Namibian towns must plan for disasters

John Ekongo in AllAfrica.com via New Era (Namibia): Municipalities in the country have been urged to consider putting into place policies that will address issues of global warming in their own backyards in the event of an emergency. Governor of the Erongo Region, Cleophas Mutjavikua, brought this concern to the fore yesterday while addressing the three-day African Mayor's Climate Change Declaration Conference in Walvis Bay.



He said Namibia is one of the countries that will be adversely affected by global warming and climate change because of its aridity, hence Namibian town authorities should prioritise climate change issues. "The country is characterised by high climate variability, evident from persistent droughts, unpredictable and variable rainfall patterns, variability in temperatures and scarcity of water. The country also experiences high solar radiation, low humidity and high temperatures," he said.



Mutjavikua expressed concern that many local authorities are highly vulnerable to climate change and few possess capacity for adaptation - let alone capacity to deal with disaster associated with climatic change.



Over the years, Rundu, Windhoek, Oshakati, Ondangwa, Walvis Bay and Henties Bay have all experienced the harsh realities of climatic change - with floods, heavy rainfall, pest-infested crop fields and rising river levels all threatening livelihoods and infrastructure in the towns. Towns can only mitigate the impact of climatic change if they start taking global warming issues seriously, said Mutjavikua...



An aerial view of Windhoek, shot by Brian McMorrow, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

Hurricane Irene hits the Caribbean

Al-Jazeera.net: The first hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season has developed in the Caribbean. Irene, the ninth storm of the season, developed over the Leeward Islands of Guadeloupe and Dominica and strengthened as it barrelled west towards Puerto Rico and Hispaniola.



As the storm crossed Puerto Rico, the winds topped 120kph, and Tropical Storm Irene was reclassified as Hurricane Irene; the Caribbean Islands began to prepare for the worst. Before making landfall in Puerto Rico, the authorities identified the storm as potentially life-threatening. "We have to take this seriously," the Puerto Rico governor, Luis Fortuno, warned.



The ban on Sunday morning shopping was lifted so residents could stock-pile canned food and bottled water, and would not need to venture out in the storm. Emergency shelters were opened and people in flood zones were urged to use them. People in secure houses were ordered to stay inside and stay off the roads until the storm had passed.



The hurricane flooded streets and caused rivers to overflow their banks, as it raged over the island. Winds brought down trees and left more than a million Puerto Ricans without power, but there were no immediate reports of any deaths. Schools and government offices will now remain closed on Monday, whilst the clear-up operation is underway.



After hitting Puerto Rico, the hurricane is now heading towards Hispaniola, the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. A hurricane warning has already been issued for the north coast of the Dominican Republic and although the storm is only a category one hurricane at the moment, there are concerns that it will strengthen in the next few days.



Hurricane Irene is a slow-moving storm, moving northwest at only 19 kph, which is not good news. The longer the storm is over an area, the more rain and damage it will cause. The hurricane is expected to swamp Hispaniola, the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands with 25cm of rain, and some spots could see up to 50cm. This will cause life-threatening flash-flooding and mudslides….



Tropical Storm Irene (now officially a hurricane) gaining strength on August 21, 2011. From NASA

Time to begin anticipating and adapting to climate change

PhysOrg: Despite the uncertainties surrounding climate change, it is time to start developing effective strategies that will keep the nation's transportation systems and other critical infrastructure running in the face of the adverse impacts that seem increasingly likely to occur.



This consensus emerged from a two-day leadership summit that brought together major stakeholders from the $1 trillion-plus freight transportation sector with climate change researchers to discuss the issue for the first time. The meeting was held in June at Vanderbilt University and was sponsored by the Vanderbilt Center for Transportation Research (VECTOR), Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment (VIEE) and the University of Memphis' Intermodal Freight Transportation Institute.



"It is increasingly clear that climate change will have potentially large impacts on the nation's highways, railroads, waterways, airports and pipelines. In all likelihood, these impacts will increase in the future, so we have to learn how to plan ahead," said George Hornberger, director of VIEE and distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering.



According to the University Center for Atmospheric Research, more than 75 percent of natural disasters are triggered directly or indirectly by weather and climate. In the U.S., more than a quarter of our gross national product (+$2 trillion) is sensitive to weather and climate events, which affect our health, safety, economy, environment, transportation systems and national security. Each year, the U.S. sustains billions of dollars in weather-related damages caused by hurricanes, tornadoes, forest fires, flooding, heavy snows and drought. The threats associated with extreme weather and climate change are substantial and adapting to climate change will be crucial to economic and social stability, for example by making future water, food and energy supplies reliable and sustainable. Contributing to these costs is the problem of the nation's aging infrastructure, which needs $2.2 trillion in improvements to meet today's demands, according to the 2009 National Infrastructure Report Card by the American Society of Civil Engineers….



