Two tornados approach Pilger, Neb., Monday June 16, 2014.

Two tornados approach Pilger, Neb., Monday June 16, 2014. The National Weather Service said at least two twisters touched down within roughly a mile of each other Monday in northeast Nebraska. (AP Photo/Eric Anderson)(Credit: AP)

A particularly dangerous situation across the Plains and Midwest has resulted in the "rare and horrifying" occurrence of "twin tornadoes" touching down late Monday afternoon near Pilger, Nebraska. One 5-year-old was killed in the storm, and 19 others were reported injured. According to Stanton County Sheriff Mike Unger, up to two-thirds of the the small town of 350 was heavily damaged or destroyed.

"More than half of the town is gone — absolutely gone," Stanton County Commissioner Jerry Weatherholt told the Associated Press. "The co-op is gone, the grain bins are gone, and it looks like almost every house in town has some damage. It’s a complete mess." The nearby towns of Wisner, Stanton and Pender, all about 90 miles north of Omaha, suffered damage as well.

The tornadoes, which hit about 1 to 2 miles apart, are believed to have been entirely independent. "Although rare, the phenomenon of simultaneous multiple tornadoes associated with the same severe thunderstorm is not unheard of," notes Mashable’s Andrew Freedman. "However, it is extremely rare for both tornadoes to be so intense and long-lasting."

The Associated Press has this footage of the tornadoes carving twin paths of destruction:

© 2014

Pakistan’s Impending Famine

Thar, Sindh, Pakistan

It’s hard to catch a break in Pakistan.

Extremist violence is widespread, earthquakes and flooding are routine, and polio remains endemic. No nation has a higher infant mortality rate, and only a few have more cases of tuberculosis. Nearly half the country’s 180 million people lack access to safe water, and many Pakistanis have experienced power outages of up to 20 hours per day. Given such stresses, it’s not surprising that up to 16 percent of the country suffers from mental illness.

And now comes the latest scourge: Famine.

In recent days, media reports have revealed that dozens of people—many of them children—have died from malnutrition over the last three months in the bone-dry desert region of Thar, in the southern province of Sindh. And yet things could soon get much worse. A recent UNICEF report, noting that drought has “devastated” crops and livestock and that “hundreds of thousands” of people have fled, warns of a possible “massive humanitarian crisis” in Thar. Ominously, almost 3 million people “risk starvation” across Pakistan.

Many Pakistani press accounts—and numerous Pakistani politicians—depict the Thar tragedy as a catastrophic case of negligence by Sindh’s provincial government. They fault local officials for taking too long to get food assistance to those in need late last year when drought conditions first began to set in. And they single out authorities for failing to transfer sick children in remote areas to better hospitals.

Yet the Thar famine also reflects another type of failure: that of democracy.

In recent years, Pakistan—a country ruled by the military for about half its existence— has made remarkable democratic progress. With successive free elections, civilian rule is firmly in place. Pakistan’s mighty military has mellowed. Constitutional amendments have decentralized power. The Supreme Court is increasingly targeting powerful people and institutions. And private media outlets have rapidly proliferated.

However, there are limits to this progress.

The most commonly cited obstacles to deeper democratization are the military, which continues to exert heavy influence over politics; a lack of pluralism and tolerance, which contributes to the deplorable plight of religious minorities; and the country’s abysmal law enforcement, which enables militants to operate with impunity.

Yet the tragedy in Thar underscores a more insidious and underreported threat to democracy: Astounding manifestations of land inequality.

In Sindh, a paltry 0.05 percent of households hold more than five acres of land (the figure is similar in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province). In the nation as a whole, 2 percent of households own nearly 50 percent of land, while 5 percent of agricultural households own nearly two thirds of Pakistan’s farmland.

This means that the majority of the population holds little to no land. Without land, it’s difficult to access food and water (and it’s also difficult to earn a livelihood; landless Pakistanis make up 70 percent of the country’s rural poor). Most Pakistanis must depend on a tiny, wealthy landowning minority for access to these natural resources.

