On Wednesday, October 6, at 10:00 AM ET, the
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold an oversight
hearing
to examine the response by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to Hurricane
Ida.
Witnesses:
Major General William H. “Butch” Graham, Deputy Commanding General for
Civil and Emergency Operations, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Brigadier General Thomas J. Tickner, Commanding General, North
Atlantic Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Colonel Stephen F. Murphy, Commander, New Orleans District, U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers
In a news
release,
the National Wildlife Federation’s climatologist Amanda Staudt warns
that “this hurricane season is a stark reminder of what science tells us
to expect from a new era of stronger hurricanes fueled by global
warming: higher wind speeds, more precipitation, and bigger storm surge
in the coming decades.”
Scientific findings she notes:
“The big picture is that global warming is allowing hurricanes to pack
a bigger punch. Over this century, windspeeds could increase 13
percent and rainfall could increase 31 percent.”
“Even storms that do not reach category 3 and above will hit harder
because they will likely bring more rain than a similar storm would
have just a few decades ago. It is a law of physics that warmer air is
able to carry more water.”
“Both Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricane Gustav brought costly flooding,
with rainfall totals exceeding 10 inches in some locations. As the
remnants of Gustav continue to bring heavy rains, much of the lower
Mississippi valley remains under flood watch.”
“We must restore the coastal wetlands, lowlands, and barrier islands
that provide the first line of defense against hurricanes,” advises Dr.
Staudt. “For example, about half of the wetlands around New Orleans have
been lost in recent years. Because scientists estimate that every mile
of healthy wetlands can trim about 3-9 inches off a storm surge – and an
acre of wetlands is estimated to reduce hurricane damage by $3,300 – we
must restore these wetlands.”
For more, read the full NWF
report
on the influence of global warming on the destruction caused by tropical
storms.
President Bush exploited this morning’s press briefing on the “follow-up
efforts” to Hurricane Gustav to attack Congress about lifting the
offshore drilling moratorium. Stating that “what happens after the storm
passes is as important as what happens prior to the storm arriving,” he
made the declaration that “our discussion here today is about
energy.”
Bush wasn’t referring to the 1.4 million
Louisianans
who have lost power due to the storm’s destructive force, and chose not
to mention the 102 deaths caused by
Gustav.
Instead, he went on the attack:
I know that Congress has been on recess for a while, but this issue
hasn’t gone away. And, uh, this storm should not cause members of
Congress say well, we don’t need to address our energy independence.
It ought to cause the Congress to step up their need to address our
dependence on foreign oil. And one place to do so is to give us a
chance to explore in environmentally friendly ways on the Outer
Continental Shelf.
Watch it:
MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough
were both floored by Bush’s decision “to use another hurricane in
Louisiana to promote offshore drilling at this point,” after he
“performed so poorly during Hurricane Katrina.”
Let’s be very clear. Number one: There’s no such thing as American
oil any more. These are multinational corporations. If you let
multinational corporations drill all this oil, they’re going to sell
it to the highest bidder, whether it’s China, or India, it doesn’t
matter. Why would we throw away America’s beauty chasing the lost
drops of oil, so multinational corporations can sell it to India and
China?
And people also got to remember, we didn’t stop this as an
environmental issue. We didn’t stop offshore drilling for the
duckies and the fishies. We stopped it because coastline communities
were suffering. Because the property owners, the children who live
in those coastline communities – not when there were oil spills – but
every day, when your child goes out to swim, he comes back covered in
oil, you have to use gasoline to get the oil off your child. That was
happening coast to coast
The National Wildlife Federation, which has been warning that global
warming is worsening
wildfires
and
floods,
describes the triple threat of
global warming-fueled tropical storms in a new
report:
While Florida and Gulf Coast residents bear the brunt of Tropical
Storm Fay, the latest science connecting hurricanes and global warming
suggests more is yet to come: tropical storms are likely to bring
higher wind speeds, more precipitation, and bigger storm surge in the
coming decades.
Watch it:
As Dr. Staudt writes in the report, “Stronger hurricanes, heavier
rainfall, and rising sea level: this is what global warming has in store
for the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts.”
At last week’s American Meteorological Society Hurricanes and Climate
Change
panel, Greg Holland highlighted the importance of the National Hurricane
Research Initiative Act of 2007 (HR
2407,
S
931).
