TUEDAY 2 AM…

With 50 dead confirmed in Mississippi, Katrina becomes a killer storm. There are many questions to be raised but one rather significant one has been ignored in much of the media i was watching and listening to: IS THERE ANY LINK WITH CLIMATE CHANGE?

After Hurricane Ivan lashed this same region, the staff at the National Center for Atmospheric Research discussed this issue–way back in October2004.

It took seconds to ask the question and Google for a many viewpoints. If I could do it, why can’t my colleagues?.

Consider…….

“It’s been an exceptional hurricane season in the Caribbean and U.S. Southeast, where a string of big storms left residents with hardly enough time to take the plywood off their windows after one hurricane before they had to hammer it up for the next. Millions went without power, at least 1,500 people died in Haiti alone, and the state of Florida is estimated to have $15 to $20 billion worth of damage.

And so it comes as no surprise that the relentless line-up of storms has ignited debate about the connection between hurricanes and global warming. The issue attracted a fair amount of media attention in September, when newspapers ran headlines saying “Global Warming May Spawn More Super-Storms” and “Ivan May Just Be a Messenger.”

From 1970 to 1994, hurricane activity in the Atlantic was fairly mild, generating half as many destructive storms as both the previous period, dating back to the 1920s, and the period since 1995. While the current period is the most active nine consecutive years on record and also contains some of the hottest years on record, climate scientists are divided on whether or not global warming affects hurricane activity.

Kevin Trenberth (CGD) says that although it’s controversial, he thinks that global warming is in fact creating conditions that are favorable for hurricanes to be more severe. “Global climate change, and global warming in particular, create a different background environment in which the hurricanes are working,” he says. “The sea surface temperatures are a little warmer, the whole environment is a bit wetter, there’s more humidity, and that’s the main fuel for hurricanes.”

Warm water is the crucial fuel for hurricane formation. Water expands when heated, the way a full pot of water heated on the stove will overflow. The fact that global sea levels have risen 1.25 inches in the past ten years is evidence that oceans are getting warmer and expanding. When the sea surface temperature reaches 80°F or higher, it crosses a threshold for hurricane formation. Enough moisture evaporates into the atmosphere to trigger thunderstorms, which can in turn become tropical storms and hurricanes. The heat, released as water vapor, condenses in rainfall and fuels intensifying hurricanes.

Although the warming of the oceans isn’t uniform around the globe, the mid-Atlantic and Caribbean oceans have in fact warmed significantly. Kevin and CGD colleagues John Fasullo and Lesley Smith are drafting a paper to report that water vapor levels are perhaps 15% higher on average in the Atlantic hurricane zone than they were about 30 years ago. He says the logical conclusion is that this increase will result in more Category 4 and 5 hurricanes. “We’re not talking about changes in numbers of disturbances, only that the ones that do exist will be stronger and produce a lot more rain,” he says.

The hurricane season might also start earlier and last longer, Kevin says. ….”

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0410/hurricane.html

Just asking….

Comments?

dissector@mediachannel.org

THE WAR ON CINDY
UN STANDOFF
JON STEWART TRASHES CNN (AGAIN)

POSTED SUNDAY—

While you are up, get me a Constitution in Iraq ordered President Bush. I want it now. I need it now. That will show those ACTORvists and that Cindy woman.

And so the word went out, and the US ambassador went to work, and the pressure was layed on, and the pressure was escalated and they even released l000 innocent people from Abu Graib (”in good faith” or was it a bribe) and the US press kept saying how it was coming, democracy was coming, never mind the fact we are scuppering our own Constitution, and then the PRESSident put his own PRESStige on the line to call them SHEE-ITES (ya know what that sounds like) up on the phone from Crawford to do some old fashioned Texas style cajoling by calling up one of the dose so called leaders over there, and then he went up to that military base off in the wilds of Idaho and told us all it was coming, a CONSTEEtution (Note the prefix: con) was coming and we can show how much progress we are making, but then,low and behold, what was in the Washington Post on Sunday…

Can’t these people ever do what they are told? Maybe not, because as Maureen Dowd explained Saturday: “Iraq, it turns out, is the one branch of American government that the Republicans don’t control.”

