Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 12 February 2011

Witnesses to Cyclone Yasi’s destructive tear across northeastern Australia described it as a monster for its size and ferocity. It was also an omen.

Little doubt that storms would become stronger as seas warm. Photo: National Weather Service/F. Smith.

Climate scientists say global warming is heating up the world’s oceans and atmosphere, providing more fuel for tropical cyclones and creating ever greater risks for crops, miners and billion-dollar beachfronts.

The risks from stronger storms flow right through the heart of the global economy, affecting food security and inflation, iron ore and coal production and higher insurance losses.

Particularly vulnerable are Asia’s booming coastal megacities from Manila to Karachi, large areas of the U.S. Gulf and east coast, Australia’s iron-ore and northern coal mines and tropical Asia’s rice-growing river deltas.

Insurers say unrelenting development along coastlines is placing more homes, businesses and infrastructure in the path of destruction that will drive up insurance losses.

United Nations data says 231 million people lived in cities in Asia in 1950. By 2050, that figure is forecast to grow to more than 3 billion.

Climate change and stronger storms are also a growing threat to Asia’s rice crop.

Asia grows 90 percent of the world’s rice and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines estimates an additional 8 to 10 million tonnes of rice needs to be produced each year, meaning disruption from droughts, floods and storms can hurt supplies and cause price spikes. Continue reading Global warming creates ever greater risks for crops and miners