These resources, and the land that holds them, are becoming increasingly precious. According to one alarming estimate, Pakistan loses three acres of good agricultural land every 20 minutes. In Thar, land and natural resources are further imperiled by Islamabad’s plan to tap into the region’s vast coalfields to ease the country’s severe energy crisis. Officials insist there will be no deleterious impacts on local communities, but there’s good reason to fear that such exploitation could cause environmental distress and displacement, and deprive an impoverished region of a critical natural resource. These are very real problems in equally dry and poor Baluchistan, a province long subjected to intensive natural resource extractions by Islamabad and large corporations. Such conditions have helped fuel a long-running separatist insurgency.

In effect, millions of Pakistanis have neither the land to grow food nor the money to buy it. And yet little is done to help them. Landed rural elites—the essence of vested interests in Pakistan—seemingly spend more time blocking critical agricultural reforms (including those that would increase the tax base) than addressing the plight of the landless. They have also been accused of siphoning off irrigation water flows from poor farmers, and of diverting floodwaters away from their crops and into more vulnerable communities. What’s particularly troubling about all this is that these wealthy landowners are often politically connected, or politicians themselves (Sindh’s landed rural elite is a strong base of support for the Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, which runs the Sindh government).

Consider the strikingly blasé reactions of local officials to current conditions in Thar. Apparently unmoved by (or oblivious to) UNICEF’s warnings of a massive crisis, PPP leaders have described events of recent days as “normal” and “nothing new.” Sindh’s advocate general, speaking Monday at a hearing convened by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, expressed regret, but also appeared to lay the blame on parents for not taking their kids to the hospital.

Perhaps most egregious of all, after federal officials toured affected areas this week, Sindh’s government hosted a lavish buffet lunch featuring fried fish and biryani —“an act of such monumental stupidity and insensitivity,” according to one Pakistani editorial, “that it beggars belief.”

Call this heartlessness, or call it apathy. Many Pakistanis call it feudalism—the embodiment of a system in which imperious landed elites lord over their hapless subjects. One thing you can’t call it, however, is democracy. Yes, it’s an imperfect institution—but surely it doesn’t sanction such vast disparities in land ownership, or the type of leadership that seems unmoved by the humanitarian crises spawned by those disparities.

The takeaway here is that in Thar, people are dying because of deeply entrenched inequalities that make them profoundly food insecure and hyper-vulnerable to calamities—like drought and disease—that more fortunate people elsewhere can withstand and survive.

Ultimately, the dead and dying of Thar—just like slaughtered Shia Muslims, the military’s large political footprint, and state sponsorship of militancy—underscore the fact that despite considerable achievements in recent years, democracy in Pakistan remains a work in progress.

Michael Kugelman is the senior program associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. He can be reached at michael.kugelman[@]wilsoncenter.org or on Twitter @michaelkugelman.

 

© 2014

Rare snow, ice storm sends shock throughout Deep South

ATLANTA — A Midwest winter storm roared into the the Deep South on Tuesday, bringing icy rain and sleet to South Texas and threats of a dangerous ice storm and power outages from Louisiana to the Virginia coast.

At the same time, intense cold continued its onslaught across the north-central and northeastern U.S., with wind chill warnings and advisories in place all the way from Montana to Maine.

In the South, snow fell on Alabama-Georgia border Tuesday morning, moving quickly into northwest Atlanta suburbs. Forecasts called for up to a foot of snow in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Chesapeake in Virginia and up to 10 inches along much of the North Carolina coast.

Delta Airlines, with headquarters in Atlanta, said 1,850 flights have been canceled systemwide Tuesday beginning at 11 a.m. ET. Of that number, 840 flights from Atlanta were affected.

In the Atlanta area, which was bracing for up to 2 inches of snow, several school systems canceled classes or announced early closings.

“We have preparations from a couple of other close calls the past few weeks,” said Mark McKinnon, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Transportation. “They’ve just got to come in and crank it up.”

He said crews would likely come in at noon Tuesday and begin pretreating bridges with a salt-brine mixture, and then be on call to battle snow and ice with salt and pea-sized gravel.

