Sandy Update-Gawkers

A part of Sandy that nobody thought about until recently is the impact of 'disaster tourism' that parts of New York and New Jersey are not experiencing.

The article from fox new was (surprisingly) well written and depicts the story from the angle of the people who are currently trying to repair their broken lives.

As people start sorting through the rubble that Sandy left in places, SUVs filled with disaster tourists start driving through the streets. Residents of the ravaged area are quick to pick out 'those who do not belong' because they're wearing clean clothes, and driving spotless cars.

Some redidents find it annoying or offensive. One was quoted as feeling like she was a main attraction in a zoo. Others can understand why the visitors are pouring in. "Who wouldnt want to see boats picked up and left on the streets"

Overall the sentiment is that these disaster tourists are mostly welcome as long as they are not patronizing the unfortunate or getting in the way.

Unfortunately when streets are already clogged with debris and cars, adding unnecessary cars and people to them becomes a hassle in the clean-up period.

Hopefully these disaster tourists realize the limits to their welcome, and are not taking up any resources (hotel rooms, gas, food, etc etc) that would otherwise go to relief aid

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/12/disaster-tourists-seek-firsthand-look-at-ny-storm-ravaged-neighborhoods/

First Winter Storm

Well, the season is finally upon us. After a relatively quiet November and early December we finally got our big snowfall in North Western Wisconsin. As of 4pm today, the National Weather service is forecasting 9-15 inches in central Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Here in Eau Claire we've been steadily getting it from the wee hours of the morning.

Travels plans definitely have been affected as drivng on I-94 you'll probably see more cars in the ditch than on the road. Took me a 40 minutes to get from campus area to the mall (Never shoulda left the house...)

Hopefully the snow clears up over night so the monday morning commute will be safer and less accident filled, nobody wants to start a week like that. Being in the Campus area is nice, and walking provides an awesome sight for those willing to find it.

Put on some Boots and get out there.








http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/Winter-storm-dumps-heavy-snow-across-the-Midwest--182747291.html

10 Round Bout: FEMA v Nadler

In a recent article from the USA Today, congressman Jerrold Nadler (D) said that Sandy should be a wake up call for FEMA (so what was Katrina...?)

He points to the fact that Sandy bring a new set of challenges to the table; How do we get relief supplies to people inside skyscrapers?

The article is mostly focused on FEMA reaction in large Urban areas. With large Urban areas, come lots of people. All of them needing the same thing. When a city like NYC is displaced it leaves a heck of a lot more people out there than when a Hurricane hits a less populated area.

What starts out as a good article where critisms of FEMA are presented without being over the top or too accusatory, turns into an article that reflects the true desire of the congressmen and the New England residents. Money

Crisizing FEMA, which is valid, seems to be a fassod for congress to approve more money to go to the efforts of rebuilding the area. Congress meets this week to decide if/how to propotion out money for those in need.



http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/04/congressman-says-fema-ill-equipped/1747213/

NOAA Weather Communication

Found a pretty cool article about NOAA earler today. The article discusses how NOAA will be running a test in the coming months.

Many commonfolk do not understand the current NOAA weather warning system in place. People have a hard time deciphering what the difference between a Watch, Warning, or Advisory. NOAA hopes to combat this confusion by running a new set of criteria. They plan to test this new system starting now (December 12, 2012) and run it through March.

New definitions:
A Winter Storm WATCH is in effect for XXXXX counties.
BECOMES
POTENTIAL for a Winter storm is in effect for XXXXXX counties.

A Winter Storm Warning is in effect for XXXX counties
BECOMES
A Warning for a Dangerous Winter Storm is in effect for XXXX counties.

NOAA is going to change the language of the winter hazard warnings while also better defining the content in those warning, they hope to appeal more the layperson and to make sure people are accurately informed about potential hazardous weather in their area.

The system makes sense, although the fact that we now have different warning levels might also be confusing depending on the terminology they decide to use.

Good Terminology ranking:
Typical storm, Dangerous storm, Extremely Dangerous Storm, Go-out-and-buy-as-much-toilet-paper-and-canned-food-as-you-can Storm. 

Bad Terminology ranking
 Storm, Dangerous storm, hazardous storm, debilitating storm, Super Hazardous storm.

NOAA could be on to something here, as long as they can pick some people friendly terminology to use to accurately portray what they're trying to say.

national-weather-service-tests-new-simpler-winter-hazard-communications

Hurricane Season 2012

Is the Sandy horse dead yet? Or can I keep beating it....?

