"‘Rain not unusually high; a combination of factors caused floods’."
7/8/13, "No evidence of cloudburst, says climate scientist," The Hindu,"
"While popular scientific speculation about the devastating floods in Uttarakhand tend to attribute them to a torrential ‘cloudburst’, a senior climatologist with the Indian Institute of Science has contended that, curiously, the rainfall received in Kedarnath on June 16 and 17 “was not unusual” in these parts.
J.
Srinivasan, chairman of the Divecha Center for Climate Change, says
that his analysis of satellite data (there were no automatic rain gauges
in this valley) indicates that the heaviest spell of rainfall, which
lasted a few hours, did not exceed 20 mm/hr. Whereas, “a cloud burst is
an intense rainfall event with rainfall intensity above 100 mm/hr,”
Prof. Srinivasan says in the latest edition of journal Current Science....
The professor, who coincidently had a narrow escape from the floods while travelling to Badrinath, says that the India Meteorological Department had, in fact, used computer models to correctly predict heavy rain (over 100 mm/day) in Uttarakhand 48 hours before it occurred, and that a warning on the 16th could have saved lives.
There is an “insufficient interaction between operational agencies and academic/research institutions in tackling problems of immediate relevance to the country.” Prof. Srinivasan cautions, however, that Uttarakhand has seen several intense rainfall episodes in the past decade, most of them taking place during July and August. And while these caused landslips and deaths, they “did not receive as much media attention because they did not occur near any famous pilgrim centre.”" via Junk Science
===========================
John Kerry erroneously said recent India floods were due to global warming but the scientist in the above article disputes Kerry, as does the 2012 UN report on extreme weather, saying it has low confidence in connecting floods with human activity (p. 8):
6/23/13, "Climate change 'screaming' for more global action," AFP via Global Post
"US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday urged the world to ramp up action on climate change, saying in India that changing weather patterns posed major costs to the planet....
After expressing his condolences for the victims of devastating floods in northern India, Kerry said that "it appears as if, in many ways, in many places, Mother Nature is telling us to heed the warnings"."...
========================
The 2012 UN report on extreme weather had low confidence at the global scale in claiming that floods were caused by CO2 (UN text follows):
1/15/13, “Extreme Misrepresentation: USGCRP and the Case of Floods,” Roger Pielke, Jr.
"Here is what IPCC SREX, the recent assessment of extreme events, says (here in PDF):
There is limited to medium evidence available to assess climate-driven observed changes in the magnitude and frequency of floods at regional scales because the available instrumental records of floods at gauge stations are limited in space and time, and because of confounding effects of changes in land use and engineering.Furthermore, there is low agreement in this evidence, and thus overall low confidence at the global scale regarding even the sign of these changes....
The leaked IPCC AR5 SOD reaffirms the SREX report and says (here in PDF), in addition to documenting a signal of earlier snowmelt in streamflows, no such signal of increasing floods has been found:
"There continues to be a lack of evidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale."
The IPCC has accurately characterized the underlying literature:
- Observations to date provide no conclusive and general proof as to how climate change affects flood behaviour.""
============================
2012 UN IPCC report, "Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation,"
"Summary for Policymakers"
page 8, low confidence in connecting floods to human CO2, 3rd paragraph below:
"There is low confidence in any observed long-term (i.e., 40 years or more) increases in tropical cyclone activity (i.e., intensity, frequency, duration), after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities. It is likely that there has been a poleward shift in the main Northern and Southern Hemisphere extratropical storm tracks. There is low confidence in observed trends in small spatial-scale phenomena such as tornadoes and hail because of data inhomogeneities and inadequacies in monitoring systems. [3.3.2, 3.3.3, 3.4.4, 3.4.5]
There is medium confidence that some regions of the world have experienced more intense and longer droughts, in particular in southern Europe and West Africa, but in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter, for example, in central North America and northwestern Australia. [3.5.1]
There is limited to medium evidence available to assess climate-driven observed changes in the magnitude and frequency of floods at regional scales because the available instrumental records of floods at gauge stations are limited in space and time, and because of confounding effects of changes in land use and engineering. Furthermore, there is low agreement in this evidence, and thus overall low confidence at the global scale regarding even the sign of these changes. [3.5.2]"...
.
===========================
The globe hasn't warmed in at least 15 years, so it's best not to keep calling for world government and diversion of more US taxpayer trillions from real problems in favor of one that likely doesn't exist:
1/18/13, UK Met Office says no warming since 1998:
1/18/13, “Climate change: scientists puzzle over halt in global warming,” Der Spiegel, by Axel Bojanowski (translation from German). Chart by UK Met Office, via Der Spiegel
.
Der Spiegel (chart above, UK Met Office)
The globe hasn't warmed in at least 15 years, so it's best not to keep calling for world government and diversion of more US taxpayer trillions from real problems in favor of one that likely doesn't exist:
1/18/13, UK Met Office says no warming since 1998:
1/18/13, “Climate change: scientists puzzle over halt in global warming,” Der Spiegel, by Axel Bojanowski (translation from German). Chart by UK Met Office, via Der Spiegel
.
Der Spiegel (chart above, UK Met Office)
===============================
2/21/13, “IPCC Head Pachauri Acknowledges Global Warming Standstill,” The Australian, Graham Lloyd
"The UN’s climate change chief, Rajendra Pachauri, has acknowledged a 17-year pause in global temperature rises, confirmed recently by Britain’s Met Office."...
========================
The geographic area of the India flooding has obvious sensitivities that have lacked proper management:
August 2012, "Ddmap, District Disaster Management Action Plan For Hill District Uttarkashi, (Uttarakhand)," INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 1, ISSUE 7, August 2012
"www.ijstr.org/.../Ddmap-District-Disaster-Management-Action-Plan-For-...
by H Nautiyal - Related articles
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 1, ISSUE 7, AUGUST 2012 ... The district also faced the heavy flood in 1978, 1997 and 1998, mass land slide in ... Uttarkashi is a border district of the state of Uttarakhand."
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