Can it happen again? NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), an earth-orbiting telescope operated by JPL, makes the possibility of an undetected killer asteroid striking earth far less likely. The WISE observatory is designed to find, track, and analyze Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs), asteroids in low earth orbit with diameters larger than 330 ft (100m). If they measure 330 ft (100m) up to 3,300 ft (1km), they are considered medium-size asteroids. WISE has already located 4,200 such objects, with an estimated 15,000 still to be pinpointed. NASA’s objective is to eventually complete a survey of all PHAs, their size, composition, trajectory, and degree of threat.

The largest and considered most dangerous PHAs are those with diameters exceeding 3,300 ft (1km). 911 out of an existing total of 981 (93%) of these largest asteroids have been located and analyzed. Some are the size of a small mountain, and if one were to impact our planet the consequences would be devastating. In the past, a PHA – one with a diameter of 330 ft (100m) or more — has struck earth on the average of once every one million years. But now NASA has the ability to zero in on and dispatch robotic spacecraft to any asteroid in earth orbit. It’s possible that a vehicle could land on and apply enough rocket power to the threatening asteroid to move its trajectory away from earth.

When you consider that there have been no recorded human fatalities from meteor or asteroid strikes in modern history, but that more than 1,200,000 die every year in automobile accidents around the world, the asteroid risk factor is exceptionally low compared with driving your car.

Ice shelves are floating platforms of ice that protrude from the coastline where glaciers meet the ocean. The 43 ice shelves that fringe the Antarctic continent comprise a total area of 1,541,700 square kilometers (595,250 square miles).They vary in thickness from 100 to 1,000m (330 to 3,300 ft), and act as a regulating device, slowing the rate of flow of glacial ice into the sea. In the past, it has been theorized that Antarctica’s glaciers flow into the ice shelves and add ice at about the same rate as the ice shelves lose ice by breaking off at the edge to form ice floes and icebergs.

New satellite research by a team of scientists at Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute now challenges that theory, and concludes that the great ice shelves of Antarctica are getting progressively thinner, and some of the largest ones will disappear by the end of the century. The research indicates that ocean water around Antarctica has been warming, causing the ice shelves to behave like ice cubes dropped into a warm drink, gradually melting from the bottom. Without the ice shelves acting as a buffer, the glaciers will flow into the ocean at a much faster rate, and will at the same time speed up the rise of worldwide sea levels.

The exact reasons for the warming of Antarctic ocean water are still under study, but the preliminary thinking is that global warming in the tropics has increased the strength and frequency of southern winds that warm ocean currents and push them toward Antarctica.

An example is a species of Rocky Mountain butterfly, which has been studied by biologist Carol Boggs of Stanford for the last 40 years. The earlier flowering of a variety of alpine wildflower that the butterfly depends on puts the plant at greater risk of frost damage, which can leave the butterfly without the food it needs to sustain it, endangering the species’ population.

Most of us think of the first day of spring as March 20, the vernal equinox, the day when daylight and darkness are equal in length. But to phenologists — scientists who study the life cycle of plants and animals — the first day of spring is the first day that leaves appear on plants.

According to studies conducted by Dr. Mark D. Schwartz of the University of Wisconsin, “first leaf” spring in the contiguous 48 U.S. states is now appearing an average of 3 days earlier than in the recent past: going from March 20 (1950-1980 average) to March 17 (1981-2000 average).

The difference ranges from 5-6 days early in northern states where winters are colder, to 1-2 days early in California, Texas, and some southeastern states where winter weather is more moderate.

A study by Elizabeth Wolkovich of UC San Diego and Benjamin Cook of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center arrives at a similar conclusion. They compared an archive of worldwide long-term observations of 1,158 species of wild plants on four continents with results of their plant warming experiment. They varied the temperature around small plots of plants to gauge how these plants responded to higher temperatures. However, an analysis of historical records showed that leafing and flowering advanced even more than indicated by their laboratory experiments. The archives show an average of 5-6 days per degree of Celsius increase in temperature, which corresponds with the approximate average global surface temperature increase since 1900.

As planet earth gets warmer, more and more plant and animal populations will be under increased stress. Some will adapt, some will collapse and disappear. Whatever we can do to slow the progress of global warming will give these threatened species more time to adapt to the new conditions, and prevent their vanishing completely.

According to a news release from NASA/JPL, “The new research network builds on decades of technology development supported by the National Science Foundation, the Dept. of Defense, NASA, and USGS. The network uses real-time GPS measurements from 500 stations throughout California, Oregon, and Washington. When a large earthquake is detected, GPS data are used to automatically calculate its vital characteristics, including location, magnitude, and fault rupture details.”

Institutions working with the U.S. government in developing the system include Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Central Washington University, University of Nevada Reno, Caltech, UNAVCO in Boulder, Colorado, and UC Berkeley.

The report states that accurate and rapid identification of earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 and stronger is critical for effective disaster response, especially for tsunamis.  A tsunami forms quickly after an undersea earthquake, and heads toward land at speeds as high as 600 mph (1,000kph). It’s urgent that warnings be issued to nearby population centers within minutes to give people a chance to move to higher ground.

Acquiring data quickly on earthquake strength, size, and ground movement for very large earthquakes has been a challenge for traditional seismological instruments, which measure ground shaking. High precision, second-by-second measurements of ground displacements using GPS have been shown to reduce the time it takes to indentify large earthquakes, and to increase the accuracy and speed of tsunami warnings.

Following a successful test phase, the intent of USGS and NASA is to expand the system to the entire Pacific Basin, which includes the Ring of Fire where most earthquakes and tsunamis occur.

In April, 2012, a study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego compared the ocean temperatures taken by HMS Challenger 130 years before with those recorded in the same locations by ARGO, a network of 3,500 free-floating robotic buoys spotted around the world, during the 7-year period 2004-2010.

At the surface, down to 2,300 ft (700m), the average temperature increase was 1.1°F (0.59°C). The difference diminished with depth, disappearing altogether at 5000 ft (1500m). While the surface increase may not seem large, it is scientifically significant, contributing to the volume expansion of ocean water, and the rise in sea levels around the world. Along with the 1.5°F (0.8°C) rise in global air temperature during approximately the same period of time, the warmer ocean temperatures have speeded up the melting of polar ice sheets and glaciers, and boosted the rate of seawater evaporation and cloud formation, making storms such as hurricanes and tornadoes bigger and stronger, and therefore much more deadly.

Computer models project a continuing steady increase in both air and ocean temperatures for the remainder of the 21^st Century. The U.S. space shuttle Challenger was named in honor of the famous British ship.

A little more than 7 years later, on April 11, 2012, a magnitude 8.6 earthquake struck on the Indian Ocean seafloor not far from the epicenter of the 2004 quake, but the height of the tsunami was only 3 ft (1m). The islands and nations bordering the Indian Ocean reported very little, if any, damage resulting from the small wave. Five deaths were reported, but three were from heart attacks and two from shock. Although the 2004 earthquake was stronger, an 8.6 is powerful enough to start a major tsunami under the right conditions.

Why the big difference? It comes down to epicenter location and type of fault. The 2004 quake was produced by a thrust fault rupture in the Sunda Trench, the boundary between the oceanic Indian-Australian plate and the continental Eurasian Plate, where the slip action was vertical and violent. When the fault ruptured, a 1,000-mile (1600km) section of the Indian-Australian plate thrust underneath the Eurasian Plate, and the Eurasian plate lifted upward 50 ft (15m), displacing millions of tons of ocean water in a matter of minutes, and creating the massive tsunami that started rolling toward land at speeds up to 600 mph (1,000kph).

Although the two earthquakes were not far apart in distance, the 2012 earthquake epicenter was on a strike-slip fault within the Indian-Australian Plate, where the slip action was horizontal instead of vertical. The movement on one side of the fault was north northwest, while the movement direction on the other side was south southeast. When the fault line stress released, the sudden horizontal slippage caused heavy shaking, but resulted in very little seafloor deformation, very little water displacement, and a very small tsunami.

