Kazakhstan fated to frequent hurricanes, Russian expert says

Kazakhstan's eastern regions will face climate change followed by frequent hurricanes and whirlwinds. Such a forecast was produced by Russian experts from Environment Monitoring Department of Novosibirsk.

The head of agency Lev Ryabtsev said these changes, including emergence of whirlwind, may originate from climatic changes across the Siberia.

In his opinion, the coming decades will bring to Siberia a change from harsh continental climate to moderate continental climate. In other words, winters will go warmer and summers colder. Temperature jumps will minimize. At that, weather between May and July will be very rainy and cloudy, whereas August and September will turn hot and dry. Mr Ryabtsev blames human activities for the accelerated alteration of climatic processes. He stressed that such a climate will be a reality for Kazakhstan and Siberia after 100 years, in early 22nd century.

Instability of air temperature in Kazakhstan's eastern regions will cause frequent whirlwinds that may lead to cataclysms. Judging by statistic details, over the past 50 years hurricanes used to emerge once in 7 years. But now they happen almost every year. The expert says dangerous is not the strong wind, but sharp increase in air temperature.

Lev Ryabtsev does not exclude the risk of flooding at Siberian rivers, including the Irtysh. From massive rainfalls and water jams caused by monsoons, floods may grow more frequent - at least twice. He cited the recent flood in Russia's Amur region as an example.

Given this, his Kazakh colleagues challenge most of his points. According to Kazgidromet experts, whirlwinds are a rare phenomenon in Kazakhstan that happens from synoptic reasons, not global climatic changes.

The latest registered whirlwind in Kazakhstan was observed last July in Aktobe oblast.

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