Year 1950-1999

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1953: Storm and flooding in the Netherlands    

The storm surge created by the 31 January 1953 storm over the North Sea (left). Sea water streaming trough a developing breach in a dike in the Netherlands (right).

 

On 30 January 1953, a cyclone was developing south of Iceland. The depression was traveling in direction of Scotland and was intensifying to a strong storm . After passing Scotland, the storm centre followed the jet stream towards southeast across the North Sea and intensified further into a storm of almost hurrycane force in the afternoon of 31 January. 

When the depression reached the Netherlands this region of the North Sea was having a a high spring tide. The sea level rose further by northwesterly winds on the rear side of the cyclone and by the low air pressure associated with the storm centre (see figure above). Shortly after midnight between 31 January and 1 February, at 3h24, the highest recorded water level was reached, 4.55 metres above normal water level at Amsterdam. Water began to run over the dikes at several places, rapidly eroding deep channels, and extensive areas of the Netherlands were covered by the sea during February 1, 1953. In total, 89 dikes were breached, and especially Zuid-Holland, Zeeland and Noord-Brabant were severely hit by the flooding.

At the following high tide, in the afternoon of 1 February, there was another flood, claiming more lives and destroying more property. As many dikes had already been breached the previous night, the sea water now has unhindred access to the lowlying areas behind the dikes and sea walls.

Officially, 1835 people lost their lives by this flooding. Lack of proper warning of the impending flood explains at least part of this high number of casualties, as people generally were unable to prepare for the flood. An estimated 30,000 animals drowned, and 47,300 buildings were damaged or destroyed.

 

A collapsed dike after the storm (left). The river barge de Twee Gebroeders stranded in the Groenendijk dike gap (centre). A damaged building sourrounded by sea water (right).

 

The dyke along the river Hollandse IJssel protected three million people living in the provinces of South and Noord Holland from flooding. The dike was, however, on the brink of collapse, and a gap was rapidly developing. A complete collapse of this dike would have endangered the lives of the large population living in thhe area. As a last resort, the captain of the river barge de Twee Gebroeders (The Two Brothers) navigated his ship into the developing gap in the dike (see photo above). The ship actually managed to plug the gap, whereby many lives presumably were saved.

Also in UK, the North Sea flood of 1953 was one of the most devastating natural disasters ever recorded. More than 1,600 km of coastline was damaged, and sea walls were breached, inundating 1,000 km². Flooding forced 30,000 people to be evacuated from their homes, and 24,000 properties were seriously damaged.

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1960-1975: Global cooling and the prospect of a coming ice age  

Illustration from Time magazine June 24, 1974 (left). Frontcover of Nigel Calder's 1974 book entitled The Weather Machine and the Treat of Ice (centre). Illustration from Newsweek, March 1, 1975 (right).

 

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the time frame of most scientists was still retrospective, rather than prospective (Oldfield 1993). However, the revived notion of the Milankovitch theory then suddenly offered the new possibility of actual climate prediction. At that time there was relatively little emphasis on potential or actual ‘global warming’, and the idea was virtually unknown to popular consciousness. Indeed, a widespread belief at that time was that the planet was heading for a new ice age, fuelled by acceptance of the Milankovitch theory and new knowledge gained from isotope analysis of Greenland ice cores (Dansgaard et al. 1970, 1971). 

Hays et al. (1976) suggested that the observed orbital-climate relationships predict that the long-term trend over the next several thousand years would be toward extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation. The period of global cooling since around 1940 was thought to be the first indication of a new ice age, and was seen as being accelerated by aerosols from industrial pollution blocking out sunlight. Even among some of those scientists drawing attention to contemporary increases of atmospheric CO2, a phase of significant global cooling was envisaged (e.g. Rasool and Schneider 1971).

 

Diagram from Peter Gwynne's 1975 article entitled The Cooling World, published  in Newsweek, April 28 (see text below).

 

Decreasing global surface air temperatures such as illustrated in the figure above were frequently taken as the empirical evidence for a coming ice age (e.g. Calder 1974; Ponte 1976). Such concerns in the mid-1970s brought together atmospheric scientists and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in an attempt to determine the geopolitical consequences of a sudden onset of global cooling. 