I believe I wrote earlier about Tornado frequency, now it's time to focus on Hurricane frequency.

NOAA declared that this Hurricane season was the third worst on record. Only 2005 and 1933 saw more hurricanes develop. 2012 tied for third worst with 2011 and 2010.

While there was a very high frequency, the strength was far weaker than in past years. We only had one major storm develop and only for a short amount of time. Hurricane Michael reached category 3 strength for just a few hours.

While the average strength was low, our losses were just the opposite. Hurricane/Super Storm Sandy taught us that we don't need to see massive storms to for us to be hurt, finacially and socially. A huge hurricane doesnt need to barrel down on the US, a super storm can do plenty of damage when it hits in the wrong place.

NOAA also tells that 70% of all hurricanes this year were Atlantic hurricanes, which continues a trend of higer than average Atlantic Hurricanes that has been going on since 1995.


http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-11-29/news/bal-wx-unusual-hurricane-season-among-busiest-but-lacked-strength-besides-sandy-20121128_1_tropical-meteorology-project-storm-forecaster-hurricane-season

But I thought Wales liked water?

Flooding across the pond in Wales is making news today as residents watched defenses fail.

Rain in the UK has led to flooding in Northern Wales when the floods manged to avoid all the flood defenses in place within the Glasdir estate.

What's funny about this article is it outlines what seem to be very good Hazard mitigation techniques for avoiding such floods. Later on in the article it talks about all the regulations put in place, and that it is not normally a severly flooded area.

Another funny thing about the article and flooding is that the residents and property developers dont know how the flood got past their defense systems. Some hypothesize that the flood waters went around the defenes, other thing it was groundwater rising up, and yet other suggest that the defenses were simply not enough and the flood waters toppled over them.

No matter what the cause, the developers are interested in figuring out where they went wrong and fixing the system they have in place to keep instances liek this from happening again.

Normally we can critisize people for living in low areas and blame that on their property damages, but if this article is true, a lot of the property was supoosed to be well suited for flooding possibilities yet sustained damaged this past week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-20533926

Aliens, Dusty Aliens.

Environmental Hazards is the name of the class, however this title does not specify that we simply are interested in looking at Earth's environment so for my latest blog post I'm going to take us to Mars.

As we explore other planets and eventually send manned spacecraft there it's important to gain a better knowledge base of these potential planets, especially about their environments.

A mars rover landed early in August and has since been collecting data and exploring the planet. Recently it came under the influence of a major environmental hazard, a massive dust storm on the planets surface.

The dust storm was first noticed by NASA on November tenth and they have been following it ever since. Both Martian (the other one was landed in 2004) rovers have built in weather stations and they saw drops in air pressure as the storm moved across the region, they also experienced and increase in nighttime temperatures because the dust storm absorbs more sunlight than Martian typical planet surface. The warming effect can be felt 16 around the dust storm and that's what the rovers are experiencing currently.

We last saw dust storms this big in 2007 and prior to that in 2001. Dust storms like this pop up on Mars seasonally, and the Martian year is 2X as long as earth's year.

Scientists view this as a great opportunity to learn more about Martian Dust Storms. They see this as a time to examine the processes behind the Dust Storms and why some get so big-global scale, while others pop up and die off right away.

As we already know a lot (and yet not enough) about the environment that we currently live in, there is a new set of rules and circumstances we must think about as humans travel to new planets.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/24/mars-dust-storm-nasa-rovers-opportunity-curiosity_n_2184423.html#slide=more238062

China is watching....

Caught a news blurb the other day about a weather related development in China, which seems to be somewhat of a hot topic these days.

On monday China launched it's third environmental satelite. They hope to use this sattelite and the other two to develop it's abilitys for monitoring their environemtn, and forecasing future disasters.

This is an important development for a country that is developing and expaning so fast, especially being one of the top most populous countries in the world. China has a lot of land to cover, and as we here in the U.S. know, that means a lot of different environmental factors happening is many places at once.

China says that the sattelite will be used specifically for disaster planning, air distribution and reconstruction if necessary. It's hard enough to predict disasters before they happen but having another eye in the sky definitely helps them out.



http://www.rttnews.com/2008613/china-launches-environment-satellite.aspx?type=gn&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=sitemap

Just Blowin' Trees

for Some, Sandy was the worst stom on record. It destoryed the most, and uprooted so many idividuals. 10,000 were lost in NYC and never have a hope of regaining their home, or life again. In new jersey 113,00 died and some were even 100+ years old.

