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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (262751)	11/30/2005 9:34:04 PM
From: steve harris	Respond to of 1573857

had to be a winner judging the reaction from his detractors... :)

To: combjelly who wrote (262751)	11/30/2005 9:43:01 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573857

Stormy times predicted for years ahead By Andrew Ward in Atlanta Published: December 1 2005 00:23 \| Last updated: December 1 2005 00:23 Meteorologists marked the end of the busiest and most expensive Atlantic hurricane season on record on Wednesday with a warning that the next few years could prove just as stormy. Experts said the atmospheric and ocean conditions that fuelled this year’s barrage of brutal storms were likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future.<b/> “I’d like to foretell that next year will be calmer, but I can’t,” said Conrad Lautenbacher, administrator of the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration. “Historical trends say the atmosphere patterns and water temperatures are likely to force another active season upon us.” Wednesday brought the end of the official hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30 each year, although two tropical storms continued to churn in the Atlantic. An unprecedented 26 tropical storms formed this year, 13 of which reached hurricane force, leaving a trail of death and destruction across the Caribbean, Central America and US Gulf states. Those numbers were more than double the annual average of 10 tropical storms and six hurricanes since record-keeping began more than 150 years ago. “This hurricane season shattered records that have stood for decades – most named storms, most hurricanes and most category five storms,” said Mr Lautenbacher. “Arguably, it was the most devastating hurricane season the country has experienced in modern times.” More than $50bn (€42bn, £24bn) of hurricane-related insurance claims have already been filed in the US this year, according to Property Claim Services, which surveys insurance losses. That is more than double the previous record of $25bn, set last year when four hurricanes struck Florida, and greater than the $35bn of insured losses caused by the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Most of this year’s claims were caused by Hurricane Katrina, which killed at least 1,300 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless when it unleashed devastating flooding on Mississippi and Louisiana in August. The US Commerce Department estimates that the total cost of Katrina will reach $80bn, more than three times the cost of Andrew, the previous most expensive hurricane, in 1992. Each hurricane that makes landfall in the US causes an average $3bn in insurance losses, according to the Tropical Storm Risk Insurance Consortium. But four storms – Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis – exceeded that figure this year. Hurricane activity has been above average for the past decade because of unusually warm ocean temperatures and favourable wind conditions in the Atlantic. Most experts say the trend is part of a natural cycle that alternates between calm and stormy periods, each lasting decades. But some scientists are convinced that global warming is at least partly to blame. The Association of British Insurers has claimed that the worldwide cost of storms could rise by as much as two-thirds by 2080 because of climate change and increased economic development along storm-prone coastlines.This year’s storm season was so exceptional that forecasters exhausted their alphabetical list of storm names, forcing them to use the Greek alphabet for the last five storms of the season – including Epsilon, which formed in mid-Atlantic on Tuesday. news.ft.com