2001- A YEAR OF FREAK WEATHER
Rising Tide Uk
Climate Action News Sheet, 8th January 2002

We have pulled together a summary of some of the main weather stories for 2001 from the world's press. 

Despite the reluctance of climatologists to claim that any individual weather event is caused by climate change, these stories show a clear pattern of increasingly bizarre weather all around the world.^* 

JANUARY

* GLOBAL WARMING BLAMED FOR UKRAINIAN FLOODING 
Flooding followed winter snow levels in European Russia that were 50 percent above usual. Flooding in the Ukraine, Hungary and Romania killed seven people and left 50,000 people homeless. Across Russia, some 52,000 people lost their homes in the floods. The Ukrainian Environment Minister blamed global warming for the severity of the flooding in the region (ABC News 15 March, Moscow Times May 17 2001)

* UK HAD WETTEST 12 MONTHS SINCE RECORDS BEGAN 
The 12 months to March 2001 were confirmed to be the wettest 12 months in the UK since records began in 1766. Further rain, snow and flooding in January and February threatened to take the cost of the damage to more than £1 billion (The Times, February 28 2001) .

* DROUGHTS IN NORTH AMERICA, BEETLE EPIDEMIC IN CANADA 
The Pacific Northwest and Florida suffered severe droughts. The Pacific Northwest had the second driest winter on record with a snow pack that was 60 percent below normal. Alaska and British Columbia had one of its warmest winters on record. After four years of warm winters, British Columbian forests faced its worst ever epidemic of mountain pine beetle. By the end of the year the beetles had infested and killed 8 million hectares of lodgepole pine trees - a region larger than Ireland (Reuters November 30, 2001). At the same time the Northeast and Midwest of the USA were hit by record snowfall (MSNBC 15 March 2001)

* BULGARIA RATIONED WATER AFTER DRIEST WINTER IN 20 YEARS
The Bulgarian government rationed water for more than one million people and banned the use of water supplies for industrial and irrigation purposes after the levels in dam reservoirs dropped to barely a quarter of their level in 2000 (Central Europe News 30 March 2001).

APRIL

* WORST DROUGHT IN FLORIDA FOR 100 YEARS 
Florida's drought continued. Over the past four years it had cost farmers $574 million. By April 2001 Lake Okeechobee, the main fresh-water reservoir for south Florida's 5 million people, fell below 10 feet above sea level, its lowest ever level for this time of year (LA Times April 18, 2001).

* 200 FOOT UK SOUTH COAST LANDMARK COLLAPSES 
The "Devil's Chimney", a 200ft high chalk tower at Beachy Head, disintegrated suddenly and fell into the sea. The collapse was caused by the record amount of rain which had seeped into cracks in the chalk and then frozen in cold weather, causing it to crack (Independent 5th April 2001).

* WORST DROUGHT IN KENYA IN LIVING MEMORY 
Aid agencies warned that 4.4 million Kenyans were at risk of starvation in the worst drought that Kenya has faced in living memory (CNN April 11, 2001).

* WORST FLOODING IN NORTHERN FRANCE SINCE 1920 
Almost 3,000 households were affected by the floods in Northern France, the worst since 1920. The President declared 117 communes to be disaster zones (CNN April 30, 2001)

MAY

* DROUGHT IN AFGHANISTAN 
3.8 million people were declared at risk of famine in a devastating drought that had forced over 700,000 people to move to refugee camps (CNN May 5, 2001).

* HIGHEST US POLLEN COUNT ON RECORD 
The pollen count across the Northeast and Upper Midwest USA was more than 2,000 grains per cubic meter, more than ten times what doctors would normally consider high. The government claimed that increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the air had made plants grow faster and produce more pollen. (CBS News May 12, 2001).

JUNE

* HURRICANE ALLISON IS MOST EXPENSIVE STORM IN HISTORY 
Tropical storm Allison caused record insurance losses of some $6 billion. It killed 15 people in Houston where it dumped in total one metre of rain and led to devastating floods in Texas and Louisiana. President Bush declared a disaster area that covered 28 counties of south-east Texas a disaster area. (BBC 11 June, 2001; CNN June 17, 2001).