A clear day on the Autobahn, shot by Danny Steaven, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 1.0 Generic license

Measurements at California pier reveal extent of leakage from damaged Fukushima reactor

University of Califorinia at San Diego: Atmospheric chemists at the University of California, San Diego, report the first quantitative measurement of the amount of radiation leaked from the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima, Japan, following the devastating earthquake and tsunami earlier this year.



Their estimate, reported August 15 in the early, online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is based on a signal sent across the Pacific Ocean when operators of the damaged reactor had to resort to cooling overheated fuel with seawater. “In any disaster, there’s always a lot to be learned by analysis of what happened,” said senior author Mark Thiemens, Dean of the Division of Physical Sciences at UC San Diego. “We were able to say how many neutrons were leaking out of that core when it was exposed.”



On March 28, 2011, 15 days after operators began pumping seawater into the damaged reactors and pools holding spent fuel, Thiemens’ group observed an unprecedented spike in the amount of radioactive sulfur in the air in La Jolla, California. They recognized that the signal came from the crippled power plant.



Neutrons and other products of the nuclear reaction leak from fuel rods when they melt. Seawater pumped into the reactor absorbed those neutrons, which collided with chloride ions in the saltwater. Each collision knocked a proton out of the nucleus of a chloride atom, transforming the atom to a radioactive form of sulfur.



When the water hit the hot reactors, nearly all of it vaporized into steam. To prevent explosions of the accumulating hydrogen, operators vented the steam, along with the radioactive sulfur, into the atmosphere. In air, sulfur reacts with oxygen to form sulfur dioxide gas and then sulfate particles. Both blew across the Pacific Ocean on prevailing westerly winds to an instrument at the end of the pier at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography where Thiemens’ group continuously monitors atmospheric sulfur.



Using a model based on NOAA’s observations of atmospheric conditions at the time, the team determined the path air took on its way to the pier over the preceding 10 days and found that it led back to Fukushima....



Air laden with radioactive sulfur can be traced to the source near the Fukushima reactor in Japan using data collected by NOAA. Image Credit: Gerardo Dominguez

Effective disaster reduction steps for Pakistan

Dawn (Pakistan): International aid agency Oxfam has said that an effective disaster reduction mechanism could have prevented the effects of fresh flooding in southern areas of Pakistan. It urged the government to urgently spend at least two per cent of its district budget on disaster risk reduction measures. “Failure to develop and implement effective disaster reduction relief measures after the lessons learnt from mega floods of 2010 will keep crippling country’s economy,” Oxfam said in a statement issued here on Thursday to mark the World Humanitarian Day.



The new flooding has put an additional stress on the government’s limited resources at a time when even a year after the 2010 floods many reconstruction and rehabilitation needs are still unmet, including the repair of embankments. This has particularly put the flood-prone areas at greater risk as the monsoon rains intensify. The fresh flooding has increased the number of those needing shelter, making 60,000 people homeless together with 800,000 people who are still without proper homes after the 2010 floods.



“Humanitarian assistance provides valuable and life-saving assistance to those in need during crises. However, it is the communities that face and cope with the first wave of disaster themselves before the government and aid workers can start their rescue and relief operations.



“Therefore, it is extremely important to ensure that communities are better prepared for disasters so that they are less reliant on outside assistance and can help themselves by mitigating losses at an early stage of disaster,” said Neva Khan, head of Oxfam in Pakistan. She said: “It is unfortunate that despite being a disaster-prone country people still continue to suffer year after year, and absence of effective disaster reduction relief measures is the main reason....

NOAA's National Weather Service taking action to build a 'weather-ready' nation

NOAA News: NOAA is launching a comprehensive initiative to build a "Weather-ready" nation to make America safer by saving more lives and protecting livelihoods as communities across the country become increasingly vulnerable to severe weather events, such as tornado outbreaks, intense heat waves, flooding, active hurricane seasons, and solar storms that threaten electrical and communication systems.



NOAA is also announcing that the United States has so far this year experienced nine separate disasters, each with an economic loss of $1 billion or more — tying the record set in 2008. The latest event to surpass the $1 billion price tag is this summer’s flooding along the Missouri and Souris rivers in the upper Midwest. This year’s losses have so far amounted to more than $35 billion.



"Severe weather represents a very real threat to public safety that requires additional robust action," said Jack Hayes, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service. "The increasing impacts of natural disasters, as seen this year, are a stark reminder of the lives and livelihoods at risk." In partnership with other government agencies, researchers, and the private sector, the National Weather Service is charting a path to a weather-ready nation through:

• Improved precision of weather and water forecasts and effective communication of risk to local authorities;
• Improved weather decision support services with new initiatives such as the development of mobile-ready emergency response specialist teams;
• Innovative science and technological solutions such as the nationwide implementation of Dual Pol radar technology, Integrated Water Resources Science and Services, and the Joint Polar Satellite System;
• Strengthening joint partnerships to enhance community preparedness;
• Working with weather enterprise partners and the emergency management community to enhance safety and economic output and effectively manage environmental resources....