Weather Monitoring & Climate Change - Gary A Noakes

Climate change has become one of the most important global environmental issues. Politicians, scientists, academics and environmentalists continually discuss how humans and our industrialised processes continue to damage our physical environment. Developing countries such as Asia are very vulnerable to extreme climate events such as typhoons, droughts and floods. Climate change here increases these vulnerabilities. This damage has been building up over hundreds of years and a key affect of this is the extremes of weather experienced throughout the world.

The devastation in the US after hurricane Katrina, following on from the droughts in Niger, and the Malaysian Tsunami only enforce the belief that global warming, which is the increase over time of the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans, is becoming more prevalent and severe every day.

Economic

Accurate forecasting of the weather, in particular, the arrival of the monsoon season is critical for the people of Asia. This allows farmers to decide when it would be best to plant crops in order to take advantage of the rains. Too much or too little rain can have disastrous results on the economy. The impact of global warming on monsoons is not yet fully understood but this calls for an increase in scientific research to determine the affects, which have huge implications for the economy, health and agriculture, not just for the people of Asia but also on a global scale. In addition, extremes of seasonal climate, from monsoon floods to dry periods and drought, ensures that water resource issues will remain critical