Figures published by the United States Geological Survey show that in the 7 days from March 31 to April 6, 2012, 240 earthquakes of magnitudes from 2.5 to 6.2 occurred around the world. 207 of those earthquakes (87%) took place somewhere on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the arc of converging tectonic plate boundaries that ring the Pacific basin, from New Zealand to Fiji, to Indonesia, to Japan, to Alaska, and down the west coast of North America to the tip of South America.

However, there are few places on earth that are completely earthquake free. 33 of those 240 earthquakes occurred in such diverse places as Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho, Virginia, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Algeria, Turkey, Pakistan, Tristan da Cunha, Tajikistan, Italy, Greece, and Poland.

Even if an earthquake struck somewhere near you, you may not have felt the earth move because most of the 240 quakes registered in the magnitude 2.5 to 4.0 range, many of those with epicenters deep underground.  There were two magnitude 6.0 or greater quakes in the 7-day period. One took place near New Guinea, and the other near Oaxaca, Mexico, an aftershock to the magnitude 7.4 that struck that region on March 20, 2012. A magnitude 5.8 earthquake off Japan’s main island, Honshu, was an aftershock to the 9.0 earthquake that hit that area in March, 2011, and triggered the tsunami that took 19,000 lives.

Earthquakes — large or small, shallow or deep underground– are produced by the constant pressure of the world’s oceanic tectonic plates pushing against and sliding under the world’s continental plates. This process of one plate thrusting into the other goes on day after day, year after year. Fault line tension builds higher and higher. Minor fault line slippages cause small earthquakes that serve to relieve some of the stress; but from time to time, a large fault line section undergoes a sudden release of the pent-up strain, causing a major rupture or fault line slippage that results in a destructive earthquake and in some cases, a killer tsunami.

Seismologists have been working on ways to predict the location and time of the next major fault line slippage and great earthquake, but the science has not yet been perfected. We know that devastating earthquakes will continue to strike. But we still don’t know when and where.

Entire towns and villages were wiped out. Three nuclear power plants were swamped by the tsunami, causing meltdown of the fuel rods and the release of waves of radioactive gasses into the atmosphere. The grim statistics: 19,000 dead or missing. Economic loss: $300 billion, the largest ever for one natural disaster. 320,000 people lost their homes. 90% of those displaced remain in temporary housing. 370,000 buildings were totally or partially destroyed. 1,500 children lost one or both parents. Millions of tons of debris are still piled up and have to be disposed of.

Persistently high radiation levels have prevented rebuilding in many communities, and have taken large areas of farmland out of production, impacting the country’s food supply. The government may shut down the rest of the country’s nuclear plants that now furnish 30% of Japan’s energy. On the plus side, Japan’s manufacturing sector has recovered and is back in full production.

Lessons learned. Do not build nuclear reactors in a location with a history of earthquakes and tsunamis. Some communities that were located on the water will rebuild farther inland. Of those that will rebuild on the seacoast, such as fishing villages, seawalls that were easily breached by the tsunami will be rebuilt higher and stronger.

Lessons not learned. The government is still slow in responding to the crisis, and in communicating the full situation to its citizens.

The epicenter was near the Pacific Coast between Acapulco and Oaxaca, at a depth of 9.8 miles (15.8km), in a seismically active area where the Cocos Plate, a subdivision of the Pacific Plate, is thrusting under the North American Plate. Since 1973, 15 earthquakes of Magnitude 7.0 or greater have occurred within 300 miles (500km) of the epicenter, including the September, 1985, Magnitude 8.0 that killed 10,000, injured 30,000, and left 100,000 homeless.

The convergent boundary between the Cocos and North American Plates is a section of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a chain of tectonic plate boundaries that runs from New Zealand to Indonesia, to Japan, to Alaska, and down the Pacific Coast to the tip of South America. Plate slippages along this arc are constantly causing earthquakes, starting tsunamis, and fueling volcanic eruptions.

 That information was contained in a study published in the magazine Nature authored by The Permafrost Carbon Research Network, a panel of 41 Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. The study estimates that over the next 30 years, 45 billion metric tons of greenhouse gasses will be released into earth’s atmosphere from melting permafrost, adding to the 300 billion tons expected to belch into the air worldwide from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas during the same period.

 The study’s lead scientist, Edward Schuur of the University of Florida, predicts that with the additional CO2 pouring into the atmosphere, global warming will happen 20% to 30% faster than from fossil fuel emissions alone. The scientists refer to the process as a feedback cycle. The burning of fossil fuels speeds up global warming and thaws the permafrost. The thawed permafrost releases more CO2, causing the global warming cycle to speed up even faster.

2011 was the second most deadly tornado season in U.S. history, taking more than 550 lives and costing in excess of $30 billion in damages. Joplin, MO and Tuscaloosa, AL were especially hard hit with F5 tornadoes packing wind speeds exceeding 200 mph (300kph). It is too early to tell if 2012 will be as bad, but the 2012 season is starting fast and is already proving to be a costly one in terms of lives lost and property damage. The La Niña weather cycle, with ocean temperatures cooling in the mid Pacific, is considered to be one cause of this kind of weather pattern.

This solar activity serves as a reminder that those of us living on planet earth today are a lucky bunch. We are about midway between our sun’s origin 4.7 billion years ago, and its likely demise 5 billion years hence. It is a time when the temperature range and availability of water make it possible for earth to support a flourishing animal and plant life.

It was not always so. Scientists believe our earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago from the same space dust and gasses that formed the sun. But the sun was too cool to support life until a billion years ago, when it became strong enough to allow life to begin developing. In another 5 billion years the sun will begin its transformation into a red giant, the phase of a star’s life when it runs out of hydrogen fuel and expands before its core finally collapses and the star contracts into a cool, white dwarf. However, long before the transition to red giant begins, earth will gradually become too hot to support life. Water, including the oceans, will evaporate and earth will become an uninhabitable desert. Some scientists estimate that phase could come as early as 1.4 billion years from now.

A few facts about the sun. It is a relatively small star located in the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy. It is 109 times the size of the earth, but weighs proportionately much more. Its mass is estimated at 330,000 times that of the earth. The sun is 93 million miles from our planet (150 million kilometers). Its composition is 98% hydrogen and helium, and 2% other chemical elements, including carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Its surface temperature is 5,770° Kelvin, or 9,930°F. Its core temperature is 15,600,000°K, or 28,000,000°F. The sun’s surface temperature is slowly rising, and its brightness increases 10% every one billion years.

Will the human race be able to escape its fate by relocating to another planet? NASA’s Kepler satellite telescope has been searching outer space for evidence of planets orbiting other stars. Kepler has already identified thousands of such planetary bodies, but so far only one planet seems to be located in the so-called Goldilocks zone — the right distance from its star to have the temperature range that could support life. The composition of the planet is not known, and whether or not it has water is not known. Even if the perfect planet were discovered, could mankind ever develop the technology to safely transport human beings millions of light years through space?

Here on this earth, It’s true that we have to cope with earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, fires, drought, and dozens of other natural and manmade disasters. Plus disease and life’s many challenges. But we are nevertheless fortunate to live on a planet under a warming sun, with the air, water, and soil that makes it possible for life to flourish. Wouldn’t it be great if the nations, races, religions, tribes, and clans on earth, large and small, could settle their differences and concentrate on making our special planet a better place for all.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide rose 5.9% in 2010, the largest year-to-year jump since the industrial revolution began more than 200 years ago. This information is based on a study released in December, 2011, by the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists tracking trends in this field. The burning of coal represented more than half of the annual emissions. In 2010, the combustion of fossil fuels (coal and oil) sent 9 billion tons of carbon into earth’s atmosphere.

The United States, which for years produced more CO2 than any other country, now falls into second place behind China, although the U.S. still leads in per capita emissions. In 2010, total carbon emissions in the U.S. were 1.5 billion tons, while China pumped 2.2 billion tons into the air. Developing countries including China and India now account for 57% of all carbon emissions. The study concludes that this trend of ever-rising carbon emissions will make it difficult if not impossible to hold back severe climate change in coming decades.