The journal Newsweek in an article 28 April 1975 stated the following (Gwynne 1975): 

"There are ominous signs that the earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only ten years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R in the north, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India , Pakistan , Bangladesh , Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England , farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant over-all loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in thirteen U.S. states.

Trend: To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represents the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic……

…..Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climate change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting of the arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality".

 

 

An example of climate prediction made in year 1976.

 

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1961-1969: Cooling and decreasing yield of hay in Iceland    

Topographical map of Iceland (left). Average yield of hay during 1951-1968 in districts in the north and south of Iceland (right; Fridriksson 1969).

 

From around 1961, the mean annual temperature in Iceland was decreasing for the first time since the warming at the end of the Little Ice Age around 1920. In 1965, polar sea ice returned to Icelandic waters (Fridriksson 1969). With modern agricultural methods, improved stock, good transport and the availability of indoor heating, Iceland is less vulnerable to environmental change than in in the past, but both agriculture and fishing, which are still the basis of the economy, remain highly sensitive to temperature.

Grass is the main crop grown in Iceland (Grove 1988). The yield of grass depends very much on the air temperature during both the growing season and the previous winter. Very hard frosts in late winter kill the grass; low temperatures during the growing season retard growth (Bergthórsson 1985). Prolonged snow cover, especially if there is melting and refreezing, is especially harmful. The soil may remain frozen late into the spring, thereby delaying growth; then a thaw may leave water lying on the frozen soil, killing the grass outright.

In a single year, 1967, yields of hay per hectare were 870 kg lower than the average over the previous 25 years. Over 1000,000 ha there was a decrease in production of 87,000 tonnes, at that time worth 260 million krónur, reducing the basic productivity of Icelandic agriculture by 20 per cent (Grove 1988). The year 1967 was not the only one with severe icing; 1970 and 1975 were similar in many respects.

The drop in hay yield affected livestock production, as did the productivity of the grazing land. A calculation by Bergthórsson (1985) of the relationship between climate, the productivity of cultivated grassland and potential livestock capacity lead to the conclusion that a decrease of 1oC in mean annual air temperature would reduce carrying capacity in Iceland by 30 per cent. It appears that the dependence on climate has only been slightly reduced despite improved farming practices.

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1963-1980: Failures of USSR grain harvest    

Trofim Lysenko (1898-1976), agronomist and director of Soviet biology under Joseph Stalin (left). Graph showing the total grain production in USSR 1960-1980 (left axis showing millions of tonnes). The broken line indicates the rising production expected from increasing acreage sown and increasing technological development and input (Diagram from Lamb 1995; data provided by United States Department of Agriculture). Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1953-1964 (right).

 

In 1913 Imperial Russia was still the main producer and exporter of surplus grain, especially wheat. Up to the 1930s many other countries, including USA, produced surpluses for export. Since 1960, however, the world's total production of grains was barely able to keep pace with the growth of the world population. From 1960 the end of season world stocks of grains was declining. In 1960 the stock was estimated at 222 million tonnes, about 26% of the annual requirement). In 1975 the total stock was down to about 135 million tonnes, representing 11% of the annual requirement (Lamb 1995).

One reason for this unfortunate development was a recurrent failure of grain harvest in the Soviet Union (USSR). In the 1970s the USSR, although still the world's second biggest grain producer, had become a net importer of grain. The overall driver for this development was the temperature decline since about 1940. Trofin Lysenko, however, must carry some of the responsibility for the severe harvest failure in 1963. Lysenko was an agronomist who rejected Mendelian genetics in favour of hybridization hypotheses. With considerable success he adopted these unproven ideas into a powerful political scientific movement termed Lysenkoism. His unorthodox experimental research in improved crop yields earned the support of Soviet leadership, and in 1940 he became director of the Institute of Genetics within the USSR’s Academy of Sciences. Sceptics of Lysenko’s agricultural hypotheses were formally outlawed in 1948, and many imprisoned. Following the disastrous 1963 harvest Lysenko's work was officially discredited in the Soviet Union in 1964. Along with other factors, the 1963 harvest failure contributed towards weakening the position of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev, who was forced to resign in 1964.

