The scale of destruction in the Philippines is frightening.
As many as 10,000 people are believed dead in one Philippine city alone after one of the worst storms ever recorded unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes and schools. Corpses hung from tree branches and were scattered along sidewalks and among flattened buildings, while looters raided grocery stores and gas stations in search of food, fuel and water.
Officials projected the death toll could climb even higher when emergency crews reach areas cut off by flooding and landslides. Even in the disaster-prone Philippines, which regularly contends with earthquakes, volcanoes and tropical cyclones, Typhoon Haiyan appears to be the deadliest natural disaster on record.
Haiyan hit the eastern seaboard of the Philippine archipelago on Friday and quickly barreled across its central islands before exiting into the South China Sea, packing winds of 235 kilometers per hour (147 miles per hour) that gusted to 275 kph (170 mph), and a storm surge that caused sea waters to rise 6 meters (20 feet).
It wasn’t until Sunday that the scale of the devastation became clear, with local officials on hardest-hit Leyte Island saying that there may be 10,000 dead in the provincial capital of Tacloban alone.
I think this is the type of thing climate scientists were warning us about. We may not get more destructive storms overall, but when the conditions are right, the storms are going to have more power than we’re used to because there is just more energy in the environment.
But we can’t do anything to mitigate this because it would cut into the Koch Brothers’ bottom line.
Benghazi!!
Martin, you got this exactly right: “We may not get more destructive storms overall, but when the conditions are right, the storms are going to have more power than we’re used to because there is just more energy in the environment.” The people who study tornadoes have been very equivocal about the possibility of climate change impacting them, but increasingly are saying what you said. More heat and moisture to drive storms.
But we can’t do anything to mitigate this because it would cut into the Koch Brothers’ bottom line.
It would never get that far anyway. First you’d have to convince far too many people that this isn’t all the gays’ fault.
Sustained winds of 195mph with gusts of 235mph indicates tornado strength of an EF-4/5. Total devastation in a path 30 miles wide as typhoon Haiyan swept across the Philippine islands. The tidal surge was as forceful as a tsunami, horrific. This was the 24th typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, but the most powerful to make landfall ever.
That’s being disputed. Probably isn’t even true. Latching onto size and intensity allows the climate change deniers an easy out. What is true is that Haiyan was near theoretical limits of size and intensity and observed to be extremely rare in the past century or so. It’s the increased frequency of all large storms and frequency measured in decades and not a single season or year that is telling. That’s probably too difficult for the deniers to comprehend because they seem to have lost the capacity to perceive time beyond the now.
For the first twenty-four hours or so after Haiyan made landfall, there seemed to be a collective sigh of relief that it wasn’t as bad as the Cat 5 predictions were suggesting. Sort of like the initial news and response from Katrina and unlike the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that was bad from the initial reports and just kept getting worse.
The collective we doesn’t care as long as the choice remains “our way of life” vs. island nations disappearing or destroyed. The Koch Brothers aren’t the only ones getting rich off “our way of life,” and they and most of us will be long gone before the true cost will be paid by others.
After suffering a 7.1 earthquake last month, a typhoon gauged as the most powerful to make landfall in recorded history; and just now…Al Jazeera meterologist is reporting 2nd typhoon forming off the islands and an alert has been issued.
All this reminded me of the ‘catastrophic’ JUNK plans of the ACA, and just like the JUNK plans who offer up a years’ worth of Tylenol, our environment needs a new word to upgrade the devastation that ‘catastrophic’ can no longer describe.
If you look at the historical data for super typhoons here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_typhoon#Intensity_classifications and other places online like wunderground, you’ll see that they are a lot less common now than they were in the late 50s and early 60s. The difference in death tolls and damage could just as easily be attributed to larger populations.
I agree that weather patterns are going to change as a result of global warming, but let’s not automatically label every storm that happens as a result of global warming. We had a very light hurricane season in the US this year.
I’m OK with using every storm that happens as an opportunity to talk about global warming. Whether it’s directly attributable or not, every storm that happens is a reminder of the kind of thing we’re in for if we don’t deal with this shit. You don’t need sophisticated computer models anymore, you can see climate change now by just looking out the window, and yet we’re still dicking around with the fossil fuels.
They’re not going to last much longer anyway, so that’s two urgent reasons to get off of them. So anything that gets people’s attention is fine with me.
You are asking the question the wrong way. It is nonsense to say that a specific storm was caused by global warming. It is also undeniably true that every storm, all weather, is occurring in a larger atmosphere with more of the heat and moisture that power storms available due to climate change. Every storm is impacted.
It is pretty damned depressing how many people don’t give half a shit about what happens across the ocean.
Philippine Red Cross is a reasonable place to donate: http://www.redcross.org.ph/
800p is about $20 cdn, so at least I could do that.
Remember Benghazi forever! And never forget The Maine!
The Maine is like so last century. 9/11 – 9/11 – 9/11 for another ninety years.
I would think the Vatican would be the first to open its coffers, send money and humanitarian relief to the area to help its own people…why wait for the USA???
Thomas Lonn