Cyprus water crisis highlights climate change

"It's bad. Very bad," says Vlassis Partassides, head of water management at Cyprus's water development department. "If the drought continues for a fourth year, the consequences will be very severe," he told Reuters.

Partassiades said that since 1972, rainfall had fallen by 20 percent but the runoff -- the inflow into reservoirs -- had declined by 40 percent, because of rising temperatures and the resulting increase in evaporation. "Climate change is clearly evidenced in Cyprus," said Costas Papastavros, head of the island's national climate change unit.

"Climate change is not only about a rise in temperature, but also about extreme weather conditions, and drought is one of them. Desertification is also becoming a serious problem. "It is not just that we do not have water in dams for irrigation, but we are looking at a decline in the productivity of soil, and we have a tremendous problem."

Mediterranean Sea turns to Indian Ocean

The temperature of the Mediterranean Sea has risen from 30 degrees Celsius to 32 degrees Celsius since 1970, reported Professor Bayram Öztürk, having returned to Bodrum after spending three months in the seas of Cyprus and Syria aboard the Istanbul University Faculty of Fisheries research ship ‘Yunus.' Öztürk is in charge of the research ship that carries out studies in the Aegean and the Mediterranean.

“The temperature difference between the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea is now two degrees. Therefore 33 species have come to the Mediterranean passing the Red Sea. Among them there are dangerous species threatening mankind,” said Öztürk. He attributed the ,ncreasing temperatures to global warming and contamination.

Öztürk said that the Mediterranean is becoming increasingly tropical each day. He pointed out that the species of Indian Ocean rival the species of the Mediterranean. “Therefore, we need to conduct more research. They harm the existence of typical Mediterranean life. We have to find permanent solutions and develop new projects to protect our seas which are being ruined by contamination.” Öztürk said that a limit should be set for the number tourist facilities built on the coastline. He also urged for the establishment of solid waste processing centers.
Turkish Daily

Warming may bring hurricanes to Mediterranean

Global warming could trigger hurricanes, or tropical cyclones, over the Mediterranean sea, threatening one of the world's most densely populated coastal regions, according to European scientists. Hurricanes currently form out in the tropical Atlantic and rarely reach Europe, but a new study shows a 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in average temperatures could set them off in the enclosed Mediterranean in future.

Factors influencing hurricanes include warm sea surface temperatures and atmospheric instability. In the past, they have been confined to a limited number of regions, such as the north Atlantic and north Pacific, where they are known as typhoons. Recently, however, they have been forming in unusual places, which Gaertner sees as a clear danger signal.

In 2004, Hurricane Catarina formed in the south Atlantic and hit land in southern Brazil. A year later, Hurricane Vince formed next to the Madeira Islands and became the first to make landfall in Spain.

In a paper published in the American Geophysical Union Journal, Gaertner and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, used a range of regional climate models to assess the chance of similar events in the Mediterranean. They found rising temperatures pointed to increasing storm intensity and, in the case of the most sensitive computer model, a likelihood of strong hurricanes.
Reuters