Lake Lanier

With massive amounts of rain on Sunday and last night, things have gone from bad to worse in Northern Georgia where serious flooding have taken two lives already and caused serious damage. Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers is keeping an eye on Lake Lanier where the water levels have risen four inches since Saturday – although not a risk for the moment, with several feet below full pool.

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The United Kingdom, France and Italy have called upon major developing economies such as India and China to sign up for the goal of halving the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, from 1990 levels.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini

At the summit of the G8 (Group of Eight industrialized nations) held in Italy, some developed nations like the United States and Japan have asked for a more recent base year, which would make cuts of greenhouse-gas emissions less difficult.

However, the United Kingdom and France urged industrial countries to aim even higher and set a goal of 80% cuts in their emissions of greenhouse-gases by 2050.

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Flash floods are becoming more of a global threat than ever before with errant climate patterns that are being constantly altered and disturbed with man’s intrusion. Global warming seems to be causing a lot more than just the gradual melting of the poles as the set climate patterns are now becoming more and more unpredictable.

Flash floods are different from normal floods, which are often the product of melting snow. Flash floods are short-lived and dump a lot of rain.

However, Professor Colin Price from the Tel Aviv University is studying the link between lightening and subsequent flash floods. If his research is taken forward and integrated into a study for climate patterns, then predicting flash floods might be a reality very soon.

Together with his team of five European scientists, Professor Colin has been studying the intensity of lightening before and during every thunderstorm. His breakthrough technology relies on studying the radiation emitted during a storm which allows to predict the course of thunderstorms. By predicting the course of the storm, one can easily evacuate people, put those in the path of imminent flash floods on alert and save millions of lives on certain occasions.

“And it will be even more exciting in the next decade, when we’ll have continuous real-time detection of lightning activity from satellites. That data will be used to predict floods anywhere”, said Professor Colin.

With US geostationary satellites being equipped with cameras that will capture pictures of lightenings from space and transmit them live to earth, the capability of such a system is immense. One can only hope that this will help us further combat the fury that nature unleashes, to some extent.

Source: DailyMail
Images courtesy of pHil and krisR99