9/17/2006

Future Weather Forecast

[by blog reader, Richard Siege]

Hurricane seasons will last longer and longer, their severity and duration continuing to increase and lengthen well into winter. Eventually a hurricane may make landfall and collide with cold, wintry air, where the interaction will cause the storm’s precipitation to turn into ice, sleet and snow.
Under normal circumstances, an inch of rain is equal to about six inches of snow. Imagine six or eight inches of rain becoming a hurricane-driven snow storm, 36 or 48 inches of snow becoming drifts twenty or thirty feet deep.
Such a storm could bury whole houses, stall transportation, paralyze rescue equipment, and be nearly impossible to remove with plows. Food and fuel shipments would be disrupted for weeks if not months...
If the many portents of global warming are not heeded, a catastrophe such as a snow hurricane is merely one possible consequence of disregarding the present course of unmanaged human activity.
If such a devastating scenario is to be avoided, our world, our governments, our industries, all of us, must reverse the effects of fossil fuel dependency and atmospheric pollution. Non-polluting and energy efficient technologies must be put in place as quickly as possible.
Otherwise, none of us will have to bother about world peace. Mother Nature will correct us. Richard Siege

No comments: