Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The spirit of enquiry
- 2 Global warming
- 3 Weather is not climate
- 4 The thermostat
- 5 Droughts and flooding rains
- 6 Snow and ice
- 7 The ocean
- 8 From ice-house to greenhouse
- 9 The past 2000 years
- 10 Carbon dioxide and methane
- 11 Denial
- 12 Bet your grandchildren’s lives on it, too?
- Notes
- Index
- References
5 - Droughts and flooding rains
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The spirit of enquiry
- 2 Global warming
- 3 Weather is not climate
- 4 The thermostat
- 5 Droughts and flooding rains
- 6 Snow and ice
- 7 The ocean
- 8 From ice-house to greenhouse
- 9 The past 2000 years
- 10 Carbon dioxide and methane
- 11 Denial
- 12 Bet your grandchildren’s lives on it, too?
- Notes
- Index
- References
Summary
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life … the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the Earth forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 7: 11–12, The Holy Bible, Revised 1884RAIN
‘We were three days short of a Biblical record,’ said Foreign Minister Habib Bourguiba Jr. He was not smiling. For 38 days in September and October [1969], rain fell steadily on Tunisia, leaving 600 people dead, destroying 70 000 homes, and making refugees of 300 000 of the nation’s 4 500 000 people.
The rain started with a deluge of 400 millimetres in 24 hours, as much as the mean annual rainfall for the region in one day. In some places, up to a metre of topsoil was washed into the Mediterranean Sea. Bridges built in the time of the Romans were destroyed, making this possibly the most intense rain event in that country in 2000 years. A climactic event no doubt, but did it signal climate change?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Short Introduction to Climate Change , pp. 71 - 90Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012