Our Waterways: Learning from Failure in Mountains!

In terms of damage to the infrastructure the area most severely hit in Pakistan during 2010 flood was Khyber Pakhtun Khawa. In its 20 districts more than 4300 Km of road was damaged with an estimates of 13182 million rupees. 375 bridges were damaged including, eighty minor and seventy one major RCC bridges, twenty causeways and two hundred and four suspension bridges. Twenty nine bridges were damaged in the district Swat alone where the gushing water of Indus River devastated everything that came in its path and cut off all communication for weeks.

The magnitude of the hazard in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was indeed very high and can be visualized from the fact that the annual rainfall in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is 962 mm, whereas the rainfall received during 28th July to 3rd August 2010 was 3462 mm which resulted in the highest ever water discharge flow in all head works and rivers. The total number of persons affected was 3.8 million with 1,070 dead and 1,056 injured.
While looking in to the reasons for such massive flood and disaster it is evident that, the huge flow of the logs in the river was the result of illegal deforestation and theft of trees by timber mafia that tremendously increased the energy of the river and smashed everything that came in its path. It seems that in most cases the causes of 2010 floods were ‘political’ than ‘natural’ regardless of the hazard that triggers them.
( All of which is consistent with analysis presented by International Rivers in a PDF about concrete madness in the Himalayas.

GLOF part 1– A threat present and real: Indian summary August 9, 2011
Mountain Women- Key Drivers of Change August 8, 2011
Building resilience in Mountains August 6, 2011
Beyond Chipko! August 5, 2011
International Year of Youth August 5, 2011
Mountain Development Learning Alliance- A Must! August 4, 2011
GCR link of Global warming – a new Contrarian twist? August 3, 2011
More Sign of Warming, but Cold Negotiations August 1, 2011
History of hills in dancing feet July 31, 2011

Spencer on Lindzen and Choi climate feedback paper

The authors showed that satellite-observed radiation loss by the Earth increased dramatically with warming, often in excess of 6 Watts per sq. meter per degree (6 W m^-2 K^-1). In stark contrast, all of the computerized climate models they examined did just the opposite, with the atmosphere trapping more radiation with warming rather than releasing more.
The implication of their results was clear: most if not all climate models that predict global warming are far too sensitive, and thus produce far too much warming and associated climate change in response to humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions.
While I tend to agree with the Lindzen and Choi position that the real climate system is much less sensitive than the IPCC climate models suggest, it is not clear to me that their results actually demonstrate this.

The Heat is Online

New theories over methane puzzle

Scientists say that there has been a mysterious decline in the growth of methane in the atmosphere in the last decades of the 20th Century.

Researchers writing in the journal Nature have come up with two widely differing theories as to the cause.
One suggests the decline was caused by greater commercial use of natural gas, the other that increased use in Asia of artificial fertiliser was responsible.
Both studies agree that human activities are the key element.
And there are suggestions that methane levels are now on the rise again.

Congress Searches Universe for Grand Unified Theory

The marching orders have already been written, the lobby lizards are working the aisles and congress is drooling over the checks that are about to hit their campaign accounts.
Social Security and Medicare will be cut, programs that benefit working people and society as a whole will be slashed, the incomes of the wealthy and the powerful will be carefully protected and corporations will be given still more incentives for jobs which they have no intention of creating. The deficit will be attacked by digging deeper into the pockets of the middle class and allowing the country to devolve further into third world status.
This talk of a “grand bargain” may sound like the congress is searching for some arcane and elegant unified field theory but it’s just a delay to allow time to slather more makeup on the hideous beast they are about to shove on the political stage.