(June 15, 2011) Global warming may not be causing the worst droughts on record from Texas to China, experts say. Many believe that the phenomenon may the result of the La Niña weather patterns.

New Scientist

Martin Hoerling from the  US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cautions against citing global warming as the culprit for these droughts;  “A lot of these extreme conditions are natural variations of the climate. Extremes happen, heat waves happen, heavy rains happen,” he says. Michael Hayes, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, concurs. He claims that the strange weather phenomena are more likely to be the result of La Niña than they are of global warming. The sort of jet stream ‘blocking event’ that caused last year’s Russian heatwave is a far more likely cause of the widespread droughts than global warming which is only touted to start affecting the weather in the latter part of this century, says Michael Blackburn of the University of Reading, UK. Read the related article in the New Scientist here.

New Scientist, June 15, 2011

Further Reading:

Read more on Climategate here.

Read “U.S. scientists cleared in ‘Climategate’” here.

Read Lawrence Solomon: “Virginia launches fraud investigation into Climategate’s Michael Mann” here.

Read “Who is cashing in on carbon credits? Probe International unveils its interactive carbon credit database” here.