Another flooding mega-disaster: Sri Lanka recovers from extreme flooding
At least 43 are dead and thousands still in refugee camps due to extreme flooding in eastern Sri Lanka caused by record monsoon rains. According to the United Nations, the rains in recent weeks in Sri Lanka have been the heaviest in nearly 100 years of record keeping, and the flood that resulted was a 1-in-100 year event, according to The U.N. Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System. Rainfall at Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, during the 42-day period December 1 - January 12 was 1606 mm (63"), which is about how much rain the station usually receives in an entire year (1651 mm, or 65".) Sri Lanka's previous most devastating flooding disaster was the 2004 tsunami, but as The Economist commented, "in terms of the numbers of people displaced and farmland inundated, the floods have been even more devastating than the tsunami of December 2004." Damage estimates start at $500 million, and much of Sri Lanka's agriculture has been severely damaged by the disaster. Also of concern is the large number of land mines from the recent Sri Lanka civil war that may have been unearthed by the floods. Water is also a major concern in the flood-hit area, as fighting between government forces and Tamil Tigers rebels from mid-2007 to May 2009 damaged or destroyed almost all of the water facilities.
Figure 1. A family affected by the 2011 Sri Lanka floods braves the flood waters. Image credit: United Nations.
Sri Lanka is now the fifth nation in the past six month to suffer a flooding disaster unprecedented in its history. As I reported in a previous post, the other four mega-impact floods--the July 2010 Pakistan floods, the December - January Queensland Australia floods, the November 2010 Colombia floods, and the January 2011 Rio de Janeiro floods--were all accompanied by an atmosphere laden with moisture, due, in part, due to sea surface temperatures over nearby ocean areas that were the 2nd or 3rd warmest on record. However, that was not the case for the Sri Lanka floods. Ocean temperatures during December 2010 were 0.2°C below average in the 5x5 degree square of ocean adjoining the island (5N - 10N, 80E - 85E). The floods appear to be due to the normal monsoon rains that typically affect the region this time of year, enhanced by the strong La Niña event occurring in the Eastern Pacific.
Figure 2. Satellite-estimated precipitation over Sri Lanka for January 3 - 9. Up to 18 inches (525 mm) fell over eastern Sri Lanka. Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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No conspiracy, just that the weather, scientists are, apparently, too lazy or sloppy to make their equipment and data gathering techniques meet the high standards that are present in so many other fields of study.
In the case of the Lords of AGW, it means altering and falsifying data, then waving the Disclaimer Wand over it and bigbaddaboom its rendering it 'true and accurate'.
Typical behavior?
Sure is for the Lords of AGW.
For the rest of the scientific world its called bad science.
True. "http:///" doesn't get you very far across the internet.
I have found the last page on the internet -
http://www.1112.net/lastpage.html
Really? You moving to this neck of the woods? Wave on the way by! :)
Pretty good analogy--though if we're the ones causing the dog to itch, we've only ourselves to blame...
http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~www-glac/ngrip/presse_070804_eng.html
The greenland ice sheet formed quickly. Quickly enough for plant matter to be preserved beneath it. I wonder if it will melt as fast?
Thats on your C: drive... can't see that.
;)
I guess you don't know the definition of 'Disclaimer'.
Wow they taut you reel gud where you come frum.
hopefully, I can do better than that.... might just drop in on dashboard cowman!!!
:)
"The Kyoto University researchers are planning an expedition to the Siberian permafrost this summer in search of a flash-frozen specimen still rich in DNA." The day After Tomorrow wasn't so far off was it.
:)
Message: The funding source doesn't automatically mean anything about the science conducted.
According to sourcewatch, Exxon funds a lot of diverse groups. Are they all to be discarded?
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ExxonMobil_funding_recipients
I happen to know that the "Stanford GCEP", associated with the DOE GCEP program is very much AGW-leaning, too. Funds undergrads and grads in climate projects.