The threat of icy roads was particularly alarming in southern cities unequipped for such rare weather, including Austin, Charleston, S.C., Pensacola, Fla., Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans.

“This is a very dangerous situation because snow and ice are very rare for extreme southern Mississippi,” said Robert Latham, executive director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. “We need everyone to have an emergency plan together for this.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency in the Pelican State because of the threat of heavy snow plus freezing temperatures that could paralyze most roadways.

“It’s important people start preparing now for the storm,” Jindal said late Monday. “We are working to keep open major corridors across the state, but only for those who absolutely must travel.”

In Columbia, S.C., Fort Jackson planned to stop normal operation at mid-morning and keep on only essential personnel.

In Savannah, which is expecting a wintry mix of snow and freezing rain, schools have been closed and residents were “making a run” on grocery stores, said Bret Bell, a city spokesman. He said the main concern was not so much snow as icing on roads.

Appalachian Power asked its customers in Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia to conserve electricity and minimize the threat of power disruptions during the cold snap.

The utility says PJM Interconnection, which operates the electricity grid for 13 states and the District of Columbia, has issued a call for voluntary conservation on Tuesday because of expected high demand.

The harsh cold pushing into the South is an extension of the hard freeze that has gripped the Midwest for days. Schools in Chicago are closed for a second day.

In Minnesota, most metro schools and the University of Minnesota are closed as wind chills were expected to drop as low as 35 to 50 degrees below zero.

The state was also struggling with a short supply of natural gas in some parts due to a Canadian pipeline explosion.

Xcel Energy asked all customers, including in the Twin Cities, to cut back on natural gas use and hold their home thermostats at 60 degrees. More

 

Warm welcome

ABHA — A cold chill is affecting most regions of the Kingdom, especially the highlands of the northern and southern regions. Normal life has also been affected by heavy snowfall and extreme cold weather. In the midst of winter, residents of the Sarawat Mountain ranges in the south are taking shelter in the warmth of Tihama and its beaches along the Red Sea coast.

Tihama Asir draws thousands of picnickers thanks to its warm and pleasant weather. Families in their thousands from various cities and mountainous regions of Asir, Baha and Jazan provinces throng the beaches during the weekend.

Mufreh Yahya Mufreh, a citizen, said local residents from the highlands of Asir are now flocking to Tihama Asir in search of warm weather. They enjoy relaxing on the beaches in Huraidah, Qahma, and Omuq.

Abdullah Al-Qahtani, a resident of Sarat Obaida, said he took his family to the beaches of Tihama Asir in pursuit of its warm and pleasant weather when his native place experiences extreme winter. Abdurahman Al-Abdali, another resident, said that there is huge presence of picnickers in many lower plains of Asir and Jazan such as Huraidah, Qahma, Rijal Alma, Mahayil Asir, Darb, Shaqeeq, Tihama Ballahmar and Ballasmar.

A large number of Saudi youths from Baha and Asir also flock to Tihama in order to enjoy its pleasant weather. They set up tents in open air and stay there overnight. Muqbil Al-Ghamdi, one of them, said that they are following a custom inherited from their elders.

“We came in the company of close friends to enjoy the pleasant weather and beauty of nature, away from the hustle and bustle of city life. We bring all essential things for camping such as food, tents, carpets, lanterns and mosquito nets,” he said while noting that they undertake the trips on the weekend after great planning and preparation.

Hamad Bin Muhammad, another member of the group, said such outings allow people to learn the meaning of community living. “This is a rare opportunity for me to enjoy the beauty of pure nature in the company of intimate friends while sharing ideas and exchanging friendly advice.”

The huge rush of picnickers to Tihama has resulted in considerable increase in the rents of furnished apartments, villas and beach cabins. Speaking to Okaz/Saudi Gazette, several picnickers complained about the steep hikes. One disgruntled visitor said: “Rents of apartments increased two-fold and the rent for a flat with ordinary facilities rose to over SR500 per day. Rates for beach houses are similarly high.”