What are some of the immediate and long-term effects of this trend?

 A December,2011, report based on a climate change computer model developed by researchers at NASA’s JPL and Caltech in Pasadena indicates that by the end of the 21^st Century, “… global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half the earth’s surface.” As earth’s climate warms, animal and plant species in temperate zones will migrate toward the polar regions or to higher elevations. These migrations will pit the migrating species against the species already inhabiting the cooler zones for survival.  Many presently existing species will disappear.

As the report states, “The model projections paint a portrait of increasing ecological change and stress in earth’s biosphere, with many plant and animal species facing increasing competition for survival … Most of earth’s land that is not covered by ice or desert is expected to undergo at least a 30% change in plant cover – changes that will require humans and animals to adapt and often relocate.”

Some areas of the world will change more than others. Among the areas projected to undergo the greatest degree of change are regions of the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, equatorial east Africa, Madagascar, the Mediterranean, southern South America, and the Great Lakes and Great Plains areas of North America. To quote the report, “The largest areas of ecological sensitivity and biome changes are found in areas with the most dramatic climate change.” This will be particularly true in North America high altitudes and along the borders of northern forests.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, which was used in the NASA simulation, projects greenhouse gas levels will double, and global temperature will increase 3.6 to 7.2°F (2 to 4°C) by 2100, the same temperature range of warming that occurred following the last Glacial Maximum nearly 20,000 years ago, but 100 times faster. The report paints a picture of a much warmer planet with wet areas being much wetter, and dry areas being much drier.

One sign of things to come is the amazing amount of ice melt being experienced in Greenland, most of which lies within the Arctic Circle. A team of scientists from Ohio State University reported that a network of 50 GPS stations shows that Greenland is rising as the ice sheets that covered this land mass for thousands of years continue to melt at a surprisingly rapid rate. It is estimated that in the year 2010 alone, Greenland lost 100 billion tons of ice through rapid melting. Some areas of southern Greenland rose more than 2 inches (6cm) as the weight of the ice decreased. The rapid ice melt water flows into the ocean, contributing to the rise in sea levels and posing a growing threat to coastal communities and low-lying islands around the world.

There seems to be agreement among leading scientists that human activity is speeding up the natural global warming cycle. To quote the NASA report, “The 2010 emissions increase solidified a trend of ever-rising emissions that scientists fear will make it difficult, if not impossible, to forestall severe climate change in coming decades.” The United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa, in early December, 2011, attended by representatives of 190 nations, produced a ray of light in the battle to slow the pace of carbon emissions. For the first time, China, India, and the United States agreed to abide by a new emissions reduction treaty to be worked out and signed by 2015, and to go into effect by 2020. Let’s hope the amount of emissions cutback eventually agreed on will be enough to make a difference. Time will tell.

2011 saw natural disasters strike in many countries throughout the world. The
earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the earthquakes in Turkey, the drought in
China, and the famine in Africa all took a heavy toll in both lives lost and
property damage. A leading reinsurer reports worldwide economic loss from
natural disasters had already exceeded $265 billion as of the end of June, with
a half year still to go. That topped the losses for the entire year of 2005,
the highest loss year prior to 2011. Because final statistics for many of these
world disasters have not yet been published, this article will focus only on
the natural disasters that occurred in the United States during the first ten
months of 2011.

According to data recently published by the National Climatic Data Center, a division of NOAA, 14 natural disasters causing at least $1 billion each in property loss struck the  U.S. between January and October of this year. The damage per event ranged from $1 billion plus for Tropical Storm Lee in September, to $26 billion for the destruction inflicted by the severe
thunderstorms and killer tornadoes that ravaged the southeast and Midwest in
April and May.

Loss of life, of course, is the most tragic part of any natural disaster. Tuscaloosa
and Joplin suffered especially hard losses. In the first 10 months of 2011, 675
deaths were attributed to natural disasters in the United States. It is hoped
that in coming years, lives will be saved by better disaster mitigation
planning. That would include strengthening building codes in disaster-prone
areas, and restricting building on land susceptible to natural disasters such
as flood plains and hillsides. Planning ahead to lower natural disaster losses
is a priority of several United Nations agencies.

Here are the 14 natural disasters totaling $56.3 billion from January to October, 2011:
Groundhog Day blizzard – February 2. Blizzard conditions with winds up to 60 mph (100kph) and freezing temperatures swept across a wide swath of the U.S. from Albuquerque to New York City. Chicago was especially hard hit with 2 ft (60cm) of snow in 24 hours, closing O’Hare Airport and nearly paralyzing the city. The storm caused 36 deaths, and storm damage was estimated at $3.9 billion.

Derecho wind storms – April 4 and 5. A series of 40 mph (70kph) wind storms
associated with a violent squall line moved the through the Midwest and onto
the east coast. These were called derecho winds, a term meaning high winds that blow steadily in one direction for prolonged periods. The same storm spawned tornadoes in Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi. The death toll was 9. Damage costs were $2.5 billion.

Iowa windstorms and tornadoes – April 8 to 11. A powerful storm over the Midwest set off a series of tornadoes. The strongest of these was a huge ¾ mile (1.2km) wide funnel that struck Mapleton, Iowa, on April 9, leaving a 3.5 mile (6km) trail of total destruction. Luckily, no deaths were reported from this storm, but storm damage reached $2.25 billion.

Oklahoma to North Carolina tornadoes – April 14 to 16. A severe Midwest storm created a band of strong tornadoes that moved across 16 states from Oklahoma to the east coast. The area around Raleigh, North Carolina, was especially hard hit by a tornado with funnel speeds exceeding 165 mph (275kph). 45 people died in the chain of storms. Damages totaled $2 billion.

Ohio tornadoes – April 19 to 21. A heavy Midwest storm produced 61 tornadoes over a 3-day period. On April 20, a tornado ripped through the town of Oregon, Ohio, leaving heavy damage but no injuries or fatalities. Losses totaled $1 billion.

Super Tornado Outbreak– April 25 to 30. One of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history struck the southeastern states during this 6-day period. On April 27, 188 tornadoes touched down in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, and Virginia, 5 of them rated EF5 with funnel wind speeds exceeding 200 mph (340kph). 343 people died, 239 of those  in Alabama, where the university city of Tuscaloosa was especially hard hit. Damages totaled $9 billion.

Missouri & Oklahoma tornadoes – May 22 to 24. On May 22, a multiple vortex EF5 tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri with wind speeds peaking at 250 mph (400kph), killing 162 people and destroying a large part of southwest Joplin. Two days later, El Reno, Oklahoma was devastated by one of many tornados that hit the state. 8 people died and over 60 were injured. Damages from the two events: $8 billion.

Illinois severe winds – June 16-22. Strong thunderstorms and EF3 tornadoes hit the upper plains states. Near Chicago, the town of Wheeling, IL sustained heavy damage. No deaths were reported, but damage came to $1.25 billion.

Mississippi River flooding – April and May. Heavy rain from spring storms plus above-average snowmelt sent torrents of water into the Mississippi and its tributaries, causing massive flooding from Illinois to Louisiana. 1 death was attributed to the event. Damages to buildings, infrastructure, and cropland exceeded $5 billion.

Texas drought and wildfires – ongoing. Texas has been locked in a yearlong drought that has done great damage to agriculture, livestock, and the general economy. Wildfires burned 3 million acres across the state. 91% of the state has been declared in extreme or exceptional drought by the USDA. Damages so far total $5.2 billion.

Missouri River & Souris River floods – spring & summer. The Missouri River and its tributaries started cresting and overflowing their banks in June, causing bridge and highway closings, crop losses, and evacuations by thousands of people in 7 Upper Midwest states. The flooding persisted through much of the summer. In North Dakota, the Souris River crested at a hundred-year high in late June, flooding parts of Minot. 11,000 people had to be evacuated. Losses for both events came to $2 billion. 5 lives were lost.

