Oh, Crapdoodles
Oct. 8th, 2005 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
browngirlOn the other hand....
A massive earthquake has hit the Subcontinent, and apparently the death toll from Hurricane Stan (STAN? Dear sweet God, soon they'll have to start the alphabet over again if this goes on) is near 2000 people.
Am I an ignorant American, or have there been more than the average number of natural disasters in this past year or so?
A massive earthquake has hit the Subcontinent, and apparently the death toll from Hurricane Stan (STAN? Dear sweet God, soon they'll have to start the alphabet over again if this goes on) is near 2000 people.
Am I an ignorant American, or have there been more than the average number of natural disasters in this past year or so?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 04:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 04:59 am (UTC)This is dreadful.
No,
Date: 2005-10-09 05:11 am (UTC)http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4319640.stm
Guatemala - 156
El Salvador - 65
Mexico - 17
Nicaragua - 10
Honduras - 4
Costa Rica - 2
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 05:00 am (UTC)Yes, this is the first time in history that they've actually had to think about that.
Disasters and hurricane names
Date: 2005-10-09 05:06 am (UTC)There have been terrible earthquakes, famines etc. for as long as I can remember ... however they haven't all made it on to Fox News.
There is a belief, among some scientists, that the amount of airplane emissions in the atmosphere has reduced the amount of sunlight hitting the surface ... and that photons hitting water molecules is one of the major ways of causing water evaporation. (The atmosphere is still heating up due to greenhouse gases etc.) This means that the patterns of rain fall around the equator (which used to drift north and south of the equator during the year) have much reduced drift, which may be why sub-Saharan Africa has had so much less rainfall and hence famines. Hurricanes are basically spun off the areas just north and south of the equator (which is why they mostly start by hitting Cuba, Jamaica, Mexicom, Florida etc. before heading north (or the equivalent heading south)) The change in climate and such *may* be causing more, and more powerful, hurricanes.
The Indian Ocean Tsunami last year is probably not related to any of this, but just a random event that could have happened any year (like the supervolcano (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/supervolcanoes.shtml) under Yellowstone which could take out most of the west coast of the US, or the Canary Islands volcano (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/956280.stm) which could cause a tidal wave that will take out the US east coast. They could stay safe for hundreds or thousands of years, or either/both could go off at any time). The Yellowstone supervolcano (might be 10,000 times the force of Mt.St.Helens) has a 600,000 year cycle, but last went off 640,000 years ago ... (yike!) (the Canary Island tsunami is much less likely to happen according to some scientists, but if it did, then 150 ft waves would hit Manhattan and Washington DC and Miami and the wave could travel 12 miles inland)
Hurricane and Tropical Storm names:
There is a six year list, each year has 21 names (Q, U, X, Y and Z are skipped), and after six years the first list is used again. However, if a storm is sufficiently big (e.g. Andrew, Katrina etc.) then the name is "retired" for at least 10 years (probably much longer) and a new name put in. If they run out of the year's letters, they go to the Greek alphabet for the rest (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta etc.)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 05:30 am (UTC)There was a lot of building in Florida in the 1920s. There was a land boom there that's very reminiscent of the current housing boom in the US. The Great Miami Hurricane came along in 1926 and that's when land values collapsed there. The Great Miami Hurricane caused worse damage than Andrew did in 1992, adjusted for inflation. Land values in Florida didn't recover until after WWII, and it's thought that this localized drop in asset values was one of the straws that broke the camel's back to kick off the stock market crash of '29.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 05:51 am (UTC)Yes, as others have said, some of it probably is related to climate change:
the number of tropical storms and hurricanes, for instance (we've passed Tammy, which has slipped past tropical depression to a mere rainstorm - so I guess it's on to V, W, then the Greek alphabet);
the intensity of those storms;
tornado number and intensity;
flooding;
mudslides;
drought;
wildfire.
The extent of the human contribution to that climate change is something we cannot yet quantify precisely. (I'll not further discuss it here; the topic is one that provides sufficient fodder for whole communities worth of debate!)