The argument you guys are using, here, is right there with saying that 97% of unemployed people support expanding unemployment benefits or 97% of climatologists, blah, blah, blah...
And in the next breath, needling someone about accusations of conspiracy among climatologists.
no,apparently I'm not doing something right,its on national geographic's website
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/HurricaneKatrina/comment.html?entrynum=17
Take a look at the evidence. I have compiled a growing pile of evidence.
Ok, so scientists can get a lot of grant money and research funding if they falsify data to show warming. They will get a heck of a lot more from the denier side if they falsify data to show cooling. There goes that motive. In any "crime", there has to be a motive. Yes, there is insanity, but the chances having a small subset of scientists all insane in the same manner is minute, to say the least.
So whats their motive for falsifying data?
:)
Ok, my example stunk. What I was trying to say is that SPPI is not an unbiased source, and their motives are far from altruistic. Most corporations are not interested in doing something that goes against their corporate goals, or would reduce their profits. Exxon Mobil funding studies to reduce gas consumption is not in line with increasing demand (and therefore profits). Ford doing research on reducing air pollution *is* in line with their goals, due to government regulations and increasing demand for less-polluting (and usually more efficient by proxy) cars.
Most successful companies are not in the habit of paying for research that will shoot them in the foot later. Its bad business.
As for needling people about conspiracy theories... they are a pet peeve. Most conspiracy theories are based on heresay, ancedotal evidence, and incomplete facts. That isn't to say all conspriacy theories are baseless - just a majority of them.
I'd say in many cases it does. Here, knock yourself out.
At any rate, Stanford's GCEP isn't "GW-leaning"; it's a project bankrolled by ExxonMobil (and other Big Energy corporations) to find alternate sources of energy with fewer emissions. It's a great start, to be sure, but funding it only means Exxon knows it's about to have its back pushed against the wall soon, and it wants to be sure to have an out. Again, that's good--but in the meantime the company is doing all that it can to be sure lies and disinformation are spread. It's kinda like an alcoholic attending an AA meeting because he know he needs help, but slipping off to the bathroom a half-dozen times during that meeting to have a little nip of cheap gin from his pocket flask...
I do think they are loosening the strict rules of science to interpretation in order to allow more "science" inclusive of only-modeled and words such as "may", "might", "could", "possibly", etc. Look for those words in, say, a purely atmo physics paper. Not there.
Also, I am certain that many climos do actually believe what they say. That doesn't make it so...
Lastly, I am of the opinion that many are accepting as fact, what could only be described as inference based on incomplete, circumstantial data. And they are doing so on the premise that we know all there is to know about climate, variability, natural and unnatural positive and negative forcings. Far from the truth. I sense a considerable amount of arrogance among climatologists. They seem to be inflicted with that condition that JF was posting about a few days ago.
This is what the GCEP I thought I was talking about does (and what I did in the program):
"The Climate Sciences Program includes process research and modeling efforts to (1) improve understanding of factors affecting the Earth's radiant-energy balance; (2) predict accurately any global and regional climate change induced by increasing atmospheric concentrations of aerosols and greenhouse gases; (3) quantify sources and sinks of energy-related greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide; and (4) improve the scientific basis for assessing both the potential consequences of climatic changes, including the potential ecological, social, and economic implications of human-induced climatic changes caused by increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the benefits and costs of alternative response options."
Quoting jeffs713:
1. 1998 0,548
2. 2005 0,482
3. 2003 0,475
4. 2010 0,475
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
Link
Abdussamatov's peers, such as they are, say that his theories don't fit the observations. As respected climate physicist Charles Long responded when asked about assertional that solar fluctuations are causing the earth to warm: "That's nuts. It doesn't make physical sense that that's the case."
What does it smell like? can you post a scratch-n-sniff?