Hurricane Irene – August 26 to 28.
Irene hit North Carolina on Aug. 27 with 85 mph (140kph) winds, moved off the coast, came ashore again in Long Island as a 65 mph (108kph) tropical storm. The storm dropped 8 to 12 inches (30cm) of rain, causing major flooding in several northeastern states. The storm took 46 lives. Wind and flood damage totaled $7.2 billion.

Tropical Storm Lee – September 4 to 8. Lee came ashore in Louisiana with a wind speed of 45 mph (75kph). Wind damage was minor, but this extremely wet storm dropped 10 inches (25cm) of rain on southeastern states. It moved north into Pennsylvania and Western New York where it rained nearly 8 inches (20cm) in 24 hours on ground already saturated by Hurricane Irene. The Susquehanna River rose 20 ft in 24 hours, flooding Binghamton, NY and several Pennsylvania cities. 13 people died. Damages exceeded $1 billion.

Northeast snow storm – October 29 & 30. During this  48-hour period, the biggest October snowstorm in 200 years swept through the northeastern states, with high winds and up to 2.6 feet (76cm) of snow. The freak blizzard knocked out power to 3 million households in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Thousands of homes were still without power weeks later. The storm resulted in 27 deaths and more than $3 billion in damage.

Can anything be done tomake natural disasters less destructive? Many places around the world are adopting natural disaster mitigation measures. For example, areas susceptible to heavy earthquake damage, such as Japan and California, have added stringent earthquake safety requirements to their building codes over the past 50 years. All new commercial structures, schools, roads, and bridges have been built to the new specifications, and billions of dollars have been spent retrofitting older schools, commercial buildings, bridges, and freeway overpasses. There are still casualties and property loss when a large earthquake strikes these areas, but the fatalities, injuries, and property damage have been greatly reduced over those that occurred in earlier quakes when unreinforced school and office buildings collapsed, killing and trapping thousands.

If the same principal of requiring safer building codes could be applied to areas that experience frequent hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and floods, many lives might be saved and property loss greatly reduced. A recent NOAA climate-change study indicates that future storms will last longer and be much more intense. That seems to make it more urgent than ever to prepare for natural disasters by building storm-resistant structures and building in the right places.

The Ercis quake in Turkey is a reminder that natural disasters happen frequently, year after year, and in all parts of the world. A few are covered by major media in great depth and for long follow-up periods, and remain in the public mind for years. But other highly destructive disasters, although reported by the media at the time, are soon forgotten by the public at large.

Among the natural disasters during the last ten years that are most remembered by the public, and were most covered by the media, were: the 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami that killed over 200,000 and flattened villages and vacation resorts on the Indian Ocean shoreline; Hurricane Katrina that flooded New Orleans in 2005, killing 1,800 and costing close to $100 billion in property loss and reconstruction; the Haiti earthquake in 2010 that killed over 300,000; and the Japan earthquake and tsunami of 2011 that damaged nuclear facilities and wiped out coastal villages and cities, while taking 20,000 lives.

Those events received extensive coverage, deservedly so because of the extremely high death toll, the terrible aftermath and mass relocations, and the fact that cameras and eyewitnesses were on hand to record the dramatic and traumatic scenes as they happened.

Also reported  by the media during the past 10 years, but now largely forgotten, were many other natural disasters that took a heavy toll of life and property and had a devastating impact on their local regions. These included:

2003 Iran earthquake. On Dec. 26, 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake nearly
leveled the city of Bam in Southeastern Iran. The quake struck at 5:26 a.m.
local time at a shallow depth of 10k (6.2 mi), and the epicenter was in close
proximity to this city of 100,000. Three quarters of the houses in Bam were
completely destroyed, mainly due to mud brick construction, and another 20%
badly damaged. Only a few buildings remained standing. An estimated 30,000
people died and another 30,000 were injured. In addition, in the greater Bam
region, 100,000 were left homeless in freezing winter weather. Because Tehran
lies on the same major fault line as Bam, the Iranian government, for a time,
considered moving the nation’s capital to a safer location. The Bam Fault is
one of several marking the conjunction of the Arabian and Eurasian tectonic
plates. The Arabian plate is pushing into the Eurasian plate at the rate of 3cm
(1 in) a year, causing a constant buildup of fault line stress.

2005 Kashmir earthquake. In northwest Pakistan, on October 8, 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the Kashmir Valley near the borders of India and Afghanistan. An estimated 86,000 people died in rock slides and collapsed mud brick homes. Hundreds of thousands of homeless had to spend a bitterly cold winter in tent cities hastily provided by international aid. The impacted area was only 100 km (62 mi) from the Pakistan capital Islamabad, and located on the same general fault system as Bam. Even worse, Kashmir is situated at a three-plate junction where the Arabian Plate and the Indian Plate thrust into the giant Eurasian Plate, making the area very unstable. To their credit, the press gave extensive coverage to the international effort that provided over US$5 billion in aid to this ravaged area.

2008 Cyclone Nargis. On May 2, 2008, Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit Burma with sustained winds of 105 mph (165kph), gusting to 135 mph (215kph). 138,000 died, according to official Burmese reports, although an additional 55,000 were reported missing and many other deaths were confirmed in outlying areas. The death toll was considered vastly underreported by the press. There was more media coverage of the Burmese government’s refusal to let relief supplies and aid organizations into the country, than of the devastation caused by the cyclone.

2008 Sichuan Earthquake. 10 days after Cyclone Nargis swept through neighboring Burma, on May 12, 2008, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck the Sichuan province of China. The epicenter was 12 mi (19k)deep on the Longmenshan Fault in a mountainous region of Sichuan on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The quake ruptured 186 miles (300 kilometers) of the fault line and was felt in Shanghai, over 1,000 miles away. This fault line where the Indian and Eurasian Tectonic Plates meet is geologically very active. 68,000 people died in the quake, an additional 18,000 were listed missing, and between 5 and 10 million were left homeless.

2010 Russian Heat Wave. In July, 2010, a massive high pressure ridge called a blocking high settled in for a prolonged stay over Ukraineand the Baltic states, blocking the winds that normally flow in a westerly direction that time of year. The result was the hottest summer in Russian history with temperatures reaching 42°C (108F), plus a summer-long drought, and stubborn wildfires that produced a thick, smoky haze over most of Russia. In Moscow, visibility was limited to a few hundred feet, and throughout Russia millions suffered from the effects of smoke inhalation. Before the summer was over, 56,000 people had died as a direct result of the heat and smog.

Is it the nature of the event itself or the amount of media coverage of the event that causes us to remember some natural disasters and forget others? Do we hear more about disasters that affect us more directly or are closer to home? Or is it decision making by media managers that assigns greater importance to one natural disaster over another? Or do some disasters just seem to be more important and more dramatic than others and therefore receive more attention? Maybe a little bit of all of the above.

A 2008 study by NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, last revised in August, 2011, indicates that global warming will very likely bring about these outcomes: (1) a 2% to 11% increase in hurricane intensity; (2) a doubling in the frequency of very intense – categories 4 and 5 – hurricanes; (3) higher rainfall rates than present day hurricanes, with a projected increase of 20% within 100 km (60 mi) of the storm center; (4)  no increase in the number of storms annually; (5) changes will be gradual, and probably not detectable for several decades.

Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, the two 2011 tropical storms that made landfall in mainland United States up to September 13, were not as intense as originally forecast, but were heavy rainmakers and caused considerable property damage and a number of deaths.

Irene, which started as a tropical wave off the west coast of Africa, grew to a category 3 hurricane in the Caribbean, but had dropped to a category 1 when it made landfall on August 27 in North Carolina with a wind speed of 85 mph (140kph). After going back out to sea, Irene made its second landfall in New Jersey, and had been downgraded to a tropical storm when it made its third landfall in Brooklyn, NY.  Heavy rain associated with the storm caused widespread flooding in New Jersey and Vermont. 55 people were confirmed dead as a result of the storm. Property loss was estimated at $10 billion.

