The Little Prince and weather

viernes septiembre 16, 2005 | Global Warming | Permalink | Comentarios [2]

"Good morning", said the little prince. "Good morning", said the flower. "Where are the men? the little prince asked, politely. The flower had once seen a caravan passing. "Men?" she echoed. "I think there are six or seven of them in existence. I saw them, several years ago. But one never knows where to find them. The wind blows them away. They have no roots, and that makes their life very difficult. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "The Little Prince" Do you know what this is? No, it's not a boa constrictor that has eaten an elephant. As you might firstly think... It's even more terrifying than that. It's the evolution of temperature deviations in Europe between 1850 and 2000. See? As seen this report, dated april 2005 by the European Environment Agency. It seems reasonable to expect that the frequency and intensity of extreme flooding events will increase in many parts of Europe in the future, especially in parts of central, northern and northeastern Europe... But, wait, that's not all: A massive global increase in the number of strong hurricanes over the past 35 years is being blamed on global warming, by the most detailed study yet. The US scientists warn that Katrina-strength hurricanes could become the norm. As I read at NewScientist So, is it really getting that bad? See by yourself. According to Business Week Katrina damages are around 125 Billion dollars. Compare that to this to recent history: During the period between 1980 and 2004, there were 62 events in the U.S. that exceeded a billion dollars in costs and damages. And The total damages for all 62 events combined are over 390 billion in 2002 dollars. From a report by the US National Climatic Data Center. You can also build this table to see by yourself: Hurricane/Year Number of deceases Andrew/1992 61 Iniki/1992 7 Marilyn/1995 13 Opal/1995 27 Fran/1996 37 Bonnie/1998 3 Georges/1998 16 Floyd/1999 77 Isabel/2003 55 Charley/2004 34 Frances/2004 48 Ivan/2004 57 Jeanne/2004 28 1992 - 2004 463 Katrina/2005 505, and counting So Katrina's damages are bigger than fourteen (1+1+1+1 1+1+1+1 1+1+1+1 1+1) previous hurricanes, at least on human lifes. Summary We've broken it. Global warming is not a joke. It's here. And it's here to stay. We don't know how to repair it. We don't even know if we can. All I can think of is responsible energy use and helping victims. UPDATE: Global warming 'past the point of no return' from UK's "The Independent".