The final figures are not likely in but the numbers have stabilized and we can now probably put a number to the human toll of this storm that will not change dramatically in the future, at least in terms of orders of magnitude. The current \u201cofficial\u201d death toll in the Philippines from Typhoon Yolanda\/Haiyan is 6,009 with 1,779 missing and 27,022 injured, with the largest concentration of casualties in Eastern Visayas. This comes from a December 13th report of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, which you can (probably) download here<\/a>. If you do download it expect to see slightly different numbers as the report seems to be updated dynamically. Wikipedia, which references the same report, gives slightly different numbers (higher for dead and injured, same for missing). Regardless of these smaller changes, we can say that the total casualty number for this typhoon is well over 30,000 with over 6,000 dead. With so many people missing we may guess that the number dead is somewhat over 7,000.<\/p>\n A few days ago a major typhoon struck the Philippines and then Vietnam, with another smaller storm heading in roughly the same direction. At about the same time, a tropical cyclone hit Somalia and killed at least 100 people there. The United States is not unaffected by the impacts of large tropical storms. There is reason to believe that tragedies like these may become more common or more severe with climate change. We must first address the urgent needs of the people in the affected areas<\/a>, but it is also true that events like these and the voices of the victims must drive our continued commitment to address climate change preemptively.<\/p>\n Yeb Sa\u00f1o, the Philippines\u2019 negotiator at the UN Climate Talks, found himself in the position of addressing an international body<\/a> about the damaging effects of climate change while his own family was living in the affected area. We should take our lead from him. When he gave his address to the gathered representatives from around the world, he announced a hunger strike on behalf of his people which he would continue until the UN group completed the job they had convened to do. Sa\u00f1o\u2019s brother, along with his fellow citizens, was occupied with recovering the dead and helping the survivors while Sa\u00f1o himself sought international recognition of the climate crisis; he was moved to say, \u201cThe climate crisis is madness.\u201d<\/p>\n The exact nature of future storms is uncertain, but there are four lines of scientific evidence that hurricanes will be more of a problem in the future than they were in the past.<\/p>\n First, sea levels continue to rise<\/a>, so the same storm ten years from now vs. ten years ago will have significantly greater impact.\u00a0\u00a0Sea level rise was a significant factor with Superstorm Sandy and Katrina, and was likely a factor in the high death toll and extensive damage caused by Haiyan.<\/p>\n Second, large storms are likely to produce more rain over a broader area<\/a> because a warmer atmosphere contains more moisture; large storms will bring increased inland flooding, a major cause of damage, injury, and death in tropical storms and cyclones.<\/p>\n Third, increased sea temperatures may generate more intense storms.\u00a0\u00a0This seems to have happened with Katrina and Haiyan; the sea surface temperature drives the storm\u2019s formation, but in these two storms the sea was unusually warm at a greater depth, several meters, causing those storms to become much stronger than they otherwise might have been<\/a>. Recent studies have shown a strong association between sea surface temperatures in the Pacific and the cumulative strength of the storms that happen in a given year.<\/p>\n Fourth, and less certain, is the possibility that there will be more hurricanes and typhoons. One of the best models for predicting past hurricane frequency predicts that this will happen in the future<\/a>, and by the way, that model predicted the current relatively anemic Atlantic storm season with good accuracy.\u00a0\u00a0 Major tropical storms occur with highly varying frequency from year to year, so it is difficult to identify any trend over just a few decades for which there are good records, but the climate models are increasingly accurate and they suggest that globally we can expect an uptick in frequency.<\/p>\n It is often said that it is impossible to link a given weather event with climate change.\u00a0\u00a0This is no longer true, if it ever was.\u00a0\u00a0The typical climate for a region or a season tells us what weather is \u201cnormal.\u201d Climate change is pushing us into a new normal; the climate has warmed, there is more energy in the atmosphere, the jet streams have changed their configuration and are thus more likely to stall weather patterns<\/a> as happened this year in Calgary and Colorado. This is the new climate, and thus, there is a new normal for the weather in any given region or season.\u00a0\u00a0It appears that the new normal is now, and will increasingly be in the future, one with a significantly greater threat of damage, injury, and death from major tropical storms and other severe weather events.<\/p>\n There are many approaches to addressing this problem, but most of them start with one initial step: stop denying the importance and reality of the accepted<\/a> science of climate change. This is something individuals must do, the media must do, and politicians and policy makers must do.\u00a0\u00a0This is something that must start now, and really, should have started years ago.<\/p>\n Bad storms have always happened. But, to ignore the fact that humans are making them worse is certainly, as Sa\u00f1o put it, \u201cclimate madness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Update on Haiyan\/Yolanda Death Toll The final figures are not likely in but the numbers have stabilized and we can now probably put a number to the human toll of this storm that will not change dramatically in the future, at least in terms of orders of magnitude. The current \u201cofficial\u201d death toll in the … Continue reading Haiyan is an example of climate change making things worse<\/span>
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