NASA Satellite Shows Southern Tornadoes From Space 59
gabbo529 writes "Like it has done previously with earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis, a NASA satellite has captured a devastating natural disaster from a space satellite. An image acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) from NASA's Aqua satellite on April 28, distinctly shows three tornado tracks in Tuscaloosa, Ala." For those not following the news, a cluster of tornadoes and close-enough storms earlier this week caused the death of hundreds across several US states.
Insurance loss (Score:4, Insightful)
FTA: "experts estimate insurance losses at up to $5 billion"
So...it's not called "damage" any more, it's called "insurance loss"?
The insurance company's bottom line is more important the the people without homes?
Re:Insurance loss (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the reason for using that figure is that it is data which is relatively easy to gather. Actual damage would include insurance losses plus anything else which was either not claimed or not covered.
Besides, I'm not sure how it is in your state, but most mortgage lenders require that you have homeowner's insurance. Since the bulk of the insurances losses come in the form of home insurance claims, it's a reasonably repeatable (if not technically accurate) figure to use.
Re:Insurance loss (Score:5, Insightful)
Traditionally, when you use those pesky quotation marks, you do not change the text within the quotation marks without indicating that you have done so. You also do not quote so as to change context.
"Catastrophe risk modeling company EQECAT said that with initial reports of nearly 10,000 destroyed buildings, property insurance losses were expected to range from $2 to $5 Billion."
Destroyed buildings is a reasonable substitute for damage. Property insurance losses refers to the loss of insured property by the "people without homes" (residences, vehicles, commercial buildings), not the insurance company's bottom line. And nevermind that the 11 preceding paragraphs focus on deaths, missing persons, and general damage.
You'll forgive me for thinking that you're just as low, if not worse, for turning "the people without homes" into mere prop for your personal hatred of insurance companies.
Re:Missiles? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure these really count as "clouds". You've got a tremendous amount of hot, humid air moving inland (it's been blowing about 15-20mph near-constant for two weeks now here in north Texas) where it meets the cold air on a line roughly dallas to littlerock to chicago, which can't hold that kind of humidity, dumping stupid amounts of moisture (rain) out of the air. The resulting process kicks up more wind. The fact that you end up with something on a satellite photo that resembles something remotely like a puffy rain cloud from space is slightly better than a mere coincidence. You can't "break up" humidity falling out of cold air with a fucking bomb.
If you wanted to go improbable solution, the best idea would be for everyone to go outside, plug their hair dryer in to an extension cord and point it at the cold front, warming it up and pushing it further northwest.
Butterfly in a hurricane...
Re:Global warming? (Score:5, Insightful)
It really doesn't matter whether current global warming is man made or not. That's a side issue. The real issue is that as global temperatures rise, the areas where we now grow most of the world's food will get drier and more arid, with desertification spreading. The areas which will benefit from improved fertility are smaller anyway, and are quite heavily developed. So we get a fairly large net loss in agricultural output. This at a time when the planet is already carrying a larger human population than ever before, and it's still growing.
Regardless of what is causing global warming, if we don't do our best to slow it or stop it there is going to be global starvation, war and economic disruption on a scale never seen before. Saying 'but it isn't our fault, it's the sun' isn't going to save your life.