Tag: hurricane sandy

Typhoon Haiyan From Space

typhoon_haiyanEarlier this month, the Super Typhoon Haiyan smashed into the island nation of the Philippines, leaving an enormous amount of death and destruction in its wake. According to NASA, the typhoon struck with winds that exceeded 379 kilometers per hour (235 mph), while the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center indicates that it has since sustained wind speeds of over 315 kilometers per hour (95 MPH).

Classified as a Category 5 monster storm on the U.S. Saffir-Simpson scale, Haiyan is reported to be the largest and most powerful storm ever to make landfall in recorded human history. The current estimates claim that some 5000 people have died so far, with the final toll expected to be far higher.

haiyan_8_november_2013_0019_utc_0-566x580Given the enormous scale of this typhoon, many of the clearest pictures of it have come from space. Since it first made landfall on Friday, November 8th, many detailed images have been captured by NASA, the Russian Space Agency, the India’s newly-launched Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), and even from the ISS – courtesy of astronaut Karen Nyberg.

According to NASA, the most detailed data on the storm came from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, which captured visible, microwave and infrared data on the storm just as it was crossing the island of Leyte in the central Philippines. In addition to gauging wind speed, the satellite was also able to measure precipitation rates and temperature fluctuations.

typhoon_haiyan1Far from simply documenting this tragedy, the high resolution imagery and precise measurements provided by these and other satellites have been absolutely essential to tracking this storm and providing advance warning. Whereas thousands have died in the effected areas, some 800,000 more have been evacuated from the central region of the country.

Coincidentally, NASA’s Goddard Flight Center has just finished assembling the next generation weather satellite known as the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), an observatory that is scheduled to replace the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission. GPM is equipped with advanced, higher resolution radar instruments and is vital to the continued effort of providing forecasts and advance warning of extreme super storms.

typhoon_haiyan2In the midst of tragedies like Hurricane Sandy and Haiyan, not to mention the escalating risk of super-storms associated with Climate Change, it is good to know that there are silver linings, such as advanced warning and sophisticated instruments that can keep us apprised of the threats we face. For more information on Super Typhoon Haiyan and how you can aid in the recovery, check out the Internationa Red Cross’ website.

And be sure to check out this video of Haiyan as it made landfall, as captured by the Russian weather satellite Electro-L:


Source: universetoday.com, bbc.co.uk , icrc.org

Climate Crisis: A Hurricane-Ready New York Waterfront

terreformONE_harborIn addition to causing extensive damage, Hurricane Sandy demonstrated just how woefully prepared people in New York for major storm surges. When the water began rising back in October, due to intense rainfall and wind, there was little in the way to stop it or break in the incoming flow. As such, plans are now being considered for creating a buffer zone to protect the city from future storms.

Mitch Joachim, the co-founder of Terreform ONE, has a rather novel suggestion for how this could be done. Basically, he wants to submerge old Navy ships in the New York Harbor, creating a “riparian buffer zone” that could better handle large volumes of water. This is just one of many projects his company is involved in, which include improving transportation links in Red Hook and Governor’s Island, and ecologically engineering Brooklyn’s Navy Yard.

terreformONE_harbor1According to Joachim, their firm hit on the idea of using ship hulls to create a walkway that rises up from the harbor floor. In addition to providing protection for New Yorkers, he claims it would be cosmetically pleasing as well:

We thought one way to make gabions really quick is to take hulls from ghost fleets, cut them into sections, and then puzzle-fit the geometry together. It allows over time the transformation of that landscape. Over years of sediment building up, you would have environments that privilege humans at certain points of the day. But then as tide changes occur, you would have aqueous environments that privilege other life besides humans. 

Basically, the walkway would help keep rising tides back in the near future, and would serve as a natural habitat once the tides rise and move in to claim them. By cutting the hulls into clam-like shapes, the organization says that New York could restore a diversified structure to its waterfront, slowing the water before it makes land.

terreformONE_harbor2Joachim points out that dumping junk into New York waterways has a long history, much of it constructive in nature. Parts of Manhattan, like Battery Park City, were built on land created artificially from construction waste. And sinking ships is already one means of disposal, for the sake of creating artificial reefs. The only other method is what is known as “ship breaking”, which is far worse.

This methods of retiring ships involves cutting ships up for scrap and then recycling the usable steel parts. This practice is both environmentally unsound and can lead to toxic chemicals leeching into the ocean, which is why the majority of ship breaking operations occur in developing countries, such as Bangladesh, India, China, Pakistan and Turkey.

terreformONE_harbor3So in addition to offering protection to coastal cities that are currently ill-prepared for the worst effects of Climate Change, reusing ships to augment the world’s harbor fronts could also help reduce the environmental stress we place on other coastlines. It’s like repurposing one problem to deal with two more. Quite clever, when you think about it!