I'm talking about trees.

Sandy's lesser known victim were the trees. While humans and their perils are the main focus of damage reports coming out of Sandy, Trees get somewhat forgotten. As I said earlier, an article from the Wall Street Journal lists the tree casualty number about 10,000 in just New York City. Call me an Idiot, but I didn't know there were even 10,000 trees in New York City.. Ok well I had to have known that...

New Jersey reports over 113,000 being destoryed state wide some of whom probably contributed to some local power failures in certain neighborhoods.

Experts can use the knowledge of Sandy to decide where and how to replant these trees, like planting smaller growing trees under and near powerlines. It gives an do-over with tree planting where conflicts between trees and city infrastructure were occuring.

It also took down some 'favorite' trees in Central Park, which will take on a new look come spring when new trees are being planted.

Just another way Sandy is affecting the New England area, and in ways nobody really could have thought.


http://online.wsj.com/article/AP23c1f43071d24cbea7d1adc7aa75f198.html

Extra Credit Post - Geography Bee

Recently, classmate Nick Topper and myself attended the Geography Bee for pure enjoyment and extra credit, provided I blogged about it.

The bee was interesting, opening up with a question about the insanely annoying toddler/pre-teen/I dont eve know how old Hone Boo Boo and ending discussing the recent election.

Ezra put together some good Human geography questions, while Ryan put together quite a few elections questions, Dr Anand threw some Anthropology questions in there as well. Unfortunately teammate Topper and I didn't fare too well, getting the boot in the first round (and we call ourselves Geography Majors....) but luckily for myself Scott picked me up on Free agency and we finished in 3rd place overall.

Sandy Update- Still Without Power

This article from CBS news is about 90% people complaining about the lack of power in the Long Island area, and 10% of why it's out. But still, worth reading...

Almost 13 days after Sandy made landfall, some residents are still without power. There have been rallys across the Long Island area where people are voicing their opinions loud and clear about their lack of power. Some calling for the energy company to just "fix a pole"... as if it were that easy.

It truly is unfortunate that we are seeing these people without power almost two weeks later but I feel it's important to look at this story from a mitigation aspect not just to appease the complainers.

The article goes on to discuss how many NYC power companies, similar to most individuals, were simply not ready for the storm. According to the aricle, they are a bit lost, and there is no coordinated effort to bring energy back. Companies like Long Island Power Agency and Con Edison have already restored power to nearly 98% of the almost 2.7 million without power just last week. It's not like they're not making progress, its just not quite fast enough.

This is a good way for energy companies to learn how NOT to prepare and react to a natural disaster like Sandy. Although in disasters hitting metropolitan areas, restoring power to that many people can definitely be a challenge.

Hopefully the citizens outlined in the story will regain power in the next few days, and the further recovery process can begin.









http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57548066/sandy-tempers-heated-among-new-yorkers-still-in-the-cold/

Sandy Update:Power and Voting Concerns

Finding out where to Vote seems small in compared to figuring out where you're going to sleep the next night, but that's what a lot of East Coast residents are faced with this voting season.

Hurricane Sandy displaced many from their homes, be it destruction or just evacuation, and now it's a struggle to figure out where to vote in this Presidential election.

These days we need electricity to aide in the voting process, and officials are confident that it wont be an issue come voting time except for in the most severely hit areas. At this point residents were lined up in polling stations that were not their own. 'Refugee' voters were able to vote in different areas if their hometowns were inaccessible on Tuesday. In some neighborhoods temporary polling places were set up to best serve their residents, and lines of people were in front of these temporary tents and structures. Buses even provided free bus services for citizens to get to these polling places.

It's nice to see the priority given, within reason, to voting in the election. Something as important as the presidential election is clearly treated with high importance, and people's reaction to the adversity is promising.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57545592/sandy-victims-concerns-voting-housing-power/?pageNum=2

Sandy: FEMA thumbs up or thumbs down?

Sandy Update for you guys. Coming from recent CNN article about FEMA.

After sandy ravaged parts of the East coast earlier this week, we can now reflect on some of the immediate disaster reaction.

After being heavily, and rightfully so, criticized in response to Hurricane Katrina, FEMA has done a much better job with the relief efforts with Sandy.

Katrina marked the end of FEMAs old methods, the article describes new requirements for FEMA head honchos,

"One of the post-Katrina reforms passed by Congress was to require that FEMA administrator have an experienced chief, said Bruce Lockwood, an officer with the U.S. Council of the International Association of Emergency Managers. "It couldn't be just a political appointee," Lockwood said. "It had to be somebody who had a practitioner background in emergency management or public safety field. It had to be somebody who knew what they were doing before they got into that position.""