Shiites Cut Off Talks on Charter

“BAGHDAD, Aug. 28 — Iraqi Shiite Muslim leaders said early Sunday that they were ending negotiations on the country’s constitution after months of increasingly divisive talks and planned to put the draft before the National Assembly later in the day, senior officials involved in the talks said.

So what happens next in a world where perceptions trump reality. They pretend they have created a Constitution even when they don’t. BBC reports Sunday morning:

“Journalists in Baghdad have been invited to a ceremony at the president’s office to mark the completion of the draft….”

But also note, this draft is getting the shaft.

“As the Sunni community effectively holds a veto, it is thought unlikely the document will ever come into force.

“For its ratification, the constitution needs the approval of a majority of voters across the country and not to be rejected by two-thirds of the voters in three or more governorates.”

Next?

THE NY TIMES DOWNPLAYS/EXPLAINS AWAY CINDY

“In War Debate, Parents of Fallen Are United Only in Grief:

“Some parents of troops killed in Iraq appear as divided asthe rest of the nation in their opinions of Cindy Sheehanand the antiwar encampment named for her dead son.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/national/28parents.html?th&emc=th

For non-corporate news updates from Camp Casey:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org

10-4

Rich Kambak writes:

“i was listening to my shortwave last night and picked up a right wing talk show station out of Kansas - they were taking calls from people mobilizing all RVer’s to go down to Crawford for a showdown with Cindy Sheehan…

MAKING POVERTY HISTORY?

(NOTE SEE MY SEPARATE PIECE ON BRITISH MEDIA)

The Guardian and Independent have been exposing the new US UN Ambassador John Bolton’s demands for expensive revisions in a variety of UN measures including the anti-poverty millennium goals….He is pushing for 750 amendments after just three weeks on the job…. It is said that the British government is likely to challenge the US efforts to shred many agreements, but Mark Curtis tells a different story:

GUARDIAN: “World leaders are now preparing for the millennium summit to be held in New York next month, described by the UN as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to take bold decisions”. Yet the current draft outcome simply repeats what was agreed on aid and debt last month in Gleneagles. The reality of that G8 deal has recently emerged - and is likely to condemn the New York summit to be an expensive failure.

“The G8 agreed to increase aid from rich countries by $48bn a year by 2010. When Tony Blair announced this to parliament, he said that “in addition … we agreed to cancel 100% of the multilateral debts” of the most indebted countries. He also stated that aid would come with no conditions attached. These were big claims, all of which can now be shown to be false.”

See wwwmarkcurtis.info for more

Australian Group Campaigns to Free Guantánamo Prisoner
Ray Bonner reports in the New York Times:

“A grass-roots political movement has begun a campaign tofree David Hicks, an Australian being held in Guantánamo Bay.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/international/asia/28australia.html?th&emc=th

CAN VETS PASS ON MOOD DISORDERS?

And then there is this from Australia thanks to Bradley Laing:

“BISBANE, Australia (UPI) — War veterans who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder may pass on mental health problems to their children, an Australian psychologist has found.

“In an eight-year study of 70 families of Vietnam veterans who suffered symptoms of the disorder, psychologist Julie Salter found that their children also were at risk, The Australian reported Friday.

“The children, aged from 13 to their 30s, were much more likely to suffer from suicidal tendencies, anger, low self-esteem, drug and alcohol problems, depression and anxiety than the general population.”

http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=109974&cat=World

PINOCHET’S LEGACY OF FRAUD

Chile upheld Wednesday charges of tax evasion against the wife and a son of former dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Five judges reviewing the case upheld the indictments of Lucia Pinochet and the youngest son of the couple Marco Antonio Pinochet, La Nacion reported online.

Earlier this month, Chilean authorities arrested mother and son on charges they aided Chile’s ex-strongman in a tax fraud scheme worth an estimated $27 million.

Chile’s Supreme Court has ordered a thorough investigation into the overseas bank accounts of Pinochet and asked for the cooperation of several countries where the former dictator has accounts, including the United States..