<div>Assuming the intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation (including record snowfall) events (and other destructive climate change impacts) will increase as global warming progresses, we should be assessing the economic and human costs of our fossil fuel emissions impacts on climate, not as externalities, but included in the economic equations addressing emissions reduction schemes. Of course, directly linking anthropogenic warming to any one extreme precipitation event is questionable; but when the global frequency and intensity of precipitation events increases, and loading of the atmosphere with more moisture due to increased evaporation from oceans is predicted by climate science models, as temperature increases, a science based trend is suggested.</div>
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<div>Ketsana's predicted path towards Hue, Vietnam, as it increases to a Cat. 1 typhoon, from US Naval Oceanography Portal, Joint Typhoon Warning Center:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.usno.navy.mil/NOOC/nmfc-ph/RSS/jtwc/warnings/wp1709.gif">http://www.usno.navy.mil/NOOC/nmfc-ph/RSS/jtwc/warnings/wp1709.gif</a></div>
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<div>Information on Ketsana's impact on the Philippines:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1333">http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1333</a></div>
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<div>From website above:</div>
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<div><span class="small" id="entrytextsize">The Philippine Islands continue to count the dead in the wake of the catastrophe left by <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" href="http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/wp200917.html" target="_blank">Tropical Storm Ketsana</a> on Saturday. Hard-hit was the capital of <a onclick="if(!checkUrl(this.href)) return false;" href="http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/RPLL/2009/9/26/DailyHistory.html" target="_blank">Manila</a>, where the 16.7 inches of rain that fell in just 12 hours set a record for the heaviest 1-day rainfall ever recorded in the city (previous record: 13.2 inches in 24 hours, set in June 1967). In the six hours between 8am and 2pm local time on the 25th, Manila recorded 13.4 inches of rain--over 2.2 inches per hour. There rainfall rates were observable via satellite observations from NASA's TRMM satellite, well in advance of when the storm made landfall in the Philippines (Figure 2). The TRMM satellite showed a small core of heavy rain in excess of 1.6 inches per hours near the center of Ketsana, and this core moved directly over the city of Manila.<br>
The flooding from Ketsana's rains was the worst in at least 42 years in Manila, and President Gloria Arroyo called Ketsana "a once-in-a-lifetime typhoon". At least 140 people are dead, 32 missing, and up to 450,000 homeless from the flooding in the Philippines.<br>
<br>Ketsana is not finished yet. The typhoon has begun a period of rapid intensification, and is now on the verge of attaining Category 2 typhoon status as it approaches a Tuesday landfall in Vietnam. Ketsana's heavy rains and high winds could exact a high toll in Vietnam.<br>
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<div><span class="small">Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</span></div>
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