Kiley Kroh, “New Research Finds Melting Arctic May Cost Global Economy $60 Trillion,” TP Climate Progress, July 24 2013

In findings published in the journal Nature, economists and polar scientists from the University of Cambridge and Erasmus University Rotterdam found that the ripple effects of climate change in the Arctic — unlocking frozen reserves of methane that speed global warming and cause destructive and costly climactic changes across the planet — could deal a severe blow to the global economy.

The release of methane from thawing permafrost beneath the East Siberian Sea, off northern Russia, alone comes with an average global price tag of $60 trillion in the absence of mitigating action — a figure comparable to the size of the world economy in 2012 (about $70 trillion). The total cost of Arctic change will be much higher.

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Paul Rogers , “The global climate cliff,” openDemocracy, 18 July 2013

The events in Uttarakhand closely follow a report from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) on weather trends in the first decade of the 21st century, which focuses in part on the increased intensity of severe weather events and their likely link to carbon emissions and climate change. The WMO report – The Global Climate 2001-2010: A Decade of Climate Extremes – is particularly useful because it examine a whole decade and compares it with earlier ones, a process that puts smaller fluctuations in perspective and gives a clearer picture of underlying trends  (see Alex Kirby, “Unprecedented climate extremes marked last decade, says UN”, Guardian Environment Network, 3 July 2013).
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