Yahya Al-Omrani and Saeed Al-Qahtani expressed their displeasure over the insufficient number of accommodations in the coastal regions. Abdullah Al-Zahrani, a native of Abha, said: “I used to go to Qahma and Huraidah in the afternoon and return home early morning mainly because of non-availability of apartments during the weekend.”

Abdullah Matain, executive director of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) in Asir, said that the coastal regions are currently witnessing unprecedented growth and development. “Prince Faisal Bin Khaled, Emir of Asir region, laid the foundation stone for several projects, and these included the Asir Beach Resort and seafront projects plus several public utilities for tourists and picnickers,” he added. More

 

At least 5 dead as Cyclone Phailin hits India

NEW DELHI — A gigantic cyclone, one of the strongest ever to hit the Bay of Bengal, pounded India's eastern cost with heavy winds and rain Saturday, as more than half a million people fled the region.

Cyclone Phailin

The Press Trust of India, a local news agency, reported at least 5 people died from heavy rains ahead of the storm. Indian government officials later said early reports of deaths from the storm won't become clear until daybreak Sunday, the Associated Press reported. Hundreds of trees were uprooted before the eye of the storm even made landfall early evening local time and flights, trains and shipping operations were canceled and power shut down in six districts in the coastal area.

The India Meteorological Department said the cyclone made landfall near Gopalpur, India, with sustained winds of 124 mph — equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane.

Cyclone Phailin caused one of the largest evacuation operations in Indian history, with 600,000 people moved to higher ground in the coastal state of Odisha, which is expected to bear the brunt of the storm.

Electricity had been cut off in the entire state as a precaution, said Indian navy retired commodore A.K Patnaik, in Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Odisha, who was reached by phone before he shut it down to conserve power.

"It has been raining very heavily here since yesterday, the streets are flooded, and electricity was shut down this morning," he said. "The streets are empty, everyone is indoors, and people stocked up on groceries and essentials yesterday."

Satellite images showed the cyclone filling nearly the entire Bay of Bengal, an area larger than France that has seen the majority of the world's worst recorded storms, including a 1999 cyclone that killed 10,000.

"If it's not a record, it's really, really close," University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy told The Associated Press. "You really don't get storms stronger than this anywhere in the world ever."

To compare it to killer U.S. storms, McNoldy said Phailin is nearly the size of Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,200 people in 2005 and caused devastating flooding in New Orleans, but also has the wind power of 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which packed 265 kph (165 mph) winds at landfall in Miami.

"The storm has the potential to cause huge damage," L.S. Rathore, director-general of the Indian Meteorlogical Department told reporters.

The epicenter of the cyclone is likely to be close to the major port of Paradip in Odisha.

"We have stopped all cargo operations," Paradip Port Trust Chairman Sudhanshu Shekhara Mishra told the Press Trust of India, a local news agency. "We have set up control rooms and are ready with a contingency plan. We have cleared all vessels. People have been evacuated from low-lying areas."

The state has created 800 shelters as government workers and volunteers put together food packages for relief camps.

"I don't want people to panic," said Naveen Patnaik, chief minister of Odisha told PTI, calling for everyone to do their part in helping relief operations. More

 

Photos Show Why the Colorado Floods Are Being Called ‘Biblical’

Four people in Colorado this week already lost their lives in the record-breaking rains and floods that are battering parts of the state, forcing thousands to evacuate their homes.

On Friday, Governor John Hickenlooper declared a disaster emergency for 14 counties from the Wyoming border to Colorado Springs. President Obama also declared a federal state of emergency for Boulder, Larimer, and El Paso counties, allowing FEMA to deploy four rescue teams to those areas.

This afternoon, Reuters reports that a fifth victim, a 60-year-old woman who was swept away by flood waters, is now missing and presumed dead.

With no signs of a slow-down, even the comparatively shorter rains expected this weekend are expected to cause further flash-flooding as areas of Colorado's landscape are already well oversaturated.

Unlike other recent flooding disasters in countries like Taiwan and China, Colorado's defies expectation. September tends to be a drier month for the state, reports National Geographic.

