US: August 22, 2008
NEW YORK - Eight scientific organizations urged the next US president to
help protect the country from climate change by pushing for increased
funding for research and forecasting, saying about $2 trillion of US
economic output could be hurt by storms, floods and droughts.
"We don't think we have the right kind of tools to help decision makers plan
for the future," Jack Fellows, the vice president for corporate affairs of
the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a consortium of 71
universities, told reporters in a teleconference on Wednesday.
The groups, including the American Geophysical Union and the American
Meteorological Society, urged Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama
and Republican rival John McCain to support $9 billion in investments
between 2010 and 2014 to help protect the country from extreme weather,
which would nearly double the current US budget for the area.
The UN's science panel says extreme weather events could hit more often as
temperatures rise due to climate change.
Each year the United States suffers billions of dollars in weather-related
damages ranging from widespread events like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and
the more recent droughts in the Southeast, to smaller, more frequent
glitches like airline delays from storms, they said.
More than a quarter of the country's economic output, about $2 trillion, is
vulnerable to extreme weather, they added.
The investments would pay for satellite and ground-based instruments that
observe the Earth's climate and for computers to help make weather
predictions more accurate.
John Snow, the co-chairman of the Weather Coalition, a business and
university group that advocates for better weather prediction, said improved
computers would help scientists forecast extreme weather events more
locally, which could help cities better prepare for weather disasters.
It could also help businesses that produce virtually no greenhouse
emissions, such as wind farms, know where to best locate their operations,
he said.
The scientists said cooler temperatures in the first half of this year are
making their task more difficult. "One of the challenges we face ... is to
make the case that while we are in a period of warming, we should not expect
every year to be the warmest year on record," Snow said.
The global mean temperature to the end of July was 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit
(0.28 C) above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based MetOffice for climate
change research said on Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008
the coolest since 2000.
Neither campaign responded immediately to questions about the plea for
funding. Obama and McCain, who face off in a November election, both support
regulation of greenhouse gases through market mechanisms such as
cap-and-trade programs on emissions.
(Editing by Eric Beech)
Story by Timothy Gardner
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
