Long-dead boat captains confirm global warming

WASHINGTON, Sept 8: River captains long dead, 15th-century Japanese priests and records kept by Swiss believers who liked to carry a statue of Madonna across a frozen lake confirm that global warming is a real trend, scientists have said.

An international team of researchers has pieced together records kept from as far back as 1443 to show that temperatures are not only rising — they are changing the way lakes and rivers freeze in the Northern Hemisphere.

"The thing that makes this catchy is that this is a very simple way of looking at what happened over the last 150 years," John Magnuson of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Many studies conclude that global temperature took a sudden upward turn at around the turn of the last century — when the industrial revolution reached its peak and people started pumping so-called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Climate records confirm a rise of at least one degree C (two degrees F) every year, and various computer models show a consistent pattern.

But Magnuson and colleagues wanted to see what effect this warming pattern had on people.

"These are direct observations of people, five generations of people," Magnuson, who specialises in the study of freshwater bodies, said.

"Some were religious people, some were fur traders. They have looked out and said "he lake, the bay, the river is open today’."

For example, holy people of Japan’s Shinto religion kept careful records at Lake Suwa, where deities from shrines on either shore were believed to have used surface ice to visit back and forth.

At lake Constance, on the border of Germany and Switzerland, congregations at two churches, one in either country, had a tradition of carrying a Madonna figure to and from across the lake when it froze.

In Canada, the shipping and fur trade meant records of river freezing were kept as far back as the early 1700s.

Writing in the journal science, Magnuson and colleagues say these and other collected records tell a very clear story — lakes and rivers now freeze an average of 8.7 days later than they did 150 years ago and ice cover starts breaking up 9.8 days earlier.

These findings correspond to an increase of 1.8 degrees celsius (nearly four degrees F) in air temperature over the past 150 years.

And the records, which also come from Finland, Russia and the Northern United States, also correspond with known patterns caused by ocean currents such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation, Magnuson said.

"Yes, it is warming and it’s important to understand why," Magnuson said. He pointed out that his study does not answer that question. (REUTERS)

PM says India to maintain minimum nuclear deterrent

NEW YORK, Sept 8: Strongly defending India’s exercise of its nuclear option, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has said "till such time weapons of mass destruction are dismantled, we will retain a credible minimum deterrent".

"Our exercise has taught us... We have to be strong", he said addressing the Asia Society here last night.

He denounced India’s criticism for her stand as stemming from "hypocrisy and hegemony".

Vajpayee said India had raised for five decades her voice for universal sovereign right to keep the nuclear option open which was sought to be curtailed.

"In the circumstances, we exercised our nuclear option. Our decision was as much influenced by national security concerns as to assert our objection to nuclear apartheid," the Prime Minister said.

He said the multipolar world of 21st century necessitates a plural security order that accommodates and acknowledges the growing strength and confidence of emerging economic and security players.

"We believe that in the emerging multipolar world, a plural security order alone can deal with the challenges of the new ear. Hence our resolve to build a multipolar world where we have strategic space and autonomy in decision making, instead of being subjected to the hypocrisy and hegemony of those who refuse to dismantle their nuclear stockpiles." "However, our decision to acquire credible minimum nuclear deterrent has not deflected us from our belief that peace between nations in this new century is best guaranteed by nuclear disarmament, and not nuclear deterrence", the Prime Minister said.

"But there appears to be little inclination on the part of nations that have acquired huge stockpiles and delivery systems to turn their swords into ploughshares", Vajpayee said.

Above all, India’s security, stability and prosecurity, stability, democracy and prosperity in Asia, the Prime Minister said.

He reiterated India’s assurance that pending the evolution of a national consensus on India signing the CTBT, she will not prevent the treaty’s entry into force.