Lee started as tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico and was upgraded to a tropical storm on September 2. It came ashore in Louisiana on September 3 with sustained winds of 45 mph (80kph), but was a slow moving and very wet storm, depositing 11 inches (28mm) of rain on New Orleans and Mobile in the first 24 hours. It tracked north, delivering 13 inches (33mm) to parts of Pennsylvania, causing the Susquehanna River to  crest at just over 42 feet (13m), the highest ever recorded. Wilkes-Barre, PA and Binghamton, NY sustained substantial flood losses.

Earlier, Tropical Storm Arlene, the first of the season, produced heavy rain in several Mexican states, triggering mudslides that killed 22.

While this was happening in North America, Typhoon Talas struck Japan. It, too, was a low intensity, slow moving storm that produced very heavy rain. Wind speed didn’t exceed 65 mph (100kph), but parts of Japan received 79 inches (2,000mm) of rain between September 3 and September 8. 59 people died and 50 were missing as a result of flooding and mountain mudslides.

Storm surge was not a factor in either Irene or Lee, but In stronger hurricanes, more people die from the storm surge than from the high winds. A storm surge is created by the wind’s piling the ocean’s surface higher than ordinary sea level. Low pressure at the center of the weather system has a secondary effect in the buildup of the sea and the energy of the surge. A category 4 hurricane tends to build an 18-ft (5.5m) surge, but during Katrina in 2008, 20-to-30 ft (6.1 to 9.1m) waves were reported along parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Hurricanes and all tropical cyclones start as a cluster of thunderstorms moving over warm ocean water registering 80F (26C) and greater. Thunderstorms form in areas of wind convergence. Off the west coast of Africa, the northern and southern equatorial winds collide and force warm moist air to rise and condense to form storm cluster formations called tropical disturbances. As a tropical disturbance grows and organizes, more water vapor condenses in rising air, causing the surface air pressure to drop.

As more warm moist air rises and condenses, the storm system increases in size, the surface pressure drops further, and the storm becomes a tropical depression. The earth’s rotation can impart a spin to the storm clouds at this point, causing even more warm moist air inside the spiral to rise and condense, enlarging the storm area, and increasing the storm’s wind speed. The formation becomes a tropical storm when wind speed reaches 39 mph to 73 mph (62-117 KPH). The storm becomes a category 1 hurricane when the wind strengthens to 74 mph to 95 mph. Here are the hurricane categories:

Category         Wind MPH       KPH                  Surge Ft           Meters

1                      74 to 95           118-152           5                      1.5

2                      96 to 110         153-176           8                      2.4

3                      111 to 130       177-208           12                    3.7

4                      131-155           209-248           18                    5.5

5                      155+                248+                18+                   5.5+

Tropical Cyclones are called hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the Western Pacific, and cyclones in India and Australia. Even though the North American Eastern and Gulf Coasts have experienced many highly destructive hurricanes, tropical cyclones with even more devastating consequences have occurred in the Bay of Bengal, where much of Bangladesh and parts of India are low-lying wetlands and wide open to storm surge damage. The northern end of the Bay of Bengal is funnel shaped, and storm surges become tidal bores that sweep many miles inland. The Bhola cyclone in 1970 had sustained winds of 140 MPH (224 KPH) and a storm surge of 35 feet (10.7m). 500,000 died. In April, 1991, a similar storm in the same area killed 150,000. The biggest storm surges recorded occurred in India in 1839 when a 40-ft (12.2m) surge killed 300,000; and in Bathurst Bay in Queensland, Australia in 1899 when a 42-ft (12.8m) surge killed 400. It was reported at the time that dolphins and fish were found atop cliffs surrounding Bathurst Bay.

One of the most notorious typhoons in American military history hit Okinawa in October, 1945, two months after the end of World War II. A large segment of the U.S. naval task force that had been assembled for the invasion of Japan was still anchored in Buckner Bay on the east coast of Okinawa. Typhoon Louise, which had developed south of Guam, took a sudden unexpected turn and headed straight for Okinawa, giving the fleet no advance warning and no time to put to sea. The typhoon struck with sustained winds of 100 MPH (160 KPH), gusting to 120 MPH (192 KPH). Waves in the bay rose to 35 ft (10.7m). The fleet task force was devastated. 12 ships were lost, 222 went aground, and more than 30 were badly damaged. 83 sailors were dead or missing, and another 100 badly injured. It was fortunate for the Allies that the surrender had already been signed. The crippled task force would have been hard pressed to carry out its mission had it been called upon to do so. Damage on the island, where 200,000 troops had been massed for the invasion of Japan, was equally severe. Roads were washed out. Supply depots were blown down, scattered, and drenched by seawater blowing across the island. Aircraft and landing strips were badly damaged. Most islanders and many soldiers took refuge in Okinawa’s many caves.

Typhoons changed the course of history in 13^th century Asia. The Mongolian leader Kublai Khan ruled all of mainland Asia, including Mongolia, China, and what is now Korea. The only Asian nation Kublai Kahn hadn’t conquered was Japan. In 1274, he assembled a fleet of hundreds of ships and thousands of soldiers and set out to invade the Japanese islands. Off the coast of Japan a typhoon struck the invading force. Most of the wooden ships were demolished and the rest retreated to the mainland. The Japanese called the typhoon Kamikaze, or divine wind. In 1281, Kublai Khan tried again, this time with thousands of ships and a hundred thousand soldiers. Once again a typhoon intervened, wrecking the invading fleet. Kublai Khan made no further attempt to conquer Japan. Twice, the Kamikaze divine wind had saved the Japanese empire. The Kamikaze pilots of World War II were named after the wind that saved Japan.

This is an updated revision of one of this website’s earlier articles. 

The dust storms persisted for ten years, the concentration of flying dirt so thick at times that people couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead. Frequently the strong winds would carry the black blizzards east to Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and other eastern U.S. cities, obscuring the sun and increasing the incidence of respiratory illness. Eventually, millions of tons of prime Great Plains topsoil sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Conditions made family farming in the Dust Bowl nearly impossible. Between 1935 and 1940, 2.5 million people gave up their farms and businesses in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, and migrated west, many of them ending up as migrant workers in California fruit orchards and vegetable fields.

Now, 75 years later, the southwestern U.S., including some of the original Dust Bowl territory, finds itself in the grip of another long-term drought. Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Oklahoma have had little or no rain for over a year. Weather forecasts indicate no sign of the drought letting up anytime soon.

On July 5, 2011, high-energy downdrafts triggered by thunderstorms south of Phoenix, Arizona, created 60 mph (96kph) winds that scooped up tons of drought-dry soil and formed into a gigantic dust storm 100 miles (160k) wide and 5,000 ft. (1,524m) high.  Minutes later, this menacing black front roared through Phoenix, coating everything with fine dirt, knocking out power, disrupting travel, and creating health problems.

According to research conducted by USGS, as global warming raises temperatures, dust storms in the American southwest will become more frequent. Average temperature in the region has risen by 1.5°F (approx. 1°C) since 1950, and is projected to increase another 4° to 10°F by the end of the century. Higher temperatures will not only spawn more dust storms, but will also reduce plant density, weakening roots that hold the soil together. Human activities such as farming on arid or semi-arid land, overgrazing, and use of off-road vehicles break the soil crust. This exposes the land to wind erosion and dust storm formation.

Even though long-term drought and adverse weather conditions may bring an increased number of dust storms to the southwest, a Dust Bowl disaster is not a likely outcome, mainly due to improved farming and soil conservation practices in use in the U.S. over the last 70 years. Dust storms will happen but will be localized, and probably not develop on the massive, region-wide scale of the 1930s. However, dust storms of Dust Bowl magnitude are occurring with increased frequency in Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and northwestern China. Although these dust storms appear to be confined to local regions, wind currents carry their dust in suspension to many other parts of the world.

West Africa. There has been a 10-fold increase in dust storms in Saharan Africa since 1950. The increase has been even more dramatic in specific areas, increasing in Mauritania from 2 dust storms in 1960, to 80 last year. These frequent and more powerful events have caused a major loss of topsoil in Niger, Mali, southern Algeria, Chad, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and northern Nigeria. Main causes of the dramatic change are deforestation and desertification through dry farming without soil conservation measures, loosening the parched soil which is then easily carried away by the high winds that occur in the region.