Sandra Postel, National Geographic's Freshwater Fellow, tells the magazine that the flooding may be linked to recent droughts, which have hardened the soil of the Colorado River Basin, preventing it from absorbing much of the rainfall. Forest fires may also shoulder some of the blame; a portion of the vegetation normally responsible for trapping rainwater burned to the ground in recent years.

The most pressing question remains: How much of a hand has global warming played in these events? Climate Central's Andrew Freedmanwrites:

"It will take climate scientists many months to complete studies into whether manmade global warming made the Boulder flood more likely to occur, but the amount by which this event has exceeded past events suggests that manmade warming may have played some role by making the event worse than it would have otherwise been." More

 

After the Storms, A Different Opinion on Climate Change

Extreme weather may lead people to think more seriously about climate change, according to new research. In the wake of Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, New Jersey residents were more likely to show support for a politician running on a “green” platform, and expressed a greater belief that climate change is caused by human activity.

This research, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that traumatic weather events may have the power to shift people’s automatic attitudes — their first instincts — in favor of environmentally sustainable policies.

Though scientists are in near-unilateral agreement that human activity contributes to climate change, the relationship isn’t as clear to many politicians and citizens. This translates into lackluster support for environmental policies, especially when the short-term consequences amount to higher taxes.

“Americans tend to vote more from a self-interested perspective rather than demand that their government affect change,” says lead researcher Laurie Rudman of Rutgers University.

In 2010, Rudman and her colleagues Meghan McLean and Martin Bunzl surveyed over 250 Rutgers undergraduate students, measuring their attitudes toward two politicians, one who favored and another who opposed environmental policies that involve tax increases. The researchers asked the students whether they believed that humans are causing climate change, and they also had the students complete a test intended to reveal their automatic, instinctual preferences toward the politicians.

Though most students said they preferred the green politician, their automatic preferences suggested otherwise. The automatic-attitudes test indicated that the students tended to prefer the politician who did not want to raise taxes to fund environment-friendly policy initiatives.

After Hurricanes Irene and Sandy devastated many areas on the Eastern Seaboard in 2012, Rudman and colleagues wondered whether they would see any differences in students’ attitudes toward environmental policies.

“It seemed likely that what was needed was a change of ‘heart,’” Rudman explains. “Direct, emotional experiences are effective for that.”

In contrast with the first group, students tested in 2012 showed a clear preference for the green politician, even on the automatic attitudes test. And those students who were particularly affected by Hurricane Sandy – experiencing power outages, school disruptions, even damaged or destroyed homes – showed the strongest preference for the green politician.

“Not only was extreme weather persuasive at the automatic level, people were more likely to base their decisions on their gut-feelings in the aftermath of Sandy, compared to before the storm,” Rudman explains.

While they don’t know whether the first group of students would have shown a shift in attitudes after the storms, the researchers believe their findings provide evidence that personal experience is one factor that can influence instinctive attitudes toward environmental policy. If storms do become more prevalent and violent as the climate changes, they argue, more people may demand substantive policy changes. More

Storms wreak agricultural losses of over NT$400 million in Taiwan

Taipei, Sept. 1 (CNA) Agricultural losses wreaked by two successive tropical storms in late August rose Sunday to top NT$400 million (US$13.3 million), after days of torrential rains caused flooding and landslides in several parts of Taiwan.

Since Tropical Storm Trami struck Aug. 20, which was followed by another, named Kong-Rey, agricultural crops, products, buildings and equipment have sustained losses of NT$405 million, according to the latest tallies, as of 10:00 a.m.

Yunlin County was hardest hit by the storms, with losses there reaching NT$143 million. Nearby Chiayi County in southwestern Taiwan came next, with losses of NT$131 million, according to the Council of Agriculture.

The storms took their heaviest toll in rice, vegetables and fruits, with damaged crops reaching over NT$280 million, surpassing losses in livestock, fisheries and forestry, according to the council.

Additionally, farmers throughout Taiwan lost 435,000 chickens, 24,000 geese and 32,000 pigs, valued at NT$65.2 million, according to the council. More

 

Sudan deadly floods affect 300,000 people - WHO

More than 300,000 people across Sudan have been affected by floods that have killed nearly 50 people in August, the World Health Organization has said.

