Scientists warn: more bad storms on the way

Extreme weather phenomena are becoming commonplace. Scientists believe that the synoptic catastrophes are due to global warming.

Over the past two weeks our planet has been hit by two powerful tropical storms — Katrina and Nabi. The first devastated New Orleans on August 29, while the second struck Japan and Russia's Far East a few days ago. Next in line is Malaysia. Ti Li Hu, a meteorologist with the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, announced recently that the country is going to be swept by a powerful typhoon with devastation similar to that of the United States and Japan. The UN expert links this turn to global changes in the earth's climate. Unlike these two countries, Malaysia is unprepared for the onslaught of tropical storms: Until now storms have been bypassing it.

This past week witnessed a lively discussion about the impact of global warming on natural catastrophes. In its latest issue Nature published an article titled After the Flood with its subhead reading; "Academic experts say they were all too aware of the devastation that would claim New Orleans and its surroundings in the wake of a fierce hurricane. Could they have done any more to convince politicians of the need to protect the city?" The phrase actually provides an answer: They did not do everything they could. This refers not only to specific situation: Experts believe they do not really try to alert the powers that be to the climate changes that are already occurring on the planet.

Last week, the journal published on its web site sensational revelations by a U.S. climatologist Kerry Emmanuel who compared the temperature on the oceanic surface and cyclonic wind speed over the past 70 years. It turned out that these indicators have more than doubled. The author believes that the increase in water temperature on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean affects the frequency and power of hurricanes. By 2010 the temperature is expected to rise by several degrees, which means that there, will be more typhoons.

This view is shared by Russian scientists. Pavel Demchenko, a senior research associate at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics Climatic Theory Laboratory, told this reporter that global warming will without a doubt make natural catastrophes more frequent and devastating. This especially applies to droughts and floods. The relationship between climate changes and tropical cyclones has yet to be studied.

HOW SCIENTISTS FORECAST HURRICANES AND TYPHOONS

Weathermen have yet to learn to accurately predict the moment a tropical hurricane or typhoon is born. The places on earth where this typically happens are well-known, however, as are typhoon motion paths; In other words, scientists know where but do not know when. Nevertheless, from the moment a hurricane is born, which as a general rule is registered by aerial imagery, its movement is closely tracked. This is done with the help of weather satellites and cyclone monitoring aircraft that patrol areas hundreds of kilometers from the coast line, often penetrating into the center of a cyclone to get more accurate data. The basic criteria used to assess the danger of a particular hurricane are wind speed, the height of waves, the impact on ground-based installations and the coast line, and pressure at the eye of a hurricane. By the level of pressure, Katrina ranks third on the list of the most devastating hurricanes in history, recorded since 1851. Katrina was a Category Five storm, the highest ranking on the five-point scale.

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