Global cooling, however, prevailed until around 1980. As a result of this, a number of subsequent disastrous harvests in the 1970's (see figure above) forced the Soviet Union to go onto the world market to buy additional wheat. In 1975 USSR was able to buy 25% of the total US wheat crop production, as well as buying elsewhere on the global market (Lamb 1995). This had the result that the world price of wheat doubled within a few months and the difficulties increased for not only USSR, but also for many poor countries suffering food shortage in 1975 because of the global cooling prevailing at that time (see map below). Temperature was not the only factor, but drought in western USSR also had its effects (see precipitation map below).

More disappointing USSR harvests in the late 1970's and in the early 1980's added to this negative economic development, and left the USSR in a weakened state. The war in Afghanistan and the contemporary arms race with USA made a bad situation even worse, despite first secretary Michail Gorbatjov’s impressive attempts of restructuring (perestroika). Eventually USSR collapsed in 1991.  

 

Map showing the deviation of the average surface air temperature during the main growing season June-August 1970-1980, compared to average conditions 1930-1950. Much of the northern hemisphere, and around 1975 the end of season world stocks of grains were dangerous low. Europe and USSR was among the worlds main grain growing areas hardest hit by this climatic development, compared to the previous 21 year period 1930-1950. Temperature scale in degrees Celsius. Data source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

 

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1972: The Sahel disaster    

Diagram showing the average distribution of precipitation in Africa in July (left). Photo from Niger in the Sahel zone from the great drought of the 1970s (right).

 

The cooling which affected USSR (see above) also had negative effects in other areas, especially in the Sahel region in North Africa, but also parts of India and China were experiencing precipitation below what was previously considered normal. The drought reached a climax in 1972 and 1973 in the Sahel region along the southern fringe of the desert zone, because of the general tendency of all climate zones to move in direction of Equator during periods of global cooling, and vice versa in periods of global warming. The African monsoon, like that over India and southern Asia, represents the seasonal northward displacement of the convergence zone between the surface wind systems of both hemispheres, and the accompanying rains.

The drought in the Sahel region had disastrous effects. An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people and perhaps four million cattle died in the zone stretching across Africa from the Sahel in the west to Ethiopia in the east. There was also a mass migration of people leaving their homes and land, travelling southwards towards more humid regions, creating social stress in many countries. The important coffee harvest in Ethiopia, Kenya and the Ivory Coast and the harvest of ground nuts, sorghum and rice in Nigeria were also sharply reduced (Lamb 1995).

The social unrest and stress caused by the 1972-1973 drought and famine in North Africa seem to have had other repercussions. It may have been an contributing factor to the revolution which toppled the old imperial regime in Ethiopia. And in several leading scientific, technical and administrative institutions in many countries there was some confusion about how to interpret this climatic development and to revise attitudes to climate. Most immediately, the hopes that had been raised by the Green Revolution of being able to meet indefinitely the food demands of the world's rising population were seen to have been unrealistic optimistic.  

 

Map showing the deviation of the average precipitation 1970-1975, compared to average conditions 1940-1969. Many areas shortly north of Equator received less precipitation than during the previous 30 years. Among the regions worst hit by drought was the Sahel region in North Africa.. Precipitation scale in mm w.e. per year. Data source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

 

It has been shown (Lamb 1977) that the behaviour of the monsoon over west Africa is related to the northern hemisphere westerlies in middle latutudes. In periods when blocking anticyclones (high pressure areas) or northerly winds over western and northern Europe especially in winter and spring divert a branch of the upper westerlies (the jetstream) and much of the cyclone activity into the Mediterranean, the monsoon commonly fails to penetrate so far north as usual, or is late, over west Africa and elsewhere south of the Sahara. In such years the zone across Africa from Senegal and the Sahel to Ethiopia is liable to be striken by drought.