It said the region around the capital Khartoum had been particularly badly hit and was experiencing the worst floods in 25 years.

One of the major risks to health was the collapse of more than 53,000 latrines, the WHO added.

A UN official in Sudan described the situation as "a huge disaster".

In a report, the WHO said that 48 people had been killed and 70 injured in the floods. It warned of increasing trends of malaria cases in the past two weeks.

Meanwhile, Sudan Interior Minister Mahmoud Hamed put the confirmed death toll at 53, according to the AFP news agency.

The WHO also said property had been damaged in 14 of Sudan's 18 states.

Mark Cutts, the head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, told AFP last week the world body was ready to help those affected by the disaster.

He added that this was despite the fact that UN humanitarian operations "have been severely underfunded" this year. More

 

Weather-related losses take their toll

August 19th 2013 8:00 AM Extreme weather events are taking their toll on the insurance industry even though midway through August the North Atlantic has yet to see its first hurricane of the year.

So far there have been five tropical storms including the currently active system Tropical Storm Erin, which is expected to dissipate in the mid-Atlantic.

But while there have been no hurricanes to wreak economic losses, there have been plenty of weather-related events elsewhere to keep risk managers and (re)insurance executives on their toes.

Zurich Insurance Group reported on Thursday a sharp decline in its second-quarter profits, mainly due to weather-related losses in Europe. The company’s net income fell 27 percent to $789 million.

Other insurers and reinsurers are counting the cost of this year’s severe weather-related events.

The major economies of the US, China and Canada have all suffered billions of dollars of losses as a result of severe weather, flooding and — in the case of China — earthquakes.

Strong thunderstorms and rain across the greater Toronto metropolitan region last month caused significant flooding and power outages, which affected businesses, vehicles and infrastructure. Economic losses from that single event have been estimated by AON Benfield at $1.45 billion, with around half of that cost covered by insurance. There was further severe weather in Ontario and Quebec provinces during July, with winds gusting up to 100mph during intense thunderstorms, which caused millions of dollars in insured losses.

Even before July, Canada had already suffered severe weather and flooding. Floods that occurred between June 19 and 24 claimed four lives and caused economic losses of $5.3 billion.

The insurance arm of Canada’s TD Bank Group expected claims costs from the severe weather in Alberta and Toronto to have a pre-tax impact of approximately $170 million after reinsurance.

Group president Ed Clark, in a statement to investors last month, said: “While banks and insurance companies can incur losses from severe weather events, our greatest concern is with the communities and individuals who experienced the devastation in Alberta and the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). We also thank our employees for their efforts to support our customers through these events, when many employees themselves were dealing with the impact.”

In the US weather-related losses have also been significant since the start of the year, with the Plains, Midwest and Northeast suffering economic losses of $6.5 billion in two bouts of severe weather in May and June.

For China it has been worse. During July torrential rainfall across many parts of the country brought floods that claimed the lives of almost 200 people and caused economic losses of more than $7 billion. A magnitude 5.9 earthquake on July 22 in the Gansu Province killed at least 95, damaged 80,000 homes and caused economic losses of $3.25 billion. Since the start of the year China has suffered economic losses due to a number of smaller earthquakes and weather-related events, by far the most significant is the $6 billion loss attributed to drought conditions in parts of the country since January 1.

Europe, Asia, Africa and South America have all suffered weather-related economic losses. A drought in Brazil between January and June caused losses estimated at $8.5 billion, while flooding in central Europe in May and June caused economic losses of $22 billion.

In the aftermath of the devastating floods in Europe, Peter Höppe, head of Munich Re’s Geo Risks Research unit, said: “It is evident that days with weather conditions that lead to such flooding are becoming more frequent and that such weather systems tend to remain stationary for longer. With this higher persistence of weather patterns, the potential for heavy and long-lasting precipitation within a trough situation, for example, increases. The counterpart to this are stationary high-pressure systems which in summer increase the risk of heatwaves and periods of drought.

“Debate in climate research is currently focusing on what the causes of such changes in weather patterns could be and what role climate change might play in this. But it is naturally not possible to explain single events on this basis.”