However, he insisted that all other countries that must ratify the CTBT should do so without any condition. (PTI)

Sri Lanka ministers warned of rebel attacks before polls

COLOMBO, Sept 8: Senior cabinet ministers contesting the parliamentary election in Sri Lanka have been cautioned by the police chief of possible Tamil rebel attempts on their lives, a local newspaper said today.

The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Lucky Kodithuwakku at a meeting with the ministers and senior members of the ruling People’s Alliance (PA) Government has issued guidelines for the key candidates, the island newspaper said.

Tamil rebel operatives had visited the residences of several key ministers in the past few months to gather information about their movements, the IGP was quoted as saying.

The police chief said the warning was being given based on intelligence reports they had collected during the past few months.

With the election set for October 10 senior ministers who are contesting the poll have already commenced their campaign ignoring security precautions.

Tamil rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on June seven assassinated the Industries Minister C V Gooneratne along with his wife and 21 others when a suicide bomber triggered off an explosion in the outskirts of the capital.

As part of the security measures Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake will be provided with Presidential security division security which has more trained personnel.

The ministers have been directed to restrict their meetings and also take precautions in moving with party supporters as rebels could easily infiltrate crowds.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga who is heading the PA campaign also has restricted her election meetings compared to previous elections.

President Kumartunga survived a LTTE attempt on her life during the Presidential election campaign in December last year, but lost her sight in one eye.

The main opposition party leader Ranil Wickramasinghe who heads the United National Party (UNP) is also taking extra precautions during the campaign.

The elections is being held throughout the country to elect 225 Members to the Parliament for the next six years. (DPA)

Study suggests global warming won’t spread malaria

WASHINGTON, Sept 8: Fears that global warming could spread malaria to regions otherwise free of the disease are unjustified, scientists have said.

Computer models show that global warming will mean drier conditions in Northern latitudes, not the steamy, humid conditions needed for malaria-spreading mosquitoes to thrive, the researchers reported yesterday in the journal science.

"We disagree with these silly wild predictions that malaria could spread dramatically because those studies rely on a rather suspect model," David Rogers of Oxford University in Britain said in a telephone interview.

Malaria, which kills a million people a year, is spread by mosquitoes. Found mostly in tropical areas, fears are that global warming could create new havens for both mosquitoes and the malaria parasites they carry.

Rogers’ main criticism is that many studies seem to have overlooked the essential conditions that keep the parasites that cause malaria alive and instead focused solely on global warming. His study, he said, is more accurate because it combines these key factors and long-term weather forecasts.

"It’s not staggeringly brilliant but it’s better than what others have done," Rogers said.

The study used weather prediction models provided by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations agency responsible for forecasting the impact of global warming.

Rogers said this information clearly predicts an increase in global temperature in the future but that this alone would not be enough to make malaria spread to Northern latitudes.

"We don’t know enough about the spread of malaria in the field, so we use statistical instead of biological information and variables such as humidity, rainfall and temperature," Rogers said.

The IPCC computer models predict that the weather in non-malarial regions of the world will grow warmer and drier, Rogers said. "Many species (of mosquitoes) are constrained by dryness," he said.

Rogers’ study contradicts other published reports.

Dr. Paul Epstein of Harvard Medical School in Boston believes global warming has already contributed to local outbreaks of malaria in the Northern United States and Canada since 1990.

"This study must be flawed in some way because the data is not consistent with what is happening," Epstein said in a telephone interview.

Recent heat waves and record temperatures, he argued, have provided a suitable habitat for malaria parasites and the mosquitoes that carry them.

In a recent article published in scientific American, Epstein wrote that mosquitoes carried on from other parts of the world probably caused these outbreaks, but said the parasites that cause malaria found "enough warmth and humidity, and plenty of mosquitoes able to transport them."

Epstein added that studies that conclude malaria will not spread due to global warming "vastly underestimate the range of mosquito-borne disease.: global warming will create conditions conducive to malaria."

In parts of europe, the Northern United States and Canada warming is growing at three times the global rate, according to Epstein. (AGENCIES)

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