Greenpeace has produced the first-ever catalogue of recent record climatic events around the world. It covers the period since the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) First Assessment report in 1990. The Climate Time Bomb catalogue, including this Update, records droughts, floods, record storms and other climate related extreme events from 1990 to early 1995.

Whilst no single extreme event, nor sequence of events, can be attributed to the greenhouse effect, Greenpeace believes that the totality of the planet's climatic experience since 1990, indicates that the first footprint of climate change as a result of the human-enhanced greenhouse effect is now becoming clear. We are not alone in this view. The respected Enquete Commission (the German Bundestag's advisory body on climate change) stated in its 1992 report that 'Our planet is already warming at an increasing rate. The first signs of climate change are already measurable and noticeable. Hence there is no reason any more to delay urgently required actions.'

On the scientific front, in 1994, the IPCC concluded that stabilisation of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations can be attained only with global human-induced emissions that eventually drop to substantially below 1990 levels.

Further, it concluded that 'Perhaps the most important result ... is that stabilization of [CO2] emissions does not lead to stabilisation of CO2 concentration; in fact, the calculations show that concentrations continue to increase slowly for at least several centuries.'

The 1994 IPCC report also warned that a 'positive feedback' between rising temperature and CO2 levels is likely, with future greenhouse gas induced warming possibly triggering further, very large releases of CO2 and methane to the atmosphere: A clear correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and global temperature (especially during warming periods) is evident from the Ice-core records.

The following are extracts of reports linking warming trends, with melting ice, drought, floods and disease during 1994/95:

Indian plague due to climate change?

In November 1994, Professor Paul Epstein, of the Harvard School of Public Health's working group on new disease wrote to the New York Times associating the unusually hot, wet climatic conditions which prevailed at the time with the outbreak of pneumonic plague in India in September. Epstein pointed out that the Indian plague is part of a larger pattern of disease emergence and resurgence world-wide, which may be linked to climate change, and considers that climate change may be liberating pests and pathogens from ecological controls and predation. 'Rodents and insects carry no passports,' wrote Epstein.

Temperature rise suits malaria

The medical journal, the Lancet, reported in March that the temperature between 1961 and 1990 increased greatly, and in the late 1980's, malaria became established in areas where it was previously absent or rare. Nationally, cases rose by 266 percent. Considerable mortality in previously unexposed populations is likely.

Global temperatures continue to rise

In 1994, recent figures show that, global temperature was the third or fourth highest on record. In Canada research showed that the permafrost has warmed appreciably, resulting in many areas now close to thawing point. In other areas, thawing has already begun. Some researchers reported that during the last 26 years, the southern limit of the permafrost region has moved 120 km north.

Antarctic ice melts

Recent reports indicate a melting of sea ice around the Antarctic Peninsula, an observation which is suspected to be the cause of the decline in Adelie penguins which rely on the ice for shelter and survival. Almost every ice sheet on its coast is shrinking, as warmer summer temperatures melt the continents frozen wilderness. Warming of the Arctic permafrost is also pronounced.

Warming oceans kill coral

In the Pacific, high sea temperatures were linked with unprecedented mass coral bleaching.

Spanish and American researchers reported that the deep ocean, at a depth of 800-2500 metres, in the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and the Caribbean warmed by a third of a degree in the last 35 years. The warming is surprisingly deep, but is consistent with climate model projections, as well as observations from the Pacific and Southern Oceans, and the Mediterranean Sea reported in 1993.

Glaciers retreat

In Switzerland, scientists claim that the retreat of glaciers gives a clear signal that the climate is changing. The retreat of mountain glaciers is striking all over the world.

Australia and New Zealand bake

1994 and 1995 saw widespread floods and droughts and associated forest or bush fires. During the Southern Hemisphere winter, New Zealand suffered the worst drought in living memory.

In Australia, the fourth consecutive year of drought drastically affected production of wheat, canola, barley, cotton, oilseeds and sorghum, prompting dire warnings of huge economic losses. 'It's not an intermittent disaster. It's coming now quite regularly with climate change effects,' Prime Minister Paul Keating said of the droughts.

Fires and heatwaves across Europe

The 1994 Northern Hemisphere summer saw a record heatwave right across Europe, the hottest and sunniest on record in most places from the Netherlands to Hungary and Poland. It caused widespread forest fires across Spain and the western US; rail tracks to bend in the Czech Republic; and algal blooms off the German Coast. The then German Environment Minister Klaus Toepfer blamed climate change. Japan suffered its hottest day in history.

Europe hit by floods

For the second time in two years, in January 1995 Europe was struck by a 'hundred year' flood, resulting in the evacuation of 250,000 Dutch people and costing billions of US dollars. IPCC climate experts rejected claims that the flood was caused by agricultural practices. Instead, experts claim, it was caused by the unusually lengthy rainfall.

Pier Vellinga from the IPCC said that though the floods were not proof of climate change, they were consistent with the projections of general circulation models (GCMs).

Picture Captions:
1) Patients with plague-like symptoms await test results in the Infectious Disease Hospital in New Delhi in October 1994. Disease resurgence worldwide may be linked to climate change.
2) Adelie penguins threatened by melting ice in Antarctica.
3) Bleached colony of corals in Moorea, Pacific.
4) Aftermath of forest fire in Sierra Segura, Spain. The result of droughts and heatwaves across Europe.