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From: David Brown
Date: 22 July 2010 2:37:36 PM PDT
Subject: Re: [Vsg]
Tom, the answer is yes -- the level and intensity is generally up. For hard data, you'd have better luck with this question if you ask Vern Weitzel to post it on his enviro-vlc list. I am copying Vern on this message. I'd recommend you also tell him the time frame that interests you. As I recall, the most striking data covers the period 1980-2010. Regards, David Brown
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 6:56 PM, Tom Miller <milltom@gmail.com> wrote:
Does anyone have information as to whether storms/flooding/typhoons are occurring at increasing levels of intensity and frequency in Vietnam and/or SE Asia?
Tom Miller
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From: David Del Testa
Date: Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 10:14 AM
Colleagues,
Recently, VSG received a query in regard to the history of typhoons, floods, and so on...I am sorry that I didn't save the message to reply to directly, but I did run across the following dossier located in Aix-en-Provence with discussions of colonial-era disasters of this nature:
Gouvernement général de l'Indochine. Série G05, Carton 227-1854, "Catastrophes, typhons, inondations (1916-1939): typhons 1916, 1929; 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1933, 1937, 1938; Inondations dans le delta du Tonkin août 1936, nov. 1938, avril 1939; inondations en Annam, Ouragan sur Hanoi
It precedes the very intriguing G05 1854-57 "Catastrosphes publiques 1932-37"...
Best wishes, David
David Del Testa, Ph.D.
Department of History
Bucknell University
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From: John Kleinen
Date: Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 11:00 AM
To follow up David's suggestion:
In 2007, a Dutch research group published the results of a longitudinal study based on research in the estuary of the Red River in the Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 29 (2007). My contribution dealt with the impact of typhoons and tropical storms in the colonial period, especially regarding the coastal region of Nam Dinh. A copy can be obtained at www.elsevier.com/locate/jaes for those who are interested in the references and archival sources. You also can send me a mail off-list. Best wishes.
John Kleinen Ph.D
Associate Professor
kleinen@uva.nl
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From: Pam McElwee
Date: Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 1:27 PM
Dear list -
On the question of storm/flood intensity and frequency in Vietnam, the evidence appears to be mixed. Across the past 40 years there does not appear to be a clear pattern of increased numbers of storms hitting VN; earlier decades saw more storms than recent decades. The trend does appear to be clearer for hurricane landfall patterns, which appear to be moving southward, and the seasonality appears to be shifting somewhat to later in the fall. The question of intensity is not clear however. For example, damages from more recent storms have been greater than in past history, but that is likely due to more infrastructure available to be damaged. Hurricane Linda that hit the Mekong Delta in 1997 is the second most deadly hurricane on record (number one is the 1964 Red River storm/floods) while Hurricane Ketsana from 2009 is the number one storm in terms of economic damage (over $700 million US). Future projections that MONRE has done indicate that they believe storm intensity is increasing, if only marginally to date, and that this will continue into the future under the main climate change scenarios they have modeled.
There is a lot of good long term meteorological data for the country as far back to the 1890s but of course it is hard to access most of it. The best recent sources for info that are publicly accessible include:
* First and Second National Communications from VN to the UNFCCC.
* Vietnam Assessment Report on Climate Change (http://www.roap.unep.org/pub/VTN_ASS_REP_CC.pdf -- pages 46 onward deal with hurricane activity)
* 2009 MONRE report: Climate Change, Sea Level Rise Scenarios for Vietnam (http://www.preventionweb.net/files/11348_ClimateChangeSeaLevelScenariosforVi.pdf)
The best data sources overall for Pacific hurricanes are at UNISYS (http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/index.html); OCHA Regional Office for Asia and Pacific (http://ochaonline.un.org/Default.aspx?alias=ochaonline.un.org/roap); and EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database (www.emdat.be).
Hope this is helpful.
Pam McElwee
Dr. Pamela McElwee
Assistant Professor
School of Politics and Global Studies & School of Sustainability
Arizona State University
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