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1979: The winter war in Lolland, Denmark    

Snow conditions on Lolland, SE Denmark, early January 1979, as documented by local newspapers in Lolland. To the left a village is more or less buried by snow (1979.01.01), the illustration in the center indicate how some roads were affected by accumulated snow (1979.01.01), and the picture to the right shows a train stuck in the snow masses (1979.01.02).

 

In Denmark winters were generally cold since 1963, lasting until about 1980. One of the final cold winters brought with is a complete snow chaos in Lolland, SE Denmark. 31 December 1978 a strong north-easterly wind was prevailing, flowing along the axis of the relatively warm and ice free Baltic Sea, taking up water vapour by evaporation from the sea surface. Cloud systems parallel to the main wind direction were beginning to form, and where these hit dry land in a downwind direction (Lolland), is began snowing on New Years Eve. The snowfall and strong winds continued for at couple of days, burying roads and buildings beneath a meter thick snow cover (see illustrations above). The remaining part of Denmark was not affected by this local, but long-lasting blizzard over Lolland. A similar, although lasting shorter time, can be seen in the satellite picture below.

 

Satellite picture showing Denmark and part of the Baltic Sea to the east, January 6, 2003. The bright yellow colour of Denmark shows vthe ground to be snow covered. In contrast, the large forrested areas in southern Sweden stand out as relatively dark. Cold easterly airflow prevails over southern Scandinavia. Evaporation from the relatively warm water in the Baltic produces cloud systems drifting west and resulting in local blizzard-like conditions on the islands Falster and Lolland in SE Denmark. The picture covers about 600 km from south to north.

 

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1987: Storm affecting southeastern England and Norway    

Meteorological diagram showing surface pressure October 15, 1987 (left). The Channel fery Hengist driven aground on the Kent Coast at the Warren, 1 to 2 km east of Folkestone, October 16, 1987 (centre). Meteorological diagram showing surface pressure October 16, 1987.

 

After generally moderate or light winds from variable directions over the British Isles on October 15, 1987, winds rapidly strengthened over southern England after midnight (Lamb 1991). In the early morning, between 2h and 6h, gusts of around 100 knots were recorded on the Sussex coast, and more than 80 knots occurred in central London. In the eastern North Sea gusts exceeding 95 knots were measured. The highest reported gust speed anywhere in this storm was an estimated 119 knots on the west coast of Brittany, France. The strongest winds in most places were from about SSW.

There was enormous damage to buildings, trees, electricity and telephone lines (Lamb 1991). About 15 million trees were broken, felled or uprooted in southern England (Met.Office). On the streets of London, about 90,000 trees were lost. Electric power lines were brought down over a wide area, and hundreds of thousands of homes in southeast England were still without power the following night and 2000 had not been reconnected after two weeks.

Hundredes of small boats were smashed or blown away. A Channel ferry was driven aground on the coast outside Folkestone (see photo above), and others were unable to get into port. In Dover harbour a bulk carrier capsized. At Harwich a ship being used as a detention centre for illegal immigrants broke adrift. In the North Sea off Lincolnshire a drifting vessel threatened an oil rig with 80 persons on board, which was also adrift (Lamb 1991).

In the afternoon of the 16th the storm struck south Norway causing flooding by the sea on parts of the south coast near Tønsberg. Tide levels were 1.0 to 1.9 m above normal at the coast between Stavanger and Oslo, the highest recorded since 1914. Hundreds of parked cars were destroyed by the salt water, and innumerable buildings near the coast and harbour installations were badly damaged. In the forest the loss of timber was calculated at about £ 20 million (1987 value). Much of this destruction of forests being inland in southeastern and eastern Norway, between Oslo and Hedmark.

In England, newspapers and radio media were quick to suggest comparability of this storm with the great storm in 1703, since such events are rare in the extreme south and southeast of England (Lamb 1991). It's worthwhile to consider whether or not the storm was, in any sense, a hurricane - the description applied to it by so many people. In the Beaufort scale of wind force, Hurricane Force (Force 12) is defined as a wind of 64 knots or more, sustained over a period of at least 10 minutes. Gusts, which are comparatively short-lived (but cause much of the destruction) are not taken into account. By this definition, Hurricane Force winds occurred locally but were not widespread.

