United Nations Warns Of More Weather Disasters: Hype Or Reality

Is this information about an increasing number of storms of greater severity true? Or is this more distorted reality coming from the United Nations to support their position on man-caused global warming? There are a lot of games being played by scientists and politicians. Our goal should always be to seek out the truth.
Peter

from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20212072/

Prepare for more weather disasters, U.N. warns
Emergencies have doubled, in line with warming scenarios
UNITED NATIONS - Serious flooding affects 500 million people every year and has become a major problem not just in Asian countries with annual monsoons and typhoons but in countries such as Sudan, Colombia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan, a senior U.N. official said Thursday.
Assistant Secretary-General Margareta Wahlstrom, the U.N. deputy emergency relief coordinator, said floods and weather-related disasters accounted for 59 percent of all reported disasters last year.
Between 2004 and 2006 there was an increase from 200 to 400 emergencies, with the number of floods increasing from 60 to more than 100, Wahlstrom said. This year, there have been about 70 floods up to August, she said.

Changes in weather patterns were documented on Wednesday by the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization, which noted natural disasters hit the poor hardest.
Heat waves were above average in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. And the Arabian sea near Oman had it first ever documented cyclone, WMO said.

These findings are in line with those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. umbrella group of experts, which had reported an increase in extreme weather events over the past 50 years and said these were likely to intensify.

Wahlstrom said scientists have been warning humanitarian workers to "keep doing what you're doing, be prepared for more and extreme (weather events), but not only in the places where you're used to responding to disasters." The U.N. cited as examples of the unexpected the July heat wave in Europe, the cyclone in Oman in June, and floods this summer in Sudan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, South Asia, Afghanistan and Colombia.

Wahlstrom praised the huge investments in countries historically affected by floods and other weather events in preparing for disasters and instituting early warning systems, which has meant there have been limited deaths despite tens of millions of people being affected.
But she said "the great risk is that large numbers of people are living in the most vulnerable areas of the world," including fertile delta areas and along coastlines. "So the challenge to countries, organizations, and individuals is: Can we change our behavior so that we reduce the impact of these events, knowing that over the next 20 years for sure, we will have more serious weather-related events?" Wahlstrom asked.


Deaths have been reduced because of early warning systems and other factors but the economic toll on a community’s housing, health and infrastructure still is devastating, said Wahlstrom.
According to the U.N., last year 83 percent of disaster victims lived in Asia, and disasters caused more than $25 billion in economic damage in Asia. That compares with $34.5 billion in economic damage from the more than 400 reported natural disasters in 2006, the U.N. said.
And in many areas of the world people go back to where they came from, regardless of warnings of another disaster, having few alternatives.


In the Philippines, for example, five cyclones hit in 10 weeks and people returned to their homes, many of them fertile river deltas or coastal areas with seaports.
“But if a bridge keeps breaking down in the same river, and keeps being rebuilt, there is a responsibility of local authorities ... who don’t ask themselves the right questions,” Wahlstrom said.

World Climate Predictors Right Only Half The Time

I think this Dr. Renwick, is being optimistic when he states that they can only achieve around 50 per cent accuracy in it's climate (or is it weather) forecasts. However, I'll take his word for it. I hope politicians around the world begin to listen more closely to the scientists, and not the UN's IPCC bureaucrats.
Peter


World climate predictors right only half the time

Friday,8 June 2007, 10:25 amPress Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition Media release (immediate) 7 June 2007
World climate predictors right only half the time
"The open admission by a climate scientist of the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Dr Jim Renwick, that his organisation achieves only 50 per cent accuracy in its climate forecasts, and that this is as good as any other forecaster around the world, should be a wake-up call for world political leaders," said Rear Admiral Jack Welch, chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

Yesterday the coalition published an analysis of seasonal climate predictions by NIWA over the past five years which found that the overall accuracy of the predictions was just 48 per cent.
Defending the Niwa record, Dr Renwick said his organisation was doing as well as any other weather forecaster around the world. He was quoted by the country's leading newspaper, the New Zealand Herald as saying: "Climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well." Later on New Zealand radio, Dr Renwick said: "The weather is not predictable beyond a week or two."

Admiral Welch said that these statements warrant immediate attention by governments around the world. "Dr Renwick is no lightweight. He was a lead author on Working Group I of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report, and serves on the World Meteorological Organisation Commission for Climatology Expert Team on Seasonal Forecasting. He is presumed to be au fait with the abilities of the official governmental climate prediction community round the world.

"All round the developed world, governments are being pressured by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to accept the integrity of scenarios of future climate behaviour agreed by their own climate bureaucrats, but these bureaucrats are the very people that Dr Renwick now tells us get it right only half the time. Worse, he tells us they are unable to predict weather beyond a week or two, yet in conjunction with the IPCC they presume to tell us what to expect over the next few decades.

"The link between climate and weather is well known: climate is determined by averaging weather variables over an extended period (usually 30 years) at one place or for a region. How can there be any faith in climate predictions by officials who admit they are unable to forecast the weather beyond a week or two?

"Perhaps now, governments will pay heed to those many independent climate scientists around the world who have been challenging the exaggerated projections by IPCC officials, and those political zealots such as Al Gore who use those predictions to mislead the ordinary public.

"In the light of these revelations and recent strong evidence that the sun not carbon dioxide controls the climate, the new Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon would do the world a great service by creating an opportunity for the world to hear from the independent scientists who disagree with the IPCC's blaming mankind for climate variability that is natural and historic.

There is no scientific justification for some of the extremist economic and social penalties that a minority of zealots are trying to impose on the people of the world.
"This is a matter of grave import and urgency for poorer nations who will suffer most from the proposed penal measures, " said Admiral Welch.