Source: fastcoexist.com

Climate Crisis: Rising Tides and Sinking Cities

climate_changetideWith all the population, urban sprawl, and consumption that we as a species are imposing on the planet, there are those who argue that we’ve entered a new geological era – known as the Anthropocene. It’s an age we’ve lived in since the neolithic revolution and the advent of farming, one where the human race is the dominant force shaping our planet. Since the industrial revolution, this era has been accelerating and escalating, and things are not likely to get better anytime soon.

It is because of this that we need to contemplate what the near future will look like. Consider the recent floods in the Canadian Prairies, or last year’s wildfires which raged across the American midwest. Consider the famines and shortages that led to a world food price crisis in 2007-8 which had serious political consequences, especially in the Middle East (i.e. the Arab Spring).

climate_changesandyWhen you add to this the fact that rising tides and the increased risk of storms are already effecting coastal communities in severe ways, you begin to understand just how turbulent the next few decades are likely to be. Already, incidents like Hurricane Katrina and Sandy, which rocked the Gulf of Mexico and the Eastern Seaboard in just the past decade, have shown just how extensive the damage can be.

Historically speaking, cities have been built in fertile river valleys and at river mouths to take advantage of fertile conditions, maritime resources and trade. Agricultural run-offs of sediment, water and nutrients created rich coastal deltas that could support greater food production. This and the good maritime and river connections for trade and transport made these ideal places to live.

Population_curve.svgBut as populations grew, rivers were tapped and diverted for irrigation, industry and canal transport. They were also trapped behind dams and reservoirs for energy and water storage, and depleted by droughts and other extractions. Meanwhile groundwater is increasingly being extracted from beneath cities, and sea levels are rising because of the run-off from the melting of glaciers and thermal expansion of the oceans.

As a result of these changes, many major cities are slowly sinking into the oceans. Our rapid industrialization over the past century has sped these processes, so that now, many urban centers face inundation by storm surges, and we stand to lose many of the most economically important parts of our planet. The loss of these cities will mean a terrible loss of life, economic fallout, and a massive refugee crisis.

Population_densityCities from Bangkok to New York have already experienced emergency flood conditions, and many more are to follow. Those most at risk include Mumbai, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Miami, Ho Chi Minh City, Calcutta, New York City, Osaka-Kibe, Alexandria and New Orleans. More than 3 billion people currently live in coastal areas at risk of global warming impacts such as rising sea levels – a number expected to rise to 6 billion by 2025.

And as was recently learned, the carbon levels in the upper atmosphere have surpassed 400 ppm (parts per million). The last time the atmosphere boasted this concentration of greenhouse gases was the Pliocene Era, a time when sea levels were as much as 60 to 80 feet higher than they current are. If sea levels rise to that level again, we can say goodbye to all these major cities, as well as any that sit on major waterways.

climate_changeshanghaiIt’s not just a matter of water rising up to swallow the coastlines, you see. As the flooding in southern Alberta and the Canadian Prairies demonstrated this week, there’s also the threat of flooding due to increased precipitation and of sewage systems backing up from increased storms and rainfall. These threats make shoring up river deltas and waterways effectively useless, since its not simply a matter of blocking the tides and rivers.

In terms of solutions, a number of major cities are investing in new sea walls, dykes and polders, or high-tide gates – like London’s Thames Barrier – to hold back high waters. In poorer places, people simply endure the problem until they are forced to abandon their homes. As the problem gets worse though, coordinated efforts to rescue people caught in flood zones will need to be mounted.

climate_changedykesAnd there are those who speculate that underwriting the damage will be a waste of time, since no government will be able to afford to compensate its citizens for the untold billions in property damage. In reality, many of these place will simply have to be abandoned as they become unlivable, and those forced out resettled to higher ground or protected communities.

At this point in any lecture on the fate of our planet, people are about ready to abandon hope and hang themselves. Hence, I should take this opportunity to point out that plans for dealing with the problem at the root – cutting our carbon footprint – are well underway. In addition to clean energy becoming more and more feasible commercially, there are also some very viable concepts for carbon capture.

These include inventions like artificial trees and ecoengineering, which will no doubt become absolutely essential in coming years. At the same time though, urban planning and architecture are beginning to embrace a number of alternative and clean technology concepts as part of their design. Not only will future buildings be designed to provide for the needs of their residents – food, water, electricity – in sustainable ways, they will also incorporate devices that can trap smog and turn it into biofuels and other useful products.