The African winds blow dust concentrations westward every year, depositing tons of dust and spores in the South Atlantic Ocean, and over a thousand miles away in Central and South America. As these dust clouds drift over the Atlantic, they screen out the sun and cool the ocean water, reducing evaporation, cloud formation, and rainfall. Dust settling in the Atlantic promotes algae bloom, a notorious fish and seafood killer. African dust storm health statistics are not readily available, but reports indicate many suffer from respiratory problems and there are a number of deaths from lung failure every year.

Northwest China. The huge area of China that borders Mongolia and Kazakhstan is semi-arid, with low annual rainfall. Dryland farming without appropriate conservation measures, and overgrazing of the vast high plains pastureland, have exposed loose, dry soil to the strong winds that come down out of the high mountains of Central Asia. These winds blow eastward toward China’s major cities . Beijing, China’s largest city, suffers a series of crippling dust storms every spring. When the dust storms strike, the sky turns orange, and breathing the air is hazardous to health. In recent years, the wind also picks up coal ash piled up outside manufacturing plants, and mixes it in with the soil dust. Coal ash contains high levels of mercury, so the dust storms originating in northwest China now deliver highly toxic clouds of dust, grit, and poisonous air to the cities of China.

Chinese dust storms don’t stop at the borders of China. Other Asian countries are in the path of the east-blowing jet stream, as are Hawaii, and continental United States. In 2001, a dust storm originating in northwest China took two weeks to cross the Pacific Ocean, finally delivering a dust plume 4 miles (7km) thick that hung for days in a dense haze over the Rocky Mountains from Canada to Colorado.

Middle East. Dust storms are an uncomfortable fact of life on the Arabian Peninsula, the vast dry area between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, which includes Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. In spring and summer, the subtropical jet stream pushes up from the south at the same time that the polar jet stream pours down from Europe, creating what is known locally as a shamal, a strong wind that blows across the region at over 40 mph (64kph). The shamal picks up fine desert sand in Jordan and Syria, plus silt from the Tigris and Euphrates basins, and blows it southeast as far as India and the horn of Africa.

A strong shamal can create a dust and sandstorm front hundreds of miles wide and over 10,000 ft (3,000m) high. It usually blows continuously for 3 to 5 days, making breathing difficult, gumming up machinery, and sandblasting paint off cars and structures. In 2005, a shamal-driven dust storm brought Baghad to a standstill, one hospital treating more than a thousand patients for respiratory distress. People living in the area can expect 20 to 50 days of shamal sandstorms every year.

As global warming progresses, dust storms around the world will most likely grow in size and frequency, and last longer. And dust storms don’t recognize national boundaries. African dust storms end up in South America, Chinese dust storms in North America, and Middle Eastern dust storms in India and Africa. The dust clouds often pick up other pollutants as they travel, making these storms a serious part of the air pollution problem around the world. We hope that better soil conservation practices, and environmentally safer manufacturing practices in developing countries, will one day reduce the damage in health and treasure presently inflicted on the world population by dust storms.           

Arizona and New Mexico wildfires. The Wallow fire in Arizona’s White Mountains burned for more than a month, blackening 866 square miles (2,240 square kilometers) (553,000 acres) (224,000 hectares) of national forest land before containment. High heat, strong winds, rugged terrain, and lack of rain made the blaze especially difficult to contain for the 1,300 firefighters on the line.

In neighboring New Mexico, the Las Conchas fire had burned 114,000 acres (46,000 hectares) of Santa Fe National Forest as it approached within 12 miles (20K) of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. More than 1,000 firefighters set up a containment line to keep the flames from reaching the nuclear facility’s waste storage area. A University of New Mexico geologist who studies the history of wildfires, stated that the behavior of southwestern firestorms in the last few decades “is at least as severe and maybe more so than anything we’ve seen since the last ice age.” Los Alamos Fire Chief Donald Tucker said, “We’ve seen fire behavior we’ve never seen down here, and it’s really aggressive.”

Texas drought. Texas has experienced the longest, most persistent drought in the state’s history. The entire state of Texas plus 32 counties in adjoining states were declared a disaster area by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Since August, 2010, the state had been plagued by heat, high winds, and lack of rain. Between November, 2010, and June, 2011, Texas wildfires had burned 3,300,000 acres (1,335,000 hectares). Parched grazing land forced ranchers to thin their herds by prematurely sending cattle to slaughter. Farmers throughout the state suffered extreme crop losses. One farmer said, “It’s so dry, the grass just crackles under my feet.” The June, 2011 high temperature recorded in one Texas city was 117F (47C). All farmers and ranchers in the disaster area are eligible to apply for aid from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

Missouri River flood. As heat and flame seared the southwest, the states in the northern plains fought to keep surging rivers from overflowing their banks. The 2010-2011 snowpack in the Rockies and other western mountain ranges was much heavier than normal, as was the spring runoff. Also, the stormy weather that brought tornadoes to some southern and Midwestern areas brought extremely heavy rain to the northern plains. The rain and runoff filled lakes and reservoirs to overflowing, and released extremely high volumes of water into the Missouri’s tributaries and into the river itself. The USDA estimated that the Missouri overflowed its banks and levees in several key places in Iowa, Nebraska, and Missouri, inundating 550,000 acres of farmland, and submerging a number of rural homes and grain storage and processing facilities.

Souris River flood. The Souris is a Canadian river with its source in Saskatchewan. It runs west to east, dipping south through Minot, North Dakota, then looping back north into Canada to join the Assiniboine River that empties into Lake Winnipeg. The Souris’s volume increases dramatically as it runs south into North Dakota. In this wetter than normal year, the river at maximum flood stage crested 4 ft (1.2m) above a record set 130 years ago. 3,000 homes in Minot were flooded out and 12,000 people evacuated to higher ground.

The role of La Niña. Approximately every 5 years, the ocean water in the tropical Pacific around Australia and Indonesia warms or cools at least 0.5 degrees C (0.9 degrees F). When it turns warmer, the condition is called El Niño. When it cools, it is a La Niña condition. This warming or cooling of the tropical ocean is accompanied by an atmospheric change in the western Pacific called the Southern Oscillation. High pressure sets in during an El Niño, and low pressure during La Niña. The combination of El Niño/La Niña and the Southern Oscillation is referred to as ENSO.

Mainly, El Niño/La Niña conditions impact the weather in countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. During La Niña, South America experiences drought conditions, and Australia and Asia very wet conditions. In the past, La Niñas have lasted 6 to 9 months. In recent years, they have been stronger and lasted longer. The current La Niña that has been the cause of the northern flooding and southern fires and droughts began in May, 2010, and lasted till June, 2011, at which point it began to weaken, but the damage had been done.

Typically, during a La Niña, Western Canada, the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, and the northern Midwestern states have above-average precipitation, while the southwestern and southeastern states have below-average precipitation. This time, the north was excessively wet and cool while the south was excessively dry and hot, indicating that these phases are hitting harder and lasting longer. Some scientists attribute this to global warming, but that is still under study. Also under study are the mechanics of the phenomena. Meteorologists, oceanographers, and other disciplines know what ENSO does, but can’t yet fully explain exactly why it does what it does.

If ENSO behaves as it has in the past, there will be a period of “normal” weather, during which ENSO will not be a factor. That will be followed by an El Niño, when conditions reverse. The northern tier will experience drier than normal conditions, and the southern tier will be wetter than normal.

The 2010-2011 La Niña produced a series of natural disasters while in full sway, including fires, droughts, tornadoes, and floods that killed hundreds and displaced thousands. Most people will be glad to see it go.

The death toll from all the tornadoes that ripped through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia from April 25 through April 28 exceeds 350, with hundreds more reported missing. More than 10,000 homes are reported destroyed, leaving thousands of people homeless. Federal and State emergency services are moving to find shelter for those in need while homes are being rebuilt. Rebuilding costs could exceed US$10 billion, according to one estimate.