This is definitely important to note. The position could have been used as a political tool for higher-ups to reward loyal campaign aides, but now that is not a possible outcome. The new administrator must be someone with some credentials.

One aspect to the new FEMA is called "leaning forward". This tool is used where FEMA puts medical supplies, relief supplies and people in place BEFORE major disasters happen. That way, when the disaster hits, they are far better prepared to act fast.

"The agency is now aimed at "leaning forward," moving supplies like food, water, generators, blankets and cots into an expected disaster zone ahead of time, said Lockwood, the deputy emergency management director in New Hartford, Connecticut. "Before, they would have to wait for a call from a state before they started moving material," he said. They still need a request from a state to distribute those supplies, but "They have things on the ready in a very immediate location."

Efforts like 'leaning forward' has paid off for Sandy relief efforts and FEMA has been praised for their diligence and hard work by many political figures on the east coast (of both parties, I might addd). FEMA is however, not with out criticism. Staten Island Borough President is unhappy with FEMAs supply of knowledge to the citizens post disaster. He says that FEMA did not do a good enough job helping the citizens figure out where to retrieve supplies from after the storm hit. A huge agency like FEMA can only do so much, and obviously you are not going to please everyone, every time.

It's good to see some good news coming out of Sandy aftermath. Although still a huge effort and serious undertaking, it seems FEMA did a fairly good job with disaster mitigation in the wake of Sandy. Far better than it did during Katrina at least.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/01/us/sandy-fema/index.html

Sandy: Wake-up

Found a good article about Sandy that puts some numbers to relavent information.

The author draws lines between hurricanes Sandy and Katrina in discussion of the idiot way we chose to live in such low lying coastal areas, when hurricanes are an annual affair.

Sandy looks to be one of the most costly storms in U.S. history. With a massive part of our financial and cultural center on the east coast, how can we cope with such destruction.

The author of the article moves to relating climate change to the occurance of two major storms clustered in the span of less than a decade,

"How, at this point, can anyone deny the scientific consensus about climate change? The traditional dodge — that no single weather event can definitively be attributed to global warming — doesn’t work anymore. If something looks, walks and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Especially if the waterfowl in question is floating through your living room."

Some facts that the author lists:
Katrina Costs:$100 Billion
Sandy Estimated Costs: $50 Billion
Insured Propery Value along East coast: $9 Trillion
~50% of All americans live within 50 miles of the sea
~1 in 3 Live in a coastal county
That's 41 Million on Atlantic Sea Board
and 14 Million on the Gulf Coast (and rising)

These facts, valid or not, bring up interesting reflection points and also provide intersting apocolyptic 'what-if' situations.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-will-hurricane-sandy-be-our-wake-up-call/2012/11/01/eb50acd6-2447-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html

Sandy: Headed to East Coast

Sandy Update for you guys.

Hurricane Sandy is still a major threat to the East Coast currently. People from NOrth Carolina up to Cape Cod are getting ready for one of the biggest storms the east coast has seen in recent memory.

As of 8AM on sunday the hurricane was 260 miles SE of Cape Hatteras North Carolina and moving westward at 10 miles per hour.

Currently the biggest worry is for D.C. and just north, in Delaware and Maryland where there could be major flooding that would occur.

In preparation for the storm the governors of Maryland and Virginia have declared states of emergency. With some Mayors even issuring mandatory evacuations of cities at this point. Good to see people taking heed to the storm. This is a sign that the storm worries a lot of people and could be a bigger deal than some are making it.

Even with mandatory evacuations you still have people who are unwilling or unable to leave, so it will be intersting to see how well these warnings are heeded and if anything comes to the people who stay behind.

Power companies are expecting huge blackouts in the area,

"The region’s utility providers called on companies outside the area to send as much help as possible. Dominion Virginia Power asked to borrow 2,000 workers, while Pepco asked for 2,500 to be sent to the District and Maryland. Pepco warned that hundreds of thousands of customers may lose power if the storm hits the area as expected."

another sign that the storm deserves more attention that it's recieving. People should be preaparing for these blackouts and hopefully will be able to manage without the power while it's out.

More Updates as it develops.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/hurricane-sandy-still-on-track-to-deliver-a-major-blow/2012/10/27/e30aaae8-204d-11e2-ba31-3083ca97c314_story.html

Sandy: Hurricane Status

Fox News Latino brings us an article following the development of what is now, Hurricane Sandy. The Tropical Storm formerly known as Sandy has recently been upgraded to Category 1 Hurricane status.