* DROUGHTS AND FLOODS IN CHINA 
The level of spring rainfall in parts of south-west and north- east China was down by up to 90%, the worst drought in over a decade. Some areas had had no rain for the past three months and water levels in reservoirs were scarcely half their normal level (BBC News 31 May, 2001). The Songhua River was at its lowest level ever recorded. Half of the over 4,000 lakes which support the source of China's second-longest river, the Yellow River have dried out. Meanwhile Hong Kong and South China received the heaviest rain in decades. More than 100 people died in landslides and floods affected five million people and destroyed 15,800 homes. The storms were the worst on record in Guangdong province where 25 people were killed. (CNN June 11, 2001; CNN June 17, 2001; BBC News 10 June 2001; the China Daily 10/07/2001)

* KOREA HAS WORST DROUGHT ON RECORD 
The Korean peninsula faced the worst drought since records began nearly a century ago. Rainfall in the North Korea's main rice growing belt was just 10% of normal levels. In South Korea the government mobilized 130,000 troops to dig wells (CNN June 12, 2001)

* IRAN FACES SEVERE DROUGHT AND FLOODS 
Iran's drought, the worst in 30 years, affected half of the country's 60m people. Lake Hamoun, the country's largest body of fresh water, dried up and the Zayandeh River dried up for the first time in memory. In neighbouring Iraq, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are flowing at only half their normal levels. At the same time, north-eastern Iran suffered torrential rain. The heaviest flooding to hit the region for 200 years killed 120 people and made 10,000 people homeless. (ABC News 08/09/2001 The Guardian-UK June 25, 2001 New York Times September 18, 2001).

AUGUST

* CENTRAL AMERICAN FARMERS DEVASTATED BY DROUGHT 
Droughts across Central America affected 600,000 small farmers. Honduras declared a state of emergency in much of the country. By December the aquifers supplying Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, had run dry and the drought had damaged 700,000 hectares of farmland. Nicaragua also lost 50 percent of its crops and Eastern Guatemala lost 80 percent of its bean harvest (BBC News 13 August, 2001; ENN December 11, 2001).

* WORST YEAR ON RECORD FOR TYPHOONS IN TAIWAN 
Typhoons claimed more than 300 lives in Taiwan, the worst death toll recorded. In July, Typhoon Toraji killed about 200 people and caused more than $173 million in damage. In September Typhoon Nari killed 94 people and caused a further US$84 million of damage (Reuters September 26, 2001).

* UK AND WORLD HAVE HOTTEST OCTOBER ON RECORD 
In the UK this was, by a large margin of 2.6 degrees, the warmest October since records began in 1659. This was also the hottest October globally, a full degree above the 120 year average (CNN November 22, 2001)

* DROUGHT AND WILDFIRES IN EASTERN USA 
October 2001 was the third driest October ever for Connecticut and New Jersey and the fourth driest for Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware and Virginia. The Appalachian mountain region experienced the worst wildfire season in a decade and across the US 3.5 million acres of forest burnt. (ENS 14 November 2001).

NOVEMBER

* WORST STORMS IN ALGERIA FOR 40 YEARS 
Violent storms in Algeria killed 650 people and made 24,000 people homeless or destitute. BBC News 14 November 2001

DECEMBER

* 2001 WAS SECOND HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD 
According to the World Meteorological Organization, the Earth's temperature in 2001 was the second highest since 1860. Nine of the 10 warmest years since 1860 have occurred since 1990. The hottest year was 1998, followed by 2001, 1997, 1995 and 1990. (New York Times December 19, 2001).

* 2001 WAS ANOTHER RECORD YEAR FOR NATURAL DISASTERS 
Munich Re, the world's largest re-insurer announced that natural disasters in 2001 killed at least 25,000 deaths people worldwide, more than double the previous year. Storms and floods accounted for more than two thirds to the 700 major disasters. Munich Re said. "Forest fires in Australia, floods in Brazil and in Turkey, snow chaos in central and southern Europe and a typhoon in Singapore, which was meteorologically seen as impossible, are all indications for a link between climate changes and a rise in weather catastrophes" (Reuters January 1, 2002)

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