            EF refers to the Enhanced Fujita Scale, a method of rating tornado strength. According to this scale, an EF4 tornado will have wind speeds of between 207 and 260 mph (333-418kph). Damage to structures in the tornado path will be severe. Houses will be leveled or blown away, cars thrown, debris missiles flying at high speeds, and high rise structures toppled. Actually, the 165 mph funnel speed reported by the National Weather Service for the Tuscaloosa tornado indicates an EF3, rather than an EF4, but it has been reported as an EF4, possibly based on severity of the damage.

This 2011 series of tornadoes is the second most destructive in U.S. history, in terms of lives lost. The deadliest U.S. tornado occurred in March, 1925. Called the Tri-State tornado, this storm carved a 200-mile (322km) path of death and destruction across Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, taking over 700 lives. The annual average number of tornadoes in the U.S. over the past three years was 1,376. The preliminary count in 2011 as of April 30 is 1,013, with several months left in the tornado season.

Meteorologists now have ways of measuring the energy within a storm system and can predict the high probability of a tornado and the probable area affected. Based on this information, the National Weather Service can issue tornado watches and warnings, but they still cannot predict exactly when and where the tornado will hit. It is up to those in the general warning area to take the necessary precautions. In Tuscaloosa many people did take the right protective steps, but the tornado was so powerful, it took the lives of some who had taken refuge in places that would ordinarily be considered safe. 

            Tornadoes are spawned when warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico flows north in early spring into the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. This blanket of warm, humid air rises and mingles with layers of cooler air coming in from Canada or the Pacific Ocean. The rising warm air condenses when it meets the cool air if enough moisture is present, and cumulus clouds are formed. The rising convection currents tend to create energy and instability within the cumulus formation. In some cases, the energy moves vertically down from the base of the cumuliform cloud to the ground in the form of a spinning vortex or funnel cloud. Exactly why some cumuliform clouds become rain, hail, or thunderstorms, and others become tornadoes seems to depend on the amount of energy developed within the cloud. When the energy level inside a cloud reaches a certain point and a strong rotating updraft (mesocyclone) develops, the storm formation is called a supercell. It is from supercells that violent tornadoes are produced.

Although the National Weather Service can issue tornado warnings for general areas, there is no way to predict the final path of the funnel cloud, and therefore it is hard for people living the area to move out of the tornado’s path ahead of time. In some cases, it is possible to judge the tornado’s path by watching it move once it appears on the horizon. But tornadoes can travel at up to 70 mph (112kph), so moving clear in the few minutes available is often not possible. The best thing to do for most people is to move quickly into a previously prepared safe and secure place. Basements and cellars, and prefrably under a sturdy piece of furniture such as a work bench, are considered best. If a house does not have a cellar or basement, it is recommended that you move to a small room in the middle of the house such as a closet or bathroom.

Churches and other local organizations were the first to respond with aid to people who lost their homes. The American Red Cross and other disaster relief organizations are accepting donations to special tornado relief funds to provide long-term food and shelter to those in need until the insurance companies pay claims and state and federal emergency aid comes through. Many millions throughout the United States and the world share the pain of those who suffered losses in these storms. It is fervently hoped that healing comes in time, and that people are back in their rebuilt homes and life returns to normal soon.            

            The earthquake and tsunami devastated Sendai and other cities and villages along the northeastern Honshu coast. It is estimated that more than 10,000 have died, many more thousands are injured and missing, and many more thousands homeless. The financial loss is thought to be in excess of US$100 billion. An added complication is the damage sustained by three nuclear reactors along that part of the coast. Measurable radiation was discharged into the atmosphere as a result of explosions in two of the reactors, and residents have been evacuated in a 20km (12 mi) radius. Meltdown is considered a possibility. People all over the world are mourning with the people of Japan, and many governments have come forth with offers of aid and financial assistance.

Ring of Fire. The Japan Trench is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the series of connecting fault lines, volcanic arcs, and undersea trenches that start in New Zealand and follow the Pacific Rim around Australia, up through Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, the Aleutian Islands, and down the coasts of North America and South America to Tierra del Fuego. The Ring of Fire marks the boundary of the Pacific Plate and the continental plates of the various land masses around the Pacific Basin. The Pacific Plate is moving north at a rate of between 4 cm (1.4 in) and 10 cm (3.5 in) a year, depending on location, exerting constant pressure on the slower and opposite-moving continental plates. Stress builds up over hundreds of years until a section of the fault line ruptures. Energy released by the sudden earth movement can produce extremely powerful earthquakes and tsunamis. In the case of the March 11 Sendai earthquake, in a period of 6 minutes the Okhotsk Plate moved 2.4m (7.9 ft) to the west, while a 500km (310 mi) section of the Pacific Plate thrust eastward under the Okhotsk Plate by an estimated 40m (130 ft). At the same time, that area of the coastline dropped .6m (2 ft).

Can it happen to you? People who live in other countries on the Pacific Rim are no doubt wondering if such a catastrophic event can happen to them. In the past 7 years, earthquakes and tsunamis have caused significant loss of life in 4 other Ring of Fire countries. In Dec. 2004, a 9.1 earthquake struck in the Indian Ocean off the island of Sumatra, triggering a deadly tsunami. More than 200,000 people died in Indonesia, Thailand, and other countries bordering the Indian Ocean. In Sept. 2009, an 8.3 earthquake in the Tonga Trench started a tsunami that took 119 lives in Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga. In February 2010, an 8.8 earthquake in the Chile Trench sent a tsunami sweeping into villages along the Chilean coast, killing 480. In February 2011, a 6.3 earthquake demolished the center of Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 165.

US West Coast. Seismologists have been speculating that the next major undersea earthquake and tsunami of magnitude 9.0 or greater could very well happen on the Cascadia Subduction Zone which runs undersea along the coast of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. The last major event on the Cascadia was a Magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that struck that part of the North American coast in 1700. The area was not populated by Europeans at the time and no eyewitness accounts of the event were recorded. However, damage to trees many miles inland have been dated to match the 1700 event; and records in Japan indicate the tsunami travelled across the Pacific Ocean, damaging villages and taking lives there. Geologic records show that over the eons, the Cascadia has had a major slippage every 300 to 600 years. If a 9.0 or greater earthquake on the Cascadia were to occur today at a shallow depth within a few miles of the coast, destruction and loss of life in Pacific Northwest communities would be severe.

Even though there are identified areas where fault line stress is at or near the rupture point, there is no way to tell in advance where the next major earthquake, and associated tsunami, perhaps, will happen. If you live in an earthquake or tsunami prone area, the best advice is found in that old boy scout motto: Be Prepared.

            The Russian Drought. Starting in June, 2010, what meteorologists call an anticyclone blocking high moved in over Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic States, blocking the normal westerly flow of wind over that vast area. The stubborn high pressure ridge locked in and stayed until August, bringing weeks of the hottest and driest weather the region had ever known. And the most destructive.

            Temperatures during the period ranged from 35C (95F) to 44C Z(108F), a new record for highest temperature ever recorded in Russia. On average, the weather was 7C  (12.6F) hotter than normal. There was no rain, no relief. The heat continued day after day for more than 2 months.

Forest fires and peat bog fires began burning in July, creating a thick smoky smog that hung in the air for weeks, sickening millions of people. Carbon monoxide levels in Moscow were 4 times higher than normal. Visibility in Moscow was reduced to 300m (980 ft). A satellite image showed the smoke cloud covering Western Russia at a height of 12km (40,000ft), and 2,980km (1,850 mi) wide.

It is estimated that 56,000 people died from the effects of the heat wave and the smog blanket. The economic harm to Russia in agricultural losses, healthcare costs, and infrastructure damage exceeded fifteen billion in US dollars.

The Australian Floods. A few months later, in December, 2010 and January, 2011, a perfect storm of climate events produced record flooding in the state of Queensland in northeast Australia.

It started with the onset of the La Nina oscillation cycle during which the ocean in the tropical eastern Pacific along the South American coast turns colder, and the water in the tropical western Pacific around Australia and Indonesia turns warmer. In this case, the ocean temperature along the South American Pacific Coast dropped 4C (7.2F), and the ocean temperature around northern Australia rose 1.5C (2.7F).