Effects of the hurricane are being felt in Jamaican capital, Kingston where police issued a 2 days curfew to keep people off the streets, out of danger and to avoid potential looting possibilities.


Unfortunately as the Hurricane approaches Jamaica, most residents are not ready for it's arrival. The majority of this LDC lives in shanty towns which are ill equiped to deal with storms of this magnitude.

The best quote from the article is a simple one that comes from Jamaican meteorologist, Jaqueline Spence, "We'll be getting wet."

Futher outlook shows this storm heading North, Northeast with Cuba as it's next target.

Behind Sandy is Tropical Storm Tony which currently poses no threat to land. If that were to change and it elevated or change cource it could be a terrible tandem threatening the Carribean and the Atlandtic coast.


http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/10/24/andy-reaches-hurricane-strength-as-it-heads-toward-cuba/

Insurance companies rethought.

As a followup from my post on October 5th I found another article along the same lines.

This article is focusing on disseminating the details in a report by Munich Re, a reinsurance giant. The study performed brings some intersting topics to light, and then is debated for a few reasons.

The article talks about how climate change is affecting our weather patters in the continental United States and how this change in weather will affect the insurance models currently in place.

The study that Munich Re. conducted found that during the past 32 years the amount of natural disasters has multiplied by 5 times in the US, while only multiplying by 2X in europe.

These numbers are driven by factors like the amount of, and severity of tornadoes and thunderstorms, the intensity and length of drought periods, as well as some socioeconomic factors as well.

The article gives some visual displays (worth checking out) and numbers to put to the claims, but what is most important is what is brought up by researches at UC Boulder, who disagree with the Munich Re. study and findings. The researchers at CU-Boulder suggest that similar peer reviewed articles are finding the opposite of what Munich Re. is saying. They do not debate the increase in damage or frequency of natural disasters. They suggest that there is no hard evidence to prove human caused global warming is the creation of these factors though.

“The signal of human-caused climate change has not yet been detected in disaster loss data. Even so, humans affect the climate and a range of actions are worth considering in response. But the importance of climate change should not lead to a deviation from standards of scientific integrity,” Pielke (CU-Boulder Researcher) said in an email conversation. He criticized Munich Re for including advocacy of climate adaptation and mitigation in the report and not submitting it for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, saying that their actions have created the impression that they “have interests well beyond an accurate reporting of the science.”

Obviously, Munich Re. DOES have alternative motives, they're an Insurance COmpany. Munich Re. is not in the business of mainting scientific methods and quality. However, they have a duty to perform qualtiy studies both for their own company good as well as the good of th public.

THis whole debate is important to focus on because its that restructure on insurance companies that could be important in our future as the planet starts getting warmer.

Check out the article for further debate and some more 'hard' facts.







http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/18/natural-disaster-trends-report_n_1975190.html

Pakistan Floods

Well as we talked about in class, the news attention is focused on the 4.0 magnitude earthquake in Maine that rattled New England and I can only find a 300 word blurb about the flooding in Pakistan that killed almost 500 people.

If you haven't been following... Weeks of constant monsoon rains have been falling in Pakistan causing major flooding. The article from Voice of America states that it has affected nearly 5 million people as well as every single part of the country.

Some parts have been hit harder than others, with the lowlands along the east coast taking the biggest part of the blow. This is where a large percentage of the 455 people died. These people were living in relief towns built of tents and shanty buildings.

Not only was there a large loss of human life, but more than 7,000 cattle were killed as well.

The area flooded also was hit by flooding in 2010 when the damages were even more severe.

Check out the article at

http://www.voanews.com/content/pakistan-floods-kill-hundreds-affect-millions/1528303.html

An article with some layers...

Holy crap, talk about an article with some layers to it. I recently found a great article that goes into some depth (well, as much as a simple news article can) about the health of insurance agencies and how the impending climate change could throw off the entire insurance model.

The article focuses on how the beginning of climate change is already affecting the way insurance companies do business as well as how they are regulated. As the total numbers of environmental hazards is rising so are the amount of insurance dollars beings handed out to help cope with those problems. Insurance dollars don't come from thin air, they are forecasted far in the past and are estimated numbers so that companies can have enough when called upon. However, the new rash of disasters would completely throw that off.