Of this, I will be saying more in the next post “Thinking, Breathing Cities of the Future”. Stay tuned!

Source: bbc.com

Mercury Robot Survives Hurricane Sandy

Amidst the news of Hurricane Sandy, of the devastation and ongoing efforts at rescuing those in harm’s way, there was a story that might have been overlooked. It seems that a small robot named Mercury, one of Liquid Robotics wave gliders, survived the storm and managed to keep transmitting information the whole time.

When the storm hit, Mercury was located just 161 km east of Toms River, New Jersey, where winds got up to about 115 km/hour. Nevertheless, the robot continued to function though the worst of it, transmitting real-time weather data and helping scientists to get a better understanding of what made the storm tick.

Naturally, everyone at the parent company was quite pleased with their little automaton, even though it was only doing its job. Technically speaking, Wave Gliders are autonomous monitoring devices that use the ocean’s waves for propulsion. They are composed of two sections; a float for the surface and a submarine compartment that resides under the water. The lower section also comes equipped with moving wings that ensure that the Glider can convert wave energy into forward momentum.

Each Glider comes with a GPS, a series of internal pocessors, navigation software, and an assortment of environmental sensors. Designed for oceanic data-gathering missions, their primary purpose is to help scientists and meteorologists understand and come up with solutions for climate change, resource management, and weather alerts. Given this mission profile, Mercury’s ability to keep on working through a Class One hurricane was quite encouraging. According to Joanne Masters of Liquid Robotics’: “Being able to provide real-time weather data from the surface and the first layer of the water column of the ocean will help scientists better measure and predict hurricane intensity. This can help save lives and prevent property devastation.”

Source: news.cnet.com

Obama Wins!

Yeah, I know I promised not to get into politics much on this site, but that’s a promise I’ve broken enough times now that I feel no one will be particularly surprised or disappointed. And as we all know, there are certain occasions which require us to break our usual set of rules and offer comment. And this is one occassion that I’m happy to talk about, even though it really didn’t come as that much of a surprise.

OBAMA HAS BEEN REELECTED!

That news is so positive that it deserves its own line and in all caps! And yes, all indications seemed to point to him winning a second term, but like many supporters, I was kind of holding my breath last night as the initial returns came in. It was a lucky thing that I had TKD class night, and that it was a sparring class. It was just the positive distraction I needed! And by the time I came home, I had heard that enough returns were in and that enough states were called that Obama could be declared the winner! It still took some time before all the votes were tabulated and it was also revealed that he carried the popular vote, but by then, the good news was complete!

And, as behooves me on this site, I can’t help but wonder (and speculate) how this will impact on our future. Needless to say, I am a lot more encouraged than I was a year ago, back when Obama was struggling to try and get a budget approved by a Congress that refused to even consider one unless be included steep austerity measures and made tax cuts permanent. It seemed that the GOP, which was fast becoming dominated by the Tea Party, had effectively been cornered by the same forces they helped create. It seemed entirely likely at this point that the government might actually fall, or at least it’s economy would collapse. Of course, disaster was averted, but not without consequences in the short term (the downgrading of America’s investment rating).

I seriously began to wonder at this point if a hard swing to the right was in our collective future. With Europe beginning to slip to the right thanks to their economy, immigration issues and the ongoing problems of climate change, all this news from south of the border began to trouble me. If both the EU and the US were to fall under the grips or right-wing parties, we would be seeing a political climate not unlike that of the 1930’s. Back then economic collapse had led to the rise of Fascism all over Europe, not just in Germany and Italy as is often maintained. And in this day and age, we could expect that to be followed by serious humanitarian crisis as the various states of the EU began deploying gunships to the Mediterranean to sink boats filled with refugees and began clamping down on ethnic minorities at home.

Unlike in the 1930’s, where the targets of discrimination and even wholesale murder were people of Jewish descent, followed by Roma, gays and lesbians and Slavs, this time around,t he likely targets were likely to be people from North Africa, the Middle East, and West Asia. Meanwhile, we could expect similar sentiments to take root in the US against people of Latino descent. We had already seen much of this take place during the Bush administration with the building of the border along the US-Mexico border and attempts to pass anti-illegal immigrant legislation. And in more recent years, it achieved a sort of breakout with the passage of SB 107 in Arizona – which made it perfectly legal for police to arrest any Latino resident who could not produce documentation of residence.

