Update: Bangkok Flooding

Flood waters have breached their restraints and have brought their tragic effects to Thailands captial, Bangkok. After weeks of planning, constructing, and hoping the cities external and internal technologies could no longer hold off the flood waters that have burdened the majority of the rest of the country for a long time now. Bangkok's officals have been attmepting a calm face up until very recently and are now actively asking people to evacuate while they try to salvage parts of their city and assist the flood waters in receeding any way possible.

In one of the hardest hit areas of the city, several dykes failed and flooded 3 northern districts destroying 90% of the homes and displacing thousands. Similar situations are being faced in many areas of Bangkok. The prime minister, Shinawatra, was newly elected when the floods began to make their first appearance and at first she encouraged the general population to not fret becasue she was confindent in the cities defenses against floods like these. But lately she seems to have taken a more developmental approach to this envronmnetal disaster. She was quoted in saying, "It seems like we're fighting against the forces of nature, massive floodwater that is causing damage to several of our dykes... The truth is, we need to let it flow naturally out to the sea, and what we can do now is to manage it, so that it flows slowly, otherwise everybody will suffer."

They are trying now to speed up the rate at which the flood waters are flowing out of the city and into the sea. Helping the water takes its natural course, seems to be the only way to go about it now, but helping speed up the process so the city and its people can begin their recovery is essential as well.

Below: "Thai people sit on sand bags in front of their house surrounded by floodwaters in Bangkok on October 27, 2011."

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/10/27/bangkok-floods_n_1034699.html?ref=extreme-weather

Global Warming being blamed for increase in extreme weather

In contrast to my last post, I do think that human influence is playing a big part in increasing the magnitude and frequency as to which environmental hazards occur. This can be seen more in some places than in others. There have been many studies done to collect data on this exact topic. Peter Stott is a leading researcher in this field and was one of the leaders that conducted a study on the 2003 European heat wave that killed 40,000 people. They concluded that human emissions actually made that event twice as likely. A study was also done on the Russian heat wave that happened just last year. The results were published last week and they stated that without the influence of global warming there is an 80% chance that would have never occurred.

Along with these studies that are providing ground breaking data, comes the need and knowledge for evolving technology in this field. Stott and other reaserchers are combining weather forecasting skills with new, unique computer models to ultimately link certain weather events to climate change.

These findings are important, not only to inform people that excessive emissions is a life altering issue, but also that they are advancing  our understanding of environmental hazards. There is a strong and growing belief that increasing our knowledge of climate change's influence on weather is the key to predicting natural disasters. 

Stott and a select few others are working on projects that will eventually lead to the development of models that will be able to forecast natural disasters, much like meterologists forecast the weather on the morning news. With this comes many uncertainties and complexities in creating and translating these future predictions to the public. Although there has been giant steps made in this field, they are far from the ending stage of these models and fully understanding the connection between climate change and extreme weather events. It will be interesting to see the developments to come.


Below: This is an image from of Russia during its 2010 heat wave. The above average temperatures are shown in red and orange. 

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-measures-the-push-to-make-climate-research-relevant/

A Growing Glacier in the Rockies?!

For all those who think "global warming" is a hoax, the Rocky Mountains are on your side this winter. Although global warming is blamed for the disappearing of glaciers all over the world, looking at the continuing ice growth in the rocky mountain region makes you wonder if it is really that simple.

Its early November but there have already been multiple accumulating snow falls in the high country of the Rockies and Teton regions. The second snow storm in a week hit the Rockies today adding, in some places,  to the 2-3 feet of snow that stayed unyielding through this past summer. The high amount of accumulation from last winter was expected to melt in the spring causing troublesome flooding, but due to lower constant temperatures most of it stayed in its place among the mountains. 

New ice has been recorded in Glacier National Park and atop Colorado's Front Range mountains. The director of Bridger-Teton National Forest Avalanche Center, Bob Comey, has produced photographic evidence of the glacier growth. Photos were taken before the snow began this fall and already appear to show more ice in the Teton Range than was present two years ago. 

Although new ice layers are accumulating all over the western mountainous region this season, it isn't nearly enough to negate the large volume of melting that has occurred in the regions in recent years. But this phenomenon could help reverse or at least postpone some potentially severe hazards due to melting glaciers.


http://www.weather.com/weather/videos/news-41/top-stories-169/2nd-storm-in-a-week-blankets-rockies-22405#loc=41/169/22405
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/rockies-snow-glaciers_2011-11-02