The article states:
"“Insurance is the first line of defense against extreme weather losses, but climate change is a game-changer for the models that insurers have long relied on,” Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler told an industry blog on risk and insurance. “Companies will need to adapt if insurance is to remain available and affordable.”
“With 40 percent of industrial insurance claims that Allianz now pays out being due to natural catastrophes, climate change represents a threat to our business,” Allianz told the Insurance Journal."


This opens up a new layer of the 'health' of the insurance companies. Insurance companies could be reporting gains and investors buying stock in these companies, but what if a number of disaster occur to the point where the insurance company would go under. This in not an infrequent event, but what happens if it becomes more frequent in the future with the increase in natural disasters? 

The article calls insurance the "oxygen that the economy needs to breathe", now I dont know enough about the complicated inter workings of the economy as a whole, but that statement seems a bit over the top. I do think that it's important for insurance agencies to take into account the pending climate change and forecast similarly.

There are even relatively new regulations put into place to help account for that, "In New York, California and Washington State, regulators already require major insurance companies to disclose their exposure to climate-related risks. Our report calls for rolling this approach out nationwide. Expanding disclosure would prompt insurers to incorporate climate risk into their business decisions—something they must do if they are to thrive, and even to survive, the coming storms. Disclosure would also help investors and regulators more accurately assess insurance companies’ financial strength."

Overall this was a pretty cool article to find and I'm someone who finds economics and geography interesting so it was right up my alley.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mindylubber/2012/10/11/climate-proofing-the-insurance-industry/

Volcanic Activity eh?

Keeping tabs on a pretty active Volcano in Indonesia. The Volcano named, Mount Lokon has been especially active since September with over 40 eruptions occurring  Last sunday it had it's largest one yet. This Volcano has proved deadly in the past, killing one Swiss tourist in 1991.

Although relatively harmless it has been incredibly active in the past year. Since July of 2011 it has erupted approximately 600 times. That's multiple eruptions per day, and in July of last year it's activities caused an evacuation of a small town of 2000+.

I wonder if eruptions are classified as just the release of magma/lava on the surface or if it is considered an eruptions only if there is material projected into the air.

The island of Java is paying special attention to Volcanoes at all times because they reside right in the middle of the 'Ring of Fire' and just last year another Volcano took the lives of 350 residents.

Good to see people keeping tabs on Volcanoes even in LDCs as a means of disaster mitigation. It is also important to have the right forecasting in place when it is possibly for Volcanoes.

http://www.examiner.com/article/series-of-eruptions-continue-from-indonesian-volcano

"You guys remember storm Brutus?"

The weather channel has recently decided to start naming winter storms, beginning this winter. NY Daily News reports that this is an attempt to start raising awareness and a buzz around them to keep people interested and engaged in the forthcoming storms.

"Armed with a list of possibilities like “Brutus,” “Khan,” and “Nemo,” Weather Channel specialists say the move will give winter storms “personality” and help raise much-needed awareness."

According to the article storms will be named based on the type and amount of precipitation as well as the strength of the winds associated with the storm.

"Winter weather certainly has an attitude and takes on a certain personality,” said Tom Niziol, a winter weather expert for the Channel, who also explained that the team will seek “names with attitude."

I'm not sure about storms having an attitude but agree that naming winter storms will definitely get people talking about them and possibly heeding them a bit More.


It will be interesting to see what types of names they use and how they decide which ones to implement where.

Which storm would win in a fight, Godzilla or The Abominable Snowman?

We've always had gas

In the recent past the topic of greenhouse gas has been brought up quite a bit, especially when discussing global warming. A recent LA Times article discusses an aspect of the gas topic that possibly has not been discussed much. The article is focused on pre-industrial greenhouse gas emissions and levels of these emissions and how it may put our current use into perspective. 

"The quantities are much smaller, because there were fewer people on Earth...But the amount of methane emitted per person was significant." Obviously the levels of emissions were much smaller than today because of the way our society works today, but to hear that the amount was still significant might come as a shock to most. 

The findings come from ice cores bored out from Antarctica. As described in the article, "Conclusions were based on an analysis of ice core samples from Greenland. The layered ice columns, which date back 2,000 years, contain tiny air bubbles from different periods of history, and provide scientists with a view into the atmosphere's changing chemistry."

The main point that the article is passing on to viewers is that we should not justify our use today by saying that we've been emitting gases since even pre-industrial days but to realize a few things. Our society has multiplied the amount by huge amounts, if the pre-industrial amounts were substantial. And we need to realize that as we move forward, to ensure that our methane emissions start to slow.