The increase in ocean temperature was higher than the normal La Nina increase, attributed in part to global warming. In the last 50 years, earth’s average temperature has risen by .75C (1.3F). In Chile and Peru, less moisture rose from the cooler sea, bringing extended dry weather to that region. A surplus of moisture rose from the warmer Australian waters to form denser rain clouds and heavier rain.

The next event was the arrival of the seasonal monsoon trough, when the rain belt sweeps down out of China, wraps around Borneo, and blows across Northern Australia in a westerly direction, a reversal of normal wind patterns. Moisture rising from the warmer ocean water made 2010 one of the wettest monsoon seasons and one of the wettest springs in Queensland’s history, saturating the ground prior to the arrival of the December storms.

The third event, Tropical Cyclone Tasha, swept into Queensland on December 24, at the same time the monsoon was delivering its heaviest rainfall. That powerful combination hammered northeast Australia with record amounts of rain. December, 2010, was Queensland’s wettest December on record. For a 3-week period, Queensland’s many rivers continued rising, overflowed their banks, and inundated an area the size of France and Germany combined. The Fitzroy River’s flood level peaked at 15.36m (50.4ft) and the Burnett River peaked at 18.25m (59.9ft).

35 people died in the flooding and 9 are missing. Over 200,000 people were evacuated when floodwaters threatened their homes. More than 70 towns and cities sustained flood damage, and thousands of kilometers of highway were damaged. It is estimated that it will cost the Australian government A$30 billion in infrastructure repair and lost revenue. This estimate will probably rise when the damage sustained from the Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Yani is added in.

Climate scientists have been predicting that, as global warming continues, extreme events of this kind will become more common. Rains will be wetter, droughts will be hotter and last longer. Whether the cause can be attributed to global warming or a natural climate cycle or both, it appears that extreme weather events are more and more becoming the norm rather than the exception.

            In 2010 alone, more than 4,000 people lost their lives in landslides in Uganda, Brazil, China, Colombia, Guatemala, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Mexico, and other parts of the world. The costs in property loss, evacuations, and restoration amount to many billions of dollars a year. These landslides followed periods of prolonged or heavy rain that saturated and destabilized the hillside, causing a portion of it to detach and slide. Earthquakes and volcanoes also produce landslides that take lives, but those fatalities are attributed to the major causal event, not to the landslides.  

            Landslides don’t often make the major headlines because the death toll per event is usually in the hundreds instead of the thousands as is often the case in a major earthquake, volcano, or tsunami. And 2010 was not an unusual year in terms of landslide damage.  Landslides go on month after month, year after year, wherever and whenever heavy rain penetrates susceptible soil on an incline.

            What puts the slide in landslide? There are many underlying causes. Some are natural and some are manmade. Natural hillsides are inherently stable. Some of the things that destabilize them and make them vulnerable to collapse are:

            Removal of Vegetation. Vegetation absorbs water and keeps a hillside dry. The root systems tend to strengthen and stabilize the ground. A forest fire caused by lightning would be a natural cause of vegetation removal. Clear-cutting of timber on that slope would be a manmade cause. Both natural and manmade causes weaken the soil and make it susceptible to failure.

            Addition of Moisture. Heavy rain or heavy snowfall can put hillsides at risk. Most soils transform into mud when saturated with water. Water infusion also reduces the friction between soil particles. Without enough friction to hold the soil in place, a heavy mass of mud can detach from the hillside and slide to the bottom.

            Addition of weight.  Heavy rainfall or snowfall is also nature’s way of adding weight to a slope. Grading for building pads and adding fill is a manmade way of adding weight. Both can contribute to a landslide when other factors are in place.

            Other Human Factors. Road building on a slope, and cultivating and irrigating a slope for farming, can loosen and destabilize the hillside soil.

            Here a few notable landslide examples:

            Guwahati, Assam, India – 1948 – 500 died in a landslide following a heavy rain.

            Wayakama Prefecture, Japan – 1953 – 1,046 died in landslides after typhoon rains.

            Longarone, Italy – 1963 – 2,000 died after heavy rains and failure of a check dam caused heavy debris flow into valley villages.

            Vargas, Venezuela – 1999 – 30,000 died after days of torrential rains brought slippage to steep hillsides above many towns and villages in Vargas state. One area of homes was buried under 3 meters (10 ft) of mud. Whole villages completely disappeared.

            Southern Leyte, Philippine Islands – 2006 – 1,126 died when a hillside collapsed after 10 days of heavy rain. The resulting debris avalanche buried a village including 240 children in the local school.

            Taiwan – 2009 – 600 died when a typhoon dumped 3 meters (100 in) of rain in 24 hours, triggering mudslides that destroyed villages in mountainous areas of the island.

            Gansu Province, China – 2010 – 1,700 died after days of heavy rains caused mudslides that destroyed villages in the mountains and deep valleys of this area of central China.

            In large metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle where homes have been built on or below hillsides, mitigation measures have helped to reduce landslide damage but have not eliminated it.  Mitigation measures include check dams to reduce runoff, hillside drainage systems, retaining walls, and hillside reinforcement. Even with all these mitigation measures, almost every year after a rainy period, hillsides still slide and homes are lost.

            Wherever one finds a combination of a steep slope and heavy rain, landslides and mudslides will often happen. They occur hundreds of times a year all over the world. As long as people build homes on and below hillsides and mountainsides, there will be casualties and damage to property.

            As population continues to increase, the amount of arable land in the world is declining due to desertification, erosion, deforestation, and urban sprawl. In many parts of the world, the productivity of the land is also declining, because of depletion of nutrients in the soil from overuse. To balance that, higher-yield farming techniques and genetically engineered crops can increase food production despite the loss of farming acreage. However, will there be enough increased production to feed an ever expanding world population?

Other factors that will influence available food production are (1) Global Warming. Rising temperatures are expected to bring drought to the tropics and subtropics and floods to other parts of the world, both of which will bring new challenges to farming in those areas. (2) Energy Supply. As oil production declines, the cost of energy to run pumps, farm machinery, and to manufacture fertilizer will rise. (3) Transportation Costs. The cost of transporting food to market and shipping food from areas of high production such as the U.S., Australia, and Argentina to areas of low production and great need such as Africa and the Middle East will increase. In the last 10 years, world wheat prices have risen more than 250%.

Fresh water is a finite resource. There is only so much of it, and that won’t change.  As world population grows, amount of water per person will decline accordingly. A UNESCO study shows that 97.5% of earth’s water is salt water and only 2.5% fresh water. Of that, 66% is frozen in glaciers and polar icecaps. An estimated 69% of available fresh water is used for irrigating crops, 22% for industrial production, and 8% for household use, including bathing, sanitation, cooking, and gardening.

Some of the worldwide problems facing water supply are (1) Depletion of Aquifers. Ground water is being pumped out far faster than nature replaces it. If this unsustainable rate of withdrawal is not corrected, aquifers eventually will be pumped dry. In coastal areas, ground water depletion is allowing sea water to intrude into the water supply. (2) Global Warming. Higher temperatures will increase water supply evaporation. Rapid glacier and ice cap melt means more fresh water will be lost to the sea. As high mountain glaciers recede, annual melt flow to the headwaters of major river systems will gradually subside. Once the glaciers in the Himalayas and Alps are gone, important river systems of Asia and Europe could go dry. (3) Pollution. Increase in population brings about like increases in waste creation and waste disposal. In many parts of the world, raw sewage is still dumped into oceans and lakes and rivers, threatening water quality and promoting the spread of waterborne diseases. Chemical waste dumped by governments and industry, urban storm runoff, and agricultural runoff including chemical fertilizer waste, all compound the water quality problem.      

            Does the world community have the will and the resources to meet these challenges? It may take heavy investment in sanitation infrastructure and perhaps an acceptance of living with less to pull us through. All through history, people have been able to respond to crises and make the adjustments needed to keep the planet a viable place to live. As population growth threatens our ability to cope, let us hope we can rise to the occasion once again.