Storms, hurricanes and global warming

Hurricanes and storms are the in topic in every news feed. From the religious militants to the politicians and scientists all will have their say. The anti-US militant released a video and proclaimed with all the self righteous stand that God's judgement is on America. The scientists and environmentalists blame it on the couldn't careless attitude of man's regards to mother Earth. Maybe, we shouldn't blame anyone else but ourselves. Like the saying goes that when we point the blaming finger at someone, four of our own fingers are pointing back to ourselves.

Today's paper said, that the global warming all over the world is melting the ice at the Arctic at an unprecedented rate and it is frightening. The exponential deterioration of the melting of the Ice Caps is going to affect everyone in the whole world, whethere we choose to ignore it or not.

Scientist say, the sea ice in the Arctic is melting faster this year than last year and the air temperatures in the region are also rising. This melting trend has spread throughout the Arctic region. The average air temperatures covering most of the Arctic from January to August this year as compared to the temperatures over the last 50 years has risen by more than 3 degrees C. Look out, all those who stay along coastal areas (that means quite a large percentage of the world population). Beware, be alert, be warned - disaster is at the door.

With all the tracking technology, we do fool ourselves and think that we are one step ahead of nature's fury - with the ability to predict, with all the models and minibars.

Tell that to the 34 elderly people drowned in New Orleans who did not find the opportunity to leave. Tell that to the 24 people in Texas who were burned when they did leave. People carried along their most precious treasures and possessions when they cramped the highways only to find that the highways were actually death traps and that traffic crawl was reduced to zero.

Engineers will keep repairing the levees and drawing exponential graphs for 100 years flood levels. But this Katrina and Rita is treating their 100 year data like some light drizzle. Rainfall caused by the storms were more like one in 1000 years (1000 year flood/storm) and much much more beyond all available data up todate.
What is the use of repairing all the levees then if they are going to break again?
How do you explain to the citizens that man-made levees can no longer hold the fury of nature - expecially to the evacuees who are the old, the sick, the stubborn, women in labor, babies in incubators, toddlers in schools.



We were told that hurricane Rita is a Category 5 storm.
What does this mean?
Simply, storms are divided into 5 categories.


Category 1
Winds from 119 - 153 km/h
Some damage to trees, mobile homes and other unanchored structures

Category 2
Winds from 154 - 177 km/h
Roof, door and window damage as well as damage to larger trees. Light coastal flooding.

Category 3
Winds from 178 to 209 km/h
Mobile homes destroyed, roof failure, trees drowned. Flooding along the shore and inland.

Category 4
Winds from 210 -249 km/h
Extensive damage to building exteriors and to lower floors near shore. Flooding farther inland.

Category 5
Winds more than 249 km/h
Flood damage to lower floors of buildings near shore. Many buildings flattened by wind.

As long as we can remember, prophetic environmentalists and scientists have warned about the co-relationship between climatological crashes and an uprising of violent storms such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

What we are experiencing, with two Category 5 storms within a period of four weeks is not something to be taken lightly. The climate is changing and man is partly if not wholly responsible. Our daily activities that causes global warming is affecting the future of the sustainability of Mother Earth.

During the Katrina, the waters at the Gulf of Mexico was found to be 3 degrees higher than normal. A localised hot spot created an acceleration for changing a normal storm into a freak atomic storm.

It was actually recorded that overall there are no increase in the number of storms. In a study published in the journal Nature a survey of 4800 hurricanes in North Atlantic and North Pacific for the past 56 years reveal that there was no increase in the total number of hurricanes. BUT the power of the hurricanes, measured in terms of wind speed and duration - had jumped 50% and increasing year after year. The storms are getting stronger and they last longer.



Lets take the warning of Global Warming seriously before it becomes too late. All the peoples and nations of the world should contribute their technologies and personal awareness/will to overcome this Glasshouse warming effect and establish national policies to prohibit contributions to mass global warming.

Cheers.