Experts: Future of Big Hurricanes Looms

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2005/oct/01/100108163.html

Have we seen America's future through the eyes of hurricanes Katrina and Rita? Monster storms drowning cities and obliterating coastlines. Jobs vanishing and prices rising as ports and pipelines close. Millions fleeing, but many are trapped and die. Chaos reigns, paralyzing government and leaving the world's wealthiest society humbled and frightened.

Natural disaster in the United States has morphed to a dangerous new level. Some experts say the nation can expect to be pummeled by more of these mega-catastrophes over the next 20 or 30 years in a nasty conspiracy of unfavorable weather patterns, changing demographics and political denial.

A month after Katrina and one week after Rita, it's not clear how the United States will play the new hand that nature has apparently dealt.

"Are we prepared to lose a major city every year?" asks Carnegie Mellon University risk strategist Baruch Fischhoff. "It's cowardice not to ask the question, and cowardice on the public's part not to get engaged in the answer."

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[SheilaT]

1. The bigger problem is actually

that sea level is rising, slowly but surely. As arctic and antarctic ice melts, the sea level is expected to rise around much of the world, and that could drown coastal cities.

The reality of hurricanes is that while global warming is making them stronger, there does not seem to be an absolute increase in the number of them world wide. We are currently in a period of greater Atlantic and Caribbean hurricanes, because these things are cyclical.

As terrible as this hurricane season has been, I don't think the question "Are we prepared to lose a major city every year?" is truly the right one to be asking, at least not so far as hurricanes go.

Are we prepared to build dikes all over the world to protect low-lying cities is a better question to ask. Are we prepared for the desertification of some areas is another.

What I'm bothered by is not that there's anything actually wrong with what's being stated, is that it's a strictly linear extrapolation, and as such is being used to scare us.

[Coastie for Truth]

2. Fischoff is an optimist!

Too optimistic, try reading

* Holton, An Introduction to Dynamic Meteorology - Heavy math and physics.

* Teay, Climate Change Begins at Home : Life on the Two-Way Street of Global Warming - a good read

* Kerry Emanuel, Divine Wind: The History And Science Of Hurricanes -- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

* Ahrens, Meteorology Today With Infotrac: An Introduction to Weather, Climate, and the Environment - a good, undergrad "intro to meterology" - the software CD is an added extra - I wouldn't waste the money for the CD if you can find the book used on Half.com without the CD.

* Stull, Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers: A Technical Companion Book to C. Donald Ahrens' Meteorology Today - good supplement if you are mathematically inclined and like to do a little C++ or Java numerical programming -- or just math mind games.

* Ahrens, Workbook/Study Guide Meteorology Today: An Introduction to Weather, Climate and the Environment (Paperback) - if you can get it cheap on half.com - but I wouldn't knock myself out looking for it.

And that's my take. We are going to see more categroy 5's -- but like Alfred E Newman says "What, me worry? I live on the San Andreas and Hayward Faults" ;)

[neweurope]

3. "nasty conspiracy of unfavorable weather patterns" my butt.

There is something called "global warming". Other governments - the government of the Netherlands for instance - are preparing for it.

For instance by building amphibian houses:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,377050,00.html

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[bemildred]

4. Lies, all of it stinking likes.

"Intelligent Weather" theory will save us.