last year confirms sea temperatures have increased since 1970.

Other Natural disasters are very unlikely to be affected by global warming.

Answer 10

People tend to have a very short term focus on these things.  You need to look back a short time in history to understand we have had mini ice ages heat waves floods and other wide spread nature events that have caused major changes in our environment.

The 6 o'clock news doesn't report the dark ages or the fact that NY was covered with in only 10000 years ago. And what about Noah and the flood?

Answer 11

The key word is NATURAL disasters, so no, man has nothing to do with wild weather, volcanoes and earthquakes.  If anything, global warming reduces the strength of hurricanes because they cause windshear.   Thunderstorms get their strength from warm and hot, humid air colliding with colder dry air.  With global warming, there is not enough of a temperature difference to trigger rain.

Answer 12

unlikely.  and global warming, not to mention human-caused,  is a difficult phenomenon to accept when temps have been decreasing for at least the last 10 years.  

not that we shouldn't carefully use our world, but we DO have to use it.

The Earth is NOT killed by carbon in the atmosphere.  In fact, it has a saturation point, which we've nearly reached - even while temps are going back down.   All the carbon in the air feeds plants..... amazing plant growth over the last couple of decades = more oxygen for the Earth's creatures.

North Pole melt?  Look on the Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute website about gigantic volacanoes erupting since 1999 under the artic.

Global warming and/or caused by humans is NOT going on.

Answer 13

earthquakes?  no.

volcanoes?  no.

storms?  way to early to tell.

climate change does increase the likelihood of some things.

but weather always occurs anyway.

it's just that when it gets warmer, the frequency and severity tend to increase.

however that does not mean that there will be more storms this year than last.

that said, it does seem that the 10+ year drought caused the problem in Darfur.

and the multi-year drought in the US southwest is also likely caused by climate change.