The highest hourly-mean speed recorded in the UK was 75 knots (Met.Office), at the Royal Sovereign Lighthouse. Winds reached Force 11 (56-63 knots) in many coastal regions of south-east England. Inland, however, their strength was considerably less. At the London Weather Centre, for example, the mean wind speed did not exceed 44 knots (Force 9). At Gatwick Airport, it never exceeded 34 knots (Force 8).

The Great Storm of 1987 did not originate in the tropics and was not, by any definition, a hurricane - but it was certainly exceptional (Met.Office).

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1991: Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption    

Mt. Pinatubo ash plume June 15, 1991 (left). Red haze in atmosphere caused by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, as seen from Space Shuttle on August 8, 1991 (right). Pinatubo aerosol clouds (dark) are seen above high cumulonimbus tops. 

 

The 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Philippine Islands, was the 2nd largest volcanic eruption during the 20th century. The eruption produced high-speed avalanches of hot ash and gas, giant mudflows, and a huge cloud of volcanic ash hundreds of kilometres across.

On July 16, 1990 , a magnitude 7.8 earthquake (comparable in size to the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake) struck about 100 kilometres northeast of Mount Pinatubo on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. At Mount Pinatubo, this earthquake caused a landslide and a short-lived increase in steam emissions from a pre-existing geothermal area, but otherwise the volcano seemed to be continuing its 500-year-old period of inactivity.

In March and April 1991, however, magma rising toward the surface from more than 30 kilometres beneath Pinatubo triggered small earthquakes and on 2 April 1991 caused powerful steam explosions that blasted three craters on the north flank of the volcano. Thousands of small earthquakes occurred beneath Pinatubo through April, May, and early June, and many thousand tons of noxious sulphur dioxide gas were also emitted by the volcano.

From June 7 to 12, the first magma reached the surface of Mount Pinatubo. Because it had lost most of the gas contained in it on the way to the surface, the magma oozed out to form a lava dome but did not cause an explosive eruption. However, on June huge amounts of gas-charged magma reached the surface and exploded in a spectacular eruption.

When even more highly gas charged magma reached Pinatubo's surface on June 15, the volcano exploded in a cataclysmic eruption that ejected more than 5 cubic kilometres of material. The ash cloud from this climactic eruption nearly 40 kilometres into the air, high into the stratosphere. At lower altitudes, the ash was blown in all directions by the intense cyclonic winds of a coincidentally occurring typhoon, while winds at higher altitudes blew the ash south-westward. A blanket of volcanic ash and larger pumice lapilli blanketed the landscape around the volcano.

 

HadCRUT3 global monthly temperatures illustrating the effect of the June 1991 volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. The effect apparently lasted into 1993.

 

Some of the tephra fell on Singapore, over 2000 km away to the southwest. Satellites tracked the ash cloud several times around the globe. At the same time, nearly 20 million tons of sulphur dioxide were injected into the stratosphere by the eruption, and dispersal of this gas cloud around the world caused global temperatures to drop by about 0.4°C from 1991 to 1993. Sulfur dioxide oxidised in the atmosphere to produce a haze ef sulfuric acic droplets. The large stratospheric injection of aerosols resulted in a 5 percent reduction in sunlight reaching the earth's surface. Global temperatures dropped about 0.35oC during the next couple of years, as can bee seen from the diagram above. Click here to see a more detailed (monthly) visual analysis of Mount Pinatubo's effect on global air temperature.

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1995: Tony Benn MP, remark on the Plimsoll case during the debate about the hunting ban  

Tony Benn MP, making a reference to Samuel Plimsoll, in the House of Commons in 1995, during a debate about the hunting ban, remarked (Jones 2006): "We like to think that progress is made by an amendment from a Back Bencher, and accepted by the Government. It is not like that at all. Progress is made when public pressure builds up.... My experience is that when people come along with some good idea, in the beginning it is completely ignored; nobody mentions it at all. If people go on, they are mad, and if they continue, they are very dangerous. After that, there is a pause and then suddenly nobody can be found who does not claim to have thought of it in the first place. That is how progress is made."

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