Even places as remote as the Azores archipelago have not escaped the wrath of the weather. In March the North Atlantic island group took a $45 million economic hit, with more than 500 properties damaged and three lives lost after days of heavy rain lashed the island of Terceira causing severe flooding.

Significant economic losses during July:

US (Severe weather) $175m+

Canada (Severe weather) $1.45b+

China (Flooding) $7b+

Significant economic loss events (January to June 2013):

US (Severe weather May 18-22) $4.5b+

Canada (Flooding June 19-24) $5.3b+

Brazil (Drought Jan 1-May 31) $8.3b+

Europe (Flooding May 30-June 15) $22b+

China (Drought Jan 1-July 31) $6b+

* Economic loss figures from AON Benfield’s Global Catastrophe Recap.

 

Yemen Floods Sweep Away Wedding Party

SANAA, Aug 17 (Reuters) - At least 27 people died and more than 41 were missing after a wedding party was swept away while driving across a valley flooded by monsoon rains in southern Yemen, local officials said on Saturday.

Sanaa, Yemen

The victims, mostly women and children, were in three vehicles accompanying the bride to her new home across Wadi Nakhla, a valley between Taiz and Ibb provinces, the officials from Shara'ab district said. The bride survived the accident.

Rescue teams were searching for those missing, the officials said. State media said that eight people had been rescued.

Yemen, situated at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is prone to flooding during the monsoon season, during which people are often killed.

Flash floods have killed at least 10 other people in Yemen in the past two days and have swept away crops.

One of the poorest countries in the world, Yemen is grappling with an al Qaeda insurgency as it tries to reform its political institutions before elections next year. (Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Louise Ireland) More

 

Can Extreme Weather Make Climate Change Worse?

Devastating drought in the Southwest, unprecedented wildfire activity, scorching heat waves and other extreme weather are often cited as signs of a changing climate. But what if those extreme weather events themselves cause more extreme weather events, fueling climate change?

That’s one of the possibilities raised by a study released Wednesday that was conducted by a team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. The researchers have shown that extreme weather events may reduce an ecosystem’s capability to absorb carbon and create a damaging cycle in which extreme weather fuels climate change by preventing forests from absorbing carbon, allowing more of it to remain in the atmosphere.

Ecosystems absorb about 11 billion fewer metric tons of carbon dioxide every year because of extreme climate events than they would if the extreme weather didn’t occur, according to the study. Eleven billion tons is about the same as a third of a year’s worth of global carbon emissions.

The most damaging kind of extreme weather is the kind of drought that ravaged the Southwestern U.S. early in the last decade, and the kind that is devastating the Southwest and the southern Great Plains today.

“Any extreme can be as damaging as another if it is strong enough,” said Max Planck Institute Director Markus Reichstein, who is leading the study. “We found, however, that globally, the effect of droughts is largest, because they tend to have the largest spatial extent.”

Droughts put extreme stress on ecosystems, and as trees and other plants die, the ability of the drought-stricken ecosystem to absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is greatly diminished.

During a 2003 heat wave that struck central and southern Europe, scientists documented how the extreme heat affected the carbon cycle — the exchange of carbon dioxide between ecosystems, such as forests, and the atmosphere.

Reichstein’s study concludes that it’s possible that droughts, heat waves and storms weaken ecosystems’ “buffer effect” on the climate.

In the past 50 years, plants and soil have absorbed up to 30 percent of the carbon dioxide that humans have emitted, according to the study. The less healthy those plants are, the less carbon they may be able to absorb.

As extreme weather events become more frequent because of climate change, climate researchers believe their impacts on ecosystems could cause a vicious cycle of extreme weather, Reichstein said.

“That is scientifically the most interesting question,” he said. “We cannot answer how strong this vicious cycle is. Increasing carbon dioxide emissions cause a warming climate and, associated with that, increase the intensity of extreme events.”

And those extreme events may damage ecosystems, causing them to absorb less carbon dioxide and allow more of that carbon dioxide to remain in the atmosphere, intensifying the warming of the planet, he said.

