> My UK-centric background makes me think of winter as bringing most wind > damage and flooding (although the latter isn't necessarily 1-1 with peak > rainfall). IIRC heavy snow collapsed several buildings in Europe no so > long ago - not that I'm saying it was due to climate change rather than > inadequate construction, but just pointing out that this is when damage > occurs.
Your point here's given me plenty of food for thought. Precipitation is actually pretty well spread out over the year in Britain: http://uk.weather.com/weather/climatology/UKXX0018 But storms aren't: http://alert.air-worldwide.com/alert/_public/about_alert/winterstorm.asp In the above link, they give the standard explanation that European winter storms are driven by the difference between equatorial and polar temperatures, which are at their highest in the winter months. As climate change is expected to drive that temperature difference down, you'd ordinarily expect the strength of winter storms to decline (but maybe not: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/12/on-mid-latitude-storms/ As with hurricanes, damage is strongly related to the path of the storms. I believe that for both hurricanes and European winter storms there's insufficient information at present to judge how storm tracks will change with global warming. ----------------- The question that's really been bugging me based on your comment above, is how appropriate the analogy with season/latitude is. The approach I've taken is too look at climate change related extremes and then figure out a similar change coming from season or latitude asscoiated with the same temperature change, and check whether I am aware of any evidence suggesting that the global warming related change would be significantly worse. And I haven't found any. I've sidestepped some issues though. For storms, I simply say, tropical storms depend on SST's, there's no conclusive evidence for extra-tropical storms. For precipitation and evaporation, I think it'll increase overall, and that there's already good evidence it has increased overall, and that latitude is a good analogy for total precipitation (ie Alberta will become more like the Plains states, Northern Siberia more like Southern Siberia, Northern France and Britain more like Spain, and Spain more like North Africa). For the case where I've heard projections for monthly rainfall (eg Britain), comparison with a similar location further toward the equator seems to work very well. Comparison with seasons doesn't work so well for monthly precipitation. For precipitation, I think the analogy with the seasons only works well for very short extreme precipitation events (which I know as summer thunderstorms occurring typically at the end of a hot spell in summer) and when comparing that to winter drizzle. And as far as I know, at the equator most rain comes down in thunderstorm like heavy downpours, and not in days long light rain. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
