date: Thu Sep  1 11:51:47 2005
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Stating the obvious
to: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@ucar.edu>,  "David Easterling" <David.Easterling@noaa.gov>

       Kevin, Dave,
              I sent an email to Albert and Roxana about recent extremes in Europe. They
    will be bringing some text to NZ. We will have to decide what to do about Katrina there
    as well. Situation looks very serious from here, but we'll need to distinguish
    the severity of the storm from the apparent unpreparedness, lack of maintenance
    of the levees etc. It was clearly a very large storm and the track couldn't have
    been much worse.  I bet if there's another event this season, the exodus will be
    a much higher percentage.
         The Emmanuel and Webster et al. papers have been very timely, but once
    the rescue operations are over and the clean-up in earnest begins, the increasing
    destructiveness of such storms will again get back into the debate.
       The BBC site has a story about the eventual cost (guessed at 25B$). This might be more
    than the WTC on 9/11. Funds were diverted from levee improvement, to
    help finance the war and homeland security.....
    Cheers
    Phil

   Prof. Phil Jones
   Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
   School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
   University of East Anglia
   Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
   NR4 7TJ
   UK
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