More research needs to be done before such a cycle is proven, however.

“This is the logical cycle that can be anticipated,” Reichstein said. “There is no evidence this is happening. We only have evidence for pieces — for individual pieces.”

To gather that evidence, Reichstein and his team used satellite images from 1982 and 2011 to reveal how much light plants in an area absorb so they can perform photosynthesis. From those images, Reichstein’s team determined how much biomass an individual ecosystem accumulates during or after extreme weather.

The team used a global network of 500 stations that record carbon dioxide and air concentrations near ground level and in forest canopies to determine how much carbon dioxide absorption occurs in each ecosystem studied.

Using complex computer models, the team concluded that on average, vegetation absorbs 11 billion fewer metric tons of carbon dioxide than it would in a climate that doesn’t experience extreme weather events.

Reichstein singled out the ongoing drought in the Southwest as a particularly damaging extreme weather event that could affect ecosystems’ carbon dioxide absorption in the U.S.

“I think counting on the biosphere’s ability to absorb carbon is a risky thing because you don’t know how long it will continue to take up carbon dioxide that we emit,” he said. More

 

 

Rivers' in air could boost flooding

Winter floods could intensify in Britain, [and countries globally] according to new research into powerful weather systems called "atmospheric rivers".

Only identified about 20 years ago, atmospheric rivers are intense bands of moisture that flow through the air.

Known to be responsible for heavy rainfall, they have been blamed for severe flooding in California and the UK.

The new study suggests that warmer conditions could create more rivers - and make them more severe.

The paper is published by the Institute of Physics in Environmental Research Letters.

Atmospheric rivers are up to 300km wide and can stretch in length for over 1,000-2,000km. They flow invisibly between 1-2.5km above the surface of the ocean.

One atmospheric river is believed to have been behind the violent flooding that hit Cockermouth in Cumbria on 19 November 2009.

The flooding claimed the life of a policeman, PC Bill Barker, who died after a bridge collapsed.

The researchers, led by Dr David Lavers of the University of Iowa, have estimated the staggering volume of moisture carried by this particular atmospheric river.

They calculate that at its peak it was transporting almost 300,000 tonnes of moisture every second.

By comparison, the River Thames carries about 65 tonnes of water through London over the same period.

Remain on course

If the rivers make landfall and encounter a steep rise in terrain, the air is forced upwards where it cools and releases the moisture in the form of rain.

On top of that, if the river remains on the same course for 24 hours - as it did over Cumbria in 2009 - it will deliver a continuous flow of heavy rain over the same area.

The most closely-studied atmospheric river, which flows towards the California coast, has been dubbed the "Pineapple Express" because it usually originates from the region of Hawaii.

It has been linked to a number of extremely damaging storms along the US West Coast.

Over the last 30 years, there has been an average of 9-11 of the strongest atmospheric river events hitting Britain every year.

In this latest study, the researchers examined five different modelling scenarios to simulate possible conditions this century and found that a warming climate - which allows the atmosphere to hold more moisture - made the rivers more likely.

Dr Lavers said: "All five models suggest that there could be a doubling of atmospheric river events in the period 2074-99 and most of those could be expected to make landfall in the UK.

"One of the big things is that these are the most relevant feature of winter flooding in Britain and the work is certainly suggesting an increase in strength and frequency."

Computer modelling

Among the uncertainties about the research are the reliability of the models used to generate the future scenarios and possible shifts in the patterns of the winds - a change of course away from the UK would reduce the risk.

It was research in the 1970s that first identified "conveyor belts" of moisture travelling through the atmosphere, with later studies in the early 1990s detecting much narrower bands of intense vapour that became known as atmospheric rivers.

Dr Richard Allan of Reading University, also an author of the paper, said: "What this shows is that the dominating factor is the increase in water vapour which means that if you've got more moisture - and the winds don't change -then you've got a much bigger potential for flooding.

"These are really massive flows of invisible water which can feed clouds and cause rainfall if forced up over mountains."

The researchers say the study could help guide forecasters trying to give warning of future flood risks. More