date: Thu Sep 1 11:51:47 2005
from: Phil Jones
subject: Stating the obvious
to: Kevin Trenberth , "David Easterling"
Kevin, Dave,
I sent an email to Albert and Roxana about recent extremes in Europe. They
will be bringing some text to NZ. We will have to decide what to do about Katrina there
as well. Situation looks very serious from here, but we'll need to distinguish
the severity of the storm from the apparent unpreparedness, lack of maintenance
of the levees etc. It was clearly a very large storm and the track couldn't have
been much worse. I bet if there's another event this season, the exodus will be
a much higher percentage.
The Emmanuel and Webster et al. papers have been very timely, but once
the rescue operations are over and the clean-up in earnest begins, the increasing
destructiveness of such storms will again get back into the debate.
The BBC site has a story about the eventual cost (guessed at 25B$). This might be more
than the WTC on 9/11. Funds were diverted from levee improvement, to
help finance the war and homeland security.....
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
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