Initially, I was angry and nervous. It seemed to me that the GOP was intent on bringing the house down, that their commitment to make Obama fail that they did not care what happened to their country in the process. As long as it happened on his watch, they figured he would get the blame. But at the same time, I kind of pitied them as well. It was clear that they had unleashed a tidal wave that they couldn’t control, and were trapped in it as much as they were riding it. After the 2008 election, they had become the party of “libertarianism”, condemning big government, spending, taxes, and any and all legislation on the economy. Unfortunately, this put them at odds with just about everything they needed to support to help the economy recover.

Needless to say, things got better, and the election seemed to be cinched in advance by a number of factors. First, there was the fact that during the primaries, all the GOP candidates seemed hamstrung by all the extreme right-wing sentiments they were expected to endorse. one of these were likely to play well with all the moderates and undecideds. Second, there was Romney’s embarrassing gaffs as he traveled abroad and alienated everyone on his tour. He attempted to prove that he was a man who could handle foreign relations, but proved the exact opposite. Then there was Paul Ryan, a right-winger who proved to be at once too popular with his base and too extreme with the voters who sought the approval of. And finally, there was Hurricane Sandy, which made him look like a flip-flopper when it came the importance of such federal agencies as FEMA.

All the while, Obama was looking sturdy, even though he was being hampered by the terrorist attack in Benghazi, his initial performance in the debates, and the ongoing question of the economy. However, when the chips were down, he showed himself to be a man who could be counted on, and even won over such die-hards as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Between that and the fact that economy was beginning to recover on his watch, the election seemed in the bag.

And to quote Obama’s victory speech, “The best is yet to come.” I certainly hope so. It’s not just a question of recovery int he short run. There are a lot of things at stake here, not the least of which is the future of America and indeed the world. For the last thirty years now, there has been a struggle for the heart and soul of America, at the core of which seems to be the issue of decline. America, like it or not, is no longer in ascendance, and is faced with the myriad problem of global climate change which may exacerbate that problem very soon. If the nation and the world is to survive and come through as winners, then enlightened reform and stable leadership are what’s needed. The last thing that can be allowed to happen is a hard swing to the right, more austerity measures, and more of the same.

It has always been the reaction of empires and civilizations that have found themselves in decline to react with stringent conservative measures – more war, more sacrifice, more repression, more religious zeal – and that has only ever hastened the problem. That might sound a bit dramatic, but I’m a historian, so trust me when I say that I know what I’m talking about. And as Ronald Wright says, “Every time history repeats itself, the price goes up.” Despite the persistence of old boundaries, our world has become a global state, interconnected like never before in our history. We stand or fall together, and cannot afford to act selfish, regressionist, or that our needs super cede those of others.

So I say congratulations America on making the right choice. Enlightened reform won out against old world thinking and denial. Now let’s all get to work on making things happen and check the ideological obstructions at the door!

“Hurricane Hackers” Helping in Hurricane Sandy Recovery

It seems hackers are making the news once again as a force for good. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which has caused untold devastation along the Eastern Seaboard, hackers across the world are taking part in a series of events that are designed to help local communities prepare and cope with the devastation of this crisis. In what promises to be an ongoing series of information and development camps, the first “Sandy CrisisCamp” took place in Boston, the West Coast, and even as far away as New Zealand.

The goal here is simple: to design internet tools and applications that will assist in disaster preparedness and recovery, both now and in the future. The first step in that, which was covered this past weekend, was the work on various “crowdsourcing” tools that will allow people to categorize images for building damage and a simple Google doc that attempts to keep track of all the sources of Sandy recovery data in a single place. These will not only give people the ability to access vital information and updates on the path of hurricanes quickly, but will also help organizations such as FEMA prioritize their efforts based on up-to-the-minute damage assessments.

These efforts are all related to the work of a group known as the Hurricane Hackers, students at MIT’s Media Lab who have been helping coordinate relief efforts via Twitter. The fruits of their initial labor was the site known as Sandyslist, a simple hub for linking people with the resources they need to stay safe and ride the storm out. And in truth, they are but one group of people who have been using social utilities and the internet in order to provide info for those in need and to help others coordinate their efforts. There are even online sites where people are able to pledge donations, a process known as crowdfunding, and which are currently waiving their fees in order to ensure that more money is raised.

In addition to being reassuring and heartwarming, all of these coordinated efforts are also a good demonstration of what is possible in the information age. After all, in times of crisis, the most important tool in prevention and response is information. By ensuring that it is coordinated, easily accessible, and available all in one place, the hackers responsible for this are also helping to ensure that lives are saved and the crisis passes with far less in the way of human devastation.

Source: news.cnet.com