The sun..today.
www.thenewamerican.com/.../2871-are-the-ice-caps-melting he head of the University of Wisconsin Atmospheric Sciences Group, Anastasios Tsonis, supports Latif’s findings with further evidence showing that global temperatures depend largely on oceanic “multi-decadal oscillations,” or MDOs. Tsonis does not deny human activities can contribute to rising temperatures, but he disagrees they can affect climate in any significant way. In an interview with the U.K.’s Daily Mail, Tsonis explained that the latest MDO warm mode has brought on the global-warming hysteria of the past few years. Recalling ice-age predictions made in the 1970s, he said, “Perhaps we will see talk of an ice age again by the early 2030s, just as the MDOs shift once more and temperatures begin to rise.”
So what explains Arctic ice loss in the face of a cooling Earth? Oceanographer Jane Eert attributes much of it to shifting winds she blames on climate change. She says the winds have exported “enormous amounts of ice” from the area. Yet she made the amazing assertion:
The guys who are running the long-term climate models have a tough problem. They’re looking at really long time scales, and as a result they can’t look at a lot of details for each year. In order to get the results before you die, you have to fudge some things. [Emphasis added.] And what they fudge is the small-scale stuff. But it turns out that probably the small-scale stuff is important, and fudging it gives you wrong answers.
Her “fudging” remark is particularly troubling in light of the Climategate scandal in which hundreds of e-mails pirated from a computer server at a leading research unit in England implicated many renowned scientists in fraudulently reporting data to favor their own climate-change agenda. In one of the messages, Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Does this mean recent declines in Arctic summer ice are merely being exploited by scientists who have otherwise been unable to prove the efficacy of their climate models? Just how many wrong answers has their “fudging” produced?
Goes about 2 blocks from my house. :)
(a hug sounds good)
off to work I go
Personally, I judge data independently, and couch many of my judgements based on the knowledge that everything doesn't add up 100%.
Many anti-AGW proponents see the whole debate in black and white. If scientists have falsified some data, that must mean ALL of it is bad, and the whole theory is a farce.
I believe what you're calling "arrogance" is actually just "exasperation". After all, if you were a scientist with multiple degrees and dozens of years of experience and numerous publications in your field, yet had to watch failed TV weathermen, half-term Alaska governors, and talk radio hosts get more air time than you where science in your field was being discussed, wouldn't you be exasperated, too?
Pssst...that whole "Climategate" thing was proven by multiple independent investigative bodies to be a phony, manufactured "scandal" based on out-of-context misinterpretations of some illegally stolen emails. Just so you know...
Others citing your work is the measure of their work's significance that most of us seek. (A citation in someone else's new work, thus accepting the work and further building upon it).
L8R
In my experience, a lot of scientists are primadonna's and have serious behaviour problems due to the lonely and competitive nature of science.
Dave
Now, I would not be surprised if they are "unprecedented" in terms of economic cost... just because those countries are wealthier today, so more property/livelihood is destroyed by a similar disaster. But I didn't get the impression they were "unprecedented" physically or meteorologically.
That is unlikely. There is nothing monsoonal about normal northeast trade winds. In January, the monsoon trough is located south of the equator near 10S, as the monsoonal northwesterlies in the Indian Ocean collide with the southeasterly trade winds in the Southern hemisphere.
January Climatological Surface Winds:
NOAA ESRL NCEP Reanalysis
Also, the normal precipitation pattern for January clearly shows the axis of monsoonal rains well south of Sri Lanka. That is not to say that they don't get rain in January, but it is not from the monsoon, which is in the southern hemisphere at this time of year.
January Climatological Precipitation:
JRA-25 Climatology Atlas
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/floodrelief/the-bureau-of-meteorology-has-issued-a-severe-stor m-warning-for-several-areas/story-fn7ik2te-1225991414670
There's truth in what you say. But not all scientists are in it for the PR; they're not all in it to puff up their resumes. Some are in it both because they care about the planet and because they're proud of their life's work and want others to recognize their achievements. When they're ignored in favor of corporate/political shills, I can certainly see why they'd be upset. They may be scientists, but they're also humans who just want to be respected for who they are and what they've done.
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