The recipie for disaster (prevention)

The Examiner recently had a good article about environmental disaster on their website titled, "Saftey plan for an environemntal crisis".

This was an interesting article to go through because it is a somewaht feeble attempt at an all encompassing set of directions for disaster prevention. The article suggests that "Almost everyone lives downwind of a highway, a train line, a pipeline or a manufacturing facility where toxic trouble could flare up fast." should heed these directions.

Here are the steps, summarized.
1. Know where danger lurks, be alert.
2.Create a family emergency kit and plan
3. Shut your windows if there is hazardous release.
4.Keep the indoors clean.
5. Drink bottled water.
6. Have a getaway strategy.
7. Eat smart.


Wait what? Eat smart? Keep the indoors clean? Some of these steps are logical, like, "Create an emergency kit" That makes sense. Otherwise the list is more fluff than it is going to be effective personal hazard prevention. However, this may be a valid tool in reaching "regular" americans who tend to be uneducated or naive to the subject of Natural hazards or disasters.




http://washingtonexaminer.com/safety-plan-for-an-environmental-crisis/article/2509321

2012: At least we won't get killed by a Tornado

USA today recently published an article about the difference in the number of Tornadoes between this year and last.

2011 produced approximately 1,700 tornadoes, which killed 553 people. This calendar year has only produced 750 so far (950 less than last year, and 750 less than average). Meteorologists think that we could set a all-time low this year if this trend keeps up for the remaining warm months.

Meteorologists suggest that the same driving effects behind the drought this summer are resulting in fewer tornadoes this year. (Trade one disaster for another?) The article states,

 "The same weather pattern that created the devastating drought was a factor in the quiet tornado year, according to meteorologist Mike Smith of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions in Wichita, Kan. He says that for much of the year, a large area of high pressure sat over the West Coast and the Rockies, which kept storms from moving into the central USA, the nation's tornado hotbed."

So far tornadoes have only claimed 68 American lives this year, mostly occuring in February and March.

It will be interesting to see how the fall months are for tornadoes and if this year winds up being the quietest ever recorded.

In a year where the entire world is supposed to (according to the ever trusty Mayans) go down the shitter, it's nice to at least have a quiet tornado season.


http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2012/09/29/tornadoes-record-quiet-year/1598117/

Watch for that Oil Slick!

An important part of examining natural hazards is looking at the human environment interaction in all stages; before, during and after the event. CNN recently published an article that does a good job explaining the clean-up efforts post BP oil spill. The article is interesting because it discusses new technology that is being put into place to best mitigate further negative effects of the oil spill.

We all know the story of the BP oil spill but after the hole was plugged not much was nationally broadcast of the cleanup efforts, nor is it probably finished. Obviously the spill was ecological nightmare that nobody wants to repeat. That is where Massachusetts Institute of Technology comes in. They saw this disaster and wanted to mitigate future ocurrances of such disasters. MIT thought of putting magnetic particles into our oil so that when an oil spill happens we could easily filter the oil out of the water using magnets, returning clean water to the sea and the oil could be used again for its original purposes.

This new tehnology would be useful in the cleanup process for future oil spills and would hopefully mitigate the hazards to the wildlife and physical environment in case of a spill.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/21/tech/oil-spill-magnets/index.html

Larger Lakes

While the US faced major droughts this summer, Hatai and the Dominican Republic was drowning in rainfall, almost literally. Two major lakes that are along the border of Haiti and the D.R. have been consistantly rising for some time. The Idaho Statesman brings us a report of the slow moving event in their article, "Slow-Motion Disaster: Villages vanish as Large Carribean lakes grow even bigger."

Lake Enriquillo and Lake Azuei both of which are fed by the same rivers and streams have been slowly swelling in size. These lakes are not just eveloping beaches or 'unimportant' recreation areas, but they are flooding out farms and peoples homes.

The article states,
"The spread of Enriquillo has flooded 16 communities in two provinces, more than 46,500 acres of agriculture land and 1,000 properties, according to a July study authored by the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo and the NOAA CREST Center of the City College of New York. In all, some 10,000 families have lost cattle, farmland or their homes."

The rivers and streams filling these lakes are bringing in record levels with the heavy rains that the region has recieved in the past months (and years). However the lakes and rivers should be adequate at draining them normally. Some hypothesize that there is a buildup of debris and trash clogging some outlets that would keep the lakes at normal levels. I find it hard to belive that a build up of trash and debris could hold back that much water though.

