Warming begins to hit rain

A study has yielded the first confirmation that global warming is already affecting world’s rainfall patterns, bringing more precipitation to northern Europe, Canada and northern Russia but less to swathes of sub-Saharan Africa, southern India and Southeast Asia. The changes "may have already had significant effects on ecosystems, agriculture and human regions that are sensitive to changes in precipitation, such as the Sahel," warns the paper, released on Monday by Nature, the British science journal.

Scientists have long said that global warming is bound to interfere with snow and rainfall patterns, because air and sea temperatures and sea-level atmospheric pressure — the underlying forces behind these patterns — are already changing. But, until now, evidence for declaring that the interference is already happening existed anecdotally or in computer models, rather than from observation.

One problem for researchers has been a lack of accurate, long-term rainfall data from around the world that would enable them to distinguish between regional or cyclical shifts in rainfall. Francis Zwiers, a scientists with Environment Canada, Toronto, used two data-sets of global rainfall pattern beginning, conservatively, in 1925 and ending in 1999. They compared these figures with 14 powerful computer models that simulate the world’s climate system, and found a close fit.

Over one million affected by floods in UK

More than one million people have been affected by the worst floods in over 60 years in the UK as the huminitarian crisis in central and western England deepened today.

Its getting difficult to make fresh water tankers and bottled supplies reach to the people in the affected areas and supermarkets have had a rash of panic buying with police being called in to control desperate crowd.

Thousands of people were poised to evacuate their homes with the banks of the two largest rivers in Britain, the Severn and the Thames, threatening to burst.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced an independent review of the handling of the floods.

The RAF airlifted 160 stranded people to safety in 55 operations using Sea King helicopters in its biggest peacetime rescue operation.

The Army and emergency services were battling to protect power supplies for 5,00,000 from rising waters.

Up to 350,000 people in Gloucestershire could be without running water for up to two weeks, authorities said as they warned that it might be a year before some evacuated families could return to their devastated homes.

England has been paralysed with scores of towns and villages submerged or cut off.

Up to 10,000 homes are either flooded or at risk of flooding in Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Herefordshire, Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

The Environment Agency said the situation remained "critical" with eight severe flood warnings in place.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary warned that what had become a massive civil emergency was "far from ever".

The Thames in Abingdon, Oxon, rose 3ft in less than 12 hours yesterday to a "perilously high" level and floods are expected to rise in the next 24 hours with Some rivers being 20ft above normal levels.

More troops have been put on standby to help the police and fire services to rescue trapped families and provide humanitarian aid to villages that have been cut off since Friday night.

Defence sources said that regional commanders were working at police headquarters in the worst affected areas and providing troops and equipment whenever required.