The bill, introduced by the Florida delegation in the spring, would
establish a multi-agency board to set strategy and make grants for
hurricane research. From CRS:
Requires the Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere of the
Department of Commerce and the Director of the National Science
Foundation (NSF) to establish a National Hurricane Research Initiative
and to cooperate with other specified federal agencies to carry it
out. Requires such Initiative to set research objectives (based on a
National Science Board report on the need for such Initiative) to: (1)
make recommendations to the Board; (2) assemble the expertise of U.S.
science and engineering capabilities through a multi-agency effort
focused on infrastructure, the natural environment, and improving
understanding of hurricane prediction, intensity, and mitigation on
coastal populations; and (3) make grants for hurricane research,
including regarding hurricane dynamics, modification, and observation,
air-sea interaction, relationships between hurricanes and climate,
predicting flooding and storm surge, coastal infrastructure, building
construction, emergency communication networks, information
utilization by public officials, and sharing computational capability.
Directs the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy,
through the National Science and Technology Council, to coordinate
U.S. activities related to the Initiative as a formal program with a
well-defined organizational structure and execution plan. Directs the
Under Secretary and the Director to: (1) establish a National
Infrastructure Database to catalog infrastructure, provide information
to improve information public policy related to hurricanes, and
provide data to improve researchers’ abilities to measure hurricane
impacts in order to improve building codes and urban planning; and (2)
develop a National Hurricane Research Model to conduct integrative
research and facilitate the transfer of research knowledge to
operational applications
Is there a scientific basis for anticipating that human-induced climate
warming does and/or will affect hurricanes in some way, over and above
natural climate variability? Do observations and model simulations
support that expectation, or are there issues with data and observations
that make the task of sorting out linkages more difficult? If the
latter, what are the observational and data issues that continue to make
this a challenging scientific problem? What do we know now that we did
not know two years ago? What role do model simulations play in helping
to sort out linkages, if any, between global warming and hurricanes, in
the absence of data/observation or the presence of unreliable
data/observations? How can we best develop a coordinated national effort
to provide urgently required information for planning, community
response and infrastructure development.
Moderator
Dr. Anthony Socci, Senior Science Fellow, American Meteorological
Society
Speakers
Dr. Kerry Emanuel, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Dr. William K. M. Lau, Chief, Laboratory for Atmospheres,
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,
MD
Dr. Greg Holland, Director, Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology
Division, Earth and Sun Systems Laboratory, National Center for
Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
Dr. Gabriel Vecchi, Research Oceanographer, Climate diagnostics Group,
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab/NOAA, Princeton, NJ.
Thomas R. Knutson, Research Meteorologist, Climate Dynamics and
Prediction Group, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab/NOAA, Princeton, NJ.
Over the last several days Hurricane Dean whipped through the Caribbean
before slamming into the Yucatan Peninsula and the Mexican mainland.
While loss of life and damages are still uncalculated, Dean will join
the ranks of Andrew, Charlie, Hugo, Rita. And of course, Katrina. Their
names are seared into the minds of those who lived through them. The
100+ mile an hour winds and stinging sideways rain wreaked devastation –
ripping roofs off houses, flattening whole buildings, tossing around
cars as if they were toys, causing billions of dollars’ worth of damage,
and taking lives. Recovery often takes years. Two years after Hurricane
Katrina struck land on August 29, 2005, thousands of Mississippi and New
Orleans residents have yet to restore their homes, businesses or lives.
And some may never do so. Hurricanes gather and release nature’s fury,
and the consequences are deadly. And now the actions of humans since the
dawn of the industrial age will only propel future hurricanes’ power.
There is an overwhelming scientific consensus that carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere released by burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels has
begun to warm the planet, including our oceans, and scientists have
determined that warmer sea surface temperature can boost hurricanes’
ferocity, and may even increase their frequency. It is imperative that
we do everything we can to prepare for the potential disasters.
In conjunction with the release of the report, Forecast: Storm Warnings,
the Center for American Progress will conduct a forum that will discuss
the impact of global warming on hurricane severity and frequency. In
addition, there will be a discussion of necessary federal, state, and
local policies that would increase the resilience of hurricane prone
communities. The forum will feature:
Mayor Richard Crotty of Orange County, Florida
hurricane scientist Dr. Peter J. Webster
John B. Copenhaver of DRI International
Jane Bullock, former chief of staff of Federal Emergency Management
Agency director James Lee Witt.
The urgency of this work grows every day as thousands of Americans
relocate to coastal areas, but with the best science, local mitigation,
and federal support, we can minimize the likelihood that future storms
join the tragic roster of the deadliest hurricanes. Unfortunately, the
global warming forecast is for storm warnings ahead.