I decided to look at some historical images on Google earth and the contrast between the Lakes in 2003, 2006 and current images was pretty interesting to see, definitely worth a gander.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/09/18/2275882/slow-motion-disaster.html

 dsaf
Read more here: histhttp://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/09/18/2275882/slow-motion-disaster.html#storylink=cpyhttp://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/09/18/2275882/slow-motion-disaster.html

Hold the ice please...

In a recent article published by the Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA news source) we can read about how the melting of the poles will come to effect our country in the coming winters. The article entitled, "Extreme weather likely as ice loss accelerates" goes on to discuss that the ice is melting in the poles much faster than scientists expected, 

"Record ice melts this year and in 2007 have alarmed many scientists, mostly because they thought it would take many more years to reach this state... “These are really surprises to most scientists,” Overland said. “In looking at climate models that are used to look forward, they’ve tended to say the Arctic may be ice-free by 2040 or 2050."

The article also discusses how this will affect our weather patterns here in the US. They suggest that it will exaggerate all of the weather that we experience. The melting of the poles reduces the amount of sunlight reflected back into space, meaning more is absorbed by the water. This then heats up the planet even further and will slow down our jet-stream quite a bit. This jet-stream slowing will cause weather to linger in one place for longer periods of time,

"If you’re in a nice dry pattern with sunny skies, it’s great if it lasts for a few days. But if it lasts for a few weeks, well then you’re starting to talk about a drought,” Francis said. “If you have a rainy pattern and it hangs around for a long time, then that becomes a situation that could lead to flooding... (The weather) gets stuck."

It definitely was an interesting article and raised a lot of questions for me. I was wondering why climatologists were so off in predicting the melting of the ice. Also, if it results in more summers like the one I experienced in Madison, with the drought it would be something that was truly invasive to the way we're used to living life.





http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/sep/14/extreme-weather-likely-as-ice-loss-accelerates/

Where have all the Fish gone?

Watch out for that Fish tornado!!!! Said nobody ever. When we think of natural disasters we think of a hurricane or tornado destroying someones home but some of the less 'sexy' disasters are the ones that have the greatest impact. In a recent article from R&D magazine we can see one of many effects natural disasters can have.

The article titled "Feds declared fishery disaster in New England" compares a lack of fish in the sea to a drought that farmers face,

 "They're just as dependent on the vagaries of the ecosystem as farmers are, and just as deserving of assistance when things go bad through no fault of their own, like when farmers face a drought."

The author goes on to discuss how much money we have put into the farming industry and relieving farmers who have had low crop yields or compesation for droughts and then makes a point that fishermen should recieve similar relief efforts if the fishing year is particularily bad.

While the lack of fish is not technically considered a Hazard to the Environemnt I think it is worth looking at because this lack of fish in the northeast could be caused by a Hazardous event or possibly could lead to famine (if a society is especially dependant on fishing). If studied further we could examine the cause and effect of the Fishing industry to hopefully mitigate any future losses.

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2012/09/feds-declare-fishery-disaster-new-england

Costly Decisions

9/6/2012

For the first post of the semester I would like to focus on a recent NPR article that can be found at... While it does not directly discuss a recent event, it talks about the trend in climate change and how that might effect our food prices, domestically and internationally.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/05/160622571/extreme-weather-means-extreme-food-prices-worldwide-aid-agency-warns


The article does a good job of showing another aspect of the climate change our planet is experiencing: Hunger. "Our planet is boiling and if we don't act now, hunger will increase for millions of people on our planet," Says, Heather Coleman, climate change policy adviser for Oxfam America. She goes on to state that the "Freak of Nature" events like droughts, floods or heat waves will become more common as our climate changes. Each of these events are major causes for food prices rising.

The topic hits home here in Wisconsin as the southern part of the state experienced a major drought in the months of June, July, and August. This drought of the area as well as region, is expected to cause food prices to rise in the state.

Our article goes on to explain that while we may be experiencing high grain or fruit prices now, the real cost may come later when meat prices are driven up by high feed costs. Meat is expensive as is, and a rise in price may take meat off the menu for some households.

So maybe we wont be able to barbecue twice a month or have that extra burger to make a cold sandwich out of, but at least we generally have enough food. The story is not the same in developing nations. The food shortage will hit hardest in homes and counties that can't afford even the most basic food supplies.

A solution you ask? Siwa Msangi states, "Investments in water storage and irrigation systems can help countries get through droughts. Paving roads and improving ports can help prevent floods from disrupting food supplies. Better feeding programs can also help poor people keep their families fed despite price spikes."