Global Warming Science - www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming
Lebanon
[last update: 2010/11/15]
|
Reuters Alarm
Reuters, one of Europes main promoters of the global warming scare says Lebanon is threatened by climate change.
|
|
Temperature
Reuters says Skiers and the tourist businesses that depend on them hope this year's [2010] warm winter and brief season was not a harbinger of the future.
There are no long term temperature stations in Lebanon in the NOAA GHCN or HadCRU databases. The following figure shows the January February average temperature anomaly for 1930 2009 from the HadCRU 5x5 gridded database (CRUTEM3) for the 5x5 degree grid encompassing Lebanon (30-35N x 35-40E) [http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=HCRUG100AJanFebI188020090900110MR30-35N%3a40-35E++x] Winter temperatures have not been increasing in recent decades.
Although there were a few warmer winters in the late 1990s-early 2000s, the ski area cited in Reuters kept expanding:
[http://www.skimzaar.com/faraya-mzaar/ski-resort/mzaar-evolution.asp]
|
|
Sea Level
Reuters says: Lebanon faces rising sea levels More than 70 percent of Lebanon's 4.3 million people live on the densely built-up coastal strip, where no precautions exist to counter vulnerability to higher sea levels. Beaches, seaside nature reserves and coastal irrigated farms are also at risk.
There are no sea level stations in Lebanon. The following figure shows the closest station in Israel (Hadera, which only has data starting in 1992) and the longest term station in the area (Rodhos, with data starting in 1969) (Data from the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) [http://www.psmsl.org/]) The Hadera data starts when there was a decrease in sea level, as seen in the Rodhos data. There has been no statistically significant increase in sea level over the last 30 years.
|
|
Precipitation
Reuters says: Many Lebanese have noticed streams drying up, unusual heat waves and altered rain and snow patterns in recent decades, but scientists say they lack the data to ascribe precise causes. (Anecdotal evidence is not science.)
The following figure shows the only long-term precipitation stations in the NOAA GHCN database. Recent precipitation has been declining, although the available data ends in 2002. The low precipitation of the 1990s is not unprecedented it is similar to the 1950s. (Winter precipitation is slightly above what it was in the 1950s). T
A moment of candidness in the Reuters article: "There are clear changes," said Muatasem El-Fadel, professor of water resources at the American University of Beirut. "They could be readily attributed to climate change, but from a scientific perspective we tend to want more evidence." Despite its relatively high rainfall, Lebanon expects to slip into water deficit by 2015, regardless of climate change, thanks to urbanisation, population growth and mismanagement.
In Beirut, summer demand for water already exceeds what the network supplies -- partly because around 40 percent is lost to leaks In a country where water is cheap and unmetered, concierges sluice pavements with it to keep the dust down. Housewives slosh it over balconies. Broken pipes gush for days in the streets.
|
|
Cedars of Lebanon
Reuters says: some species, including Lebanon's national symbol, the mighty cedar tree, are already straining at their upper limits. Cedars, some up to 3,000 years old, form the highest treeline. "I couldn't give you a specific date when we might see the last cedar on our mountains, but eventually that might happen," said Vahakn Kabakian, an Environment Ministry
Reuters ignores the main anthropogenic influence on forests: As a result of several millennia of clearing, pastoral disturbance, and exploitation for building material, the forest cover of Lebanon has been almost entirely destroyed. Only scattered remnants of the once extensive stands of cedar, fir, and juniper survive, and most of the oak forests have been degraded to scrub. [http://www.jstor.org/pss/213080]
During the last 40 years, more than 35 % of the existing forest cover in Lebanon has deteriorated. Forest fires, among other natural and human threats, have a major cause of this decline. [http://www.reforest-lebanon.com/lebanon-deforestation.html]
In recent years, deforestation rate was accelerating so that the forest cover has been reduced by 33% between 1963 and 1990. Today dense forests cover only 7% of the total Lebanese area
[http://forum.tayyar.org/f10/desertification-forest-fires-lebanon-24899/]
|
|
|
|
Other instances of Reuters misrepresentations can be found here: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/ReutersAfrica.htm http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/RS_Kenya.htm
|
|
|
