Expert Foresaw Typhoon Relief’s Heavy Demands on US Navy UMD’s Busalacchi Co-wrote NAS/NRC Study on Climate-related Disasters
College Park, MD (PRWEB) November 14, 2013 -- University of Maryland climate change expert Antonio Busalacchi, who predicted the U.S. Navy would need to undertake more and larger humanitarian relief missions due to intensifying storms, reports today that the current situation in the Philippines is exactly what he and other experts foretold.
In 2011 Busalacchi co-chaired, with Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Frank Bowman, a National Research Council report, "National Security Implications of Climate Change for U.S. Naval Forces." The committee report forecast that disaster relief duties would increase for the Navy and Coast Guard as a result of climate change.
"Expected increases in extreme temperatures, storms and flooding around the globe mean the Navy must prepare for more frequent humanitarian missions," Busalacchi said when the report was released in March 2011. The Navy is now spearheading multi-national relief efforts in the Philippines, where Typhoon Haiyan’s record winds of 195 miles per hour wrought massive devastation.
"Unfortunately, this is playing out precisely as we expected and foreshadowed in our report," Busalacchi said today.
Busalacchi is the Director of the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, a joint research center of the University of Maryland ‘s College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences and the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. He is available to talk to the news media about the impact on U.S. Naval forces of intensifying storms due to climate change.
Read more at http://newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/print.cfm?articleID=2367.
Media contacts:
Antonio Busalacchi, 301-675-3665, tonyb(at)essic(dot)umd(dot)edu
Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center
Heather Dewar 301-405-9267, hdewar(at)umd(dot)edu
College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences
Heather Dewar, University Of Maryland, http://cmns.umd.edu, +1 301-405-9267, [email protected]
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