Human construction and habitat management have direct and measurable effects, however, on the frequency and intensity of flooding, mudslides, wildfire and drought. We've built dams and drained or filled wetlands; clearcut forests; overgrazed or plowed the hills and prairies; eliminated many of the small fires that might have prevented larger ones; squeezed out or hunted out many of the animals that might have grazed away the underbrush; redirected water to lawns, showers and irrigation projects, drawing down aquifers millenia old; paved over areas that once would have soaked up the rain (a twofer, this worsens both drought and flooding).
Human habitat selection and construction techniques increase the toll, when those disasters and others do occur. I don't think we've done anything to increase the chance of a quake or tsunami, but we have built high-rise buildings in earthquake zones, and major cities on vulnerable coastlines. We have flammible multimillion-dollar houses on steep, unstable hillsides; subdivisions in fire-prone mountain ranges; metropolitan areas on river floodplains and stormy coasts.
Humankind has, increasingly, been putting itself in harm's way.
If current trends continue, do you think the waterfront may again be a place that the houses of the rich overlook, rather than occupy?
Storm names: Igor?
Date: 2005-10-09 06:12 am (UTC)Next up: Vance and Wilma. Yes, really!
As far as the number of named storms goes, we appear to be tied with record year 1995, when the Atlantic season made it to Hurricane Tanya.
After last year's hurricane season, the names of four hurricanes were retired: Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne. Replacing them are Colin, Fiona, Igor (!), and Julia, who'll have their chance in 2010.
It'll be interesting to see what's crossed off the list after this year! Then again, Katrina and Rita have been so exceptional, it might be difficult for other storms to measure up, even ones that in another year might have been considered for retirement.
CLICK for Atlantic hurricane-name lists through 2010, and other name lists for cyclonic storms around the world.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 02:56 pm (UTC)Also, in the US, we're hearing more about hurricanes that don't hit the US because we're sensitized to the information now. News teams would have said "Hurricane Stan hit point X; bad things happened", and we would have ignored it. For now, they're putting in more coverage, and we're paying more attention.
The tsunami, which is technically last year's disaster, was an exceptional event. No question about it.
The earthquake is not an unusual event in that part of the world. Hearing about it is more unusual, as is the fact of it striking a heavily populated area. There are more news teams in Pakistan now than, say, six years ago. When a news team gets hit with an earthquake, it will make the news.
So yes, it's been a worse year than normal, but a lot of it is that the events are happening in places the news covers well.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 03:30 pm (UTC)Let's see:
Far more intense hurricanes, including
twothree potent ones in a year.Mega tsunami, huge death tolls.
Strong earthquake with a large death toll.
Not including famines, which are far slower, we are approaching the 200,000 mark for people killed by major natural disasters.
We've had a bumper year for major swift natural disasters. I wonder when some people will admit that maybe Nature can still whup us hard.
Global warming is real. More energy in the atmosphere means more weather patterns created by that energy, and thus more storms - including, at the extreme, hurricanes. Also, the thought just occured to me: if the planet's crust heats up a little bit on the average - and I grant you that rock melts at far higher temperatures than ice - might that not also contribute to more tectonic shifts? I grant you that the shifts themselves would be less potent if they happened more often, but they'd still be a pain and could trigger more volcanic activity.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 03:45 pm (UTC)From what I've heard from The Weather Channel, more hurricanes is the result of warmer ocean temperatures, which give storms more energy. Even if the warmth is only a half-degree Celsius.
Who still says global warming isn't a problem?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 04:37 pm (UTC)The other is speculation. I suspect that reporting habits have changed in the last decade or two. Twenty years ago, I suspect, a major quake in Asia would have garnered a mention in the newspaper and on the evening news that night, and that would have been it. But now that people who are interested can trivially follow news via the net, providers may feel more of a need to keep it coming. And given the technological gains, having someone parked in Kashmir feeding you updates every few hours isn't as expensive as it once was -- it's not like anyone has to ship physical film.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 05:25 pm (UTC)