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NEWS
| SEPTEMBER 23, 2005
Science
Tulane scientist lectures on Rita,
Katrina
Mississippi Delta expert speaks
about reasons for recent storms’ severity.
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| The Shorthorn: Manikandan Sachidanandan |
| Associate professor Torbjörn
Törnqvist, from Tulane University, gives
a speech on Thursday in the Geoscience Building. Törnqvist
spoke about hurricanes Rita and Katrina. |
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By C
J Patton
The Shorthorn staff
Current predictions call for Hurricane Rita to make landfall somewhere
near Houston, where it will move into mainland Texas, eventually
striking the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Torbjörn Törnqvist
said at a lecture Thursday.
Dr. Törnqvist, an earth and environmental scientist from Tulane
University, said he hopes these predictions play out and that Rita
stays clear of New Orleans.
“We just got word that they finished draining it,” he
said. “Let’s hope it stays dry and Rita stays away.
We don’t wish Texas anything bad, but we probably can’t
take much more.”
He said that as hurricanes proceed inland, they tend to slow down,
focusing the power of the storm on a smaller area. He said that
it probably isn’t necessary to evacuate the Metroplex, but
everyone should take precautions to keep themselves safe.
“If Rita’s going to start moving slower — or even
stall — we’re going to see massive amounts of rainfall,”
Törnqvist said. “I’ll tell all of you that if you
get the feeling you’re in any kind of low-lying area, get
out.”
Törnqvist, who has been at the university since evacuating
New Orleans, gave a presentation Thursday for the College of Science’s
Frontiers in Science series. An expert on the Mississippi Delta,
he has been studying the natural and human-induced erosion of the
wetlands around New Orleans.
He said the results are dramatic.
“We are talking about enormous amounts of land that are disappearing,”
he said. “The bottom line is the current rate of wetland loss
is one acre per every 30 minutes. By the end of this talk, two more
acres will be gone.”
This rate of land loss, according to Törnqvist, had a substantial
impact on the damage the Mississippi Delta region took from Katrina.
He said that when New Orleans was built, it was at sea level, but
the destruction of the wetland as the city expanded caused it to
shift downwards.
“One thing that’s for sure is that what happened with
Katrina came as no surprise — that was predicted,” he
said. “If a city like New Orleans were still surrounded by
wetlands, it would be in much better shape than it is today.”
Compounding the problem of a rising sea level, Törnqvist said
the hurricanes themselves have grown in power.
“Over the last 30-35 years, the intensity of hurricanes has
increased dramatically,” he said. “It’s not the
number of hurricanes — it’s the power. There are more
Category 4 and 5 hurricanes than there were three or four decades
ago.”
He said these problems, which are worsened considerably by global
warming, are predicted to increase over time. In order to protect
the coastal cities action needs to be taken quickly, he said.
“The biggest question is, ‘What’s going to happen
on a political level?’ ” Törnqvist said. “The
quality of coastal wetlands — especially in wealthy nation
like the United States — is very much a matter of choice.
It will be interesting to see if the federal government starts listening
to science.”
Geology freshman Bess Alvarez said she enjoyed Törnqvist’s
lecture. Planning for a career with the U.S. Geological Survey after
graduation, she said she agrees with Törnqvist about the government
turning a blind eye to their predictions prior to Katrina and the
financial needs of the agencies working to prevent them.
“I think that’s something that is typical. It didn’t
surprise me, it just came as a kind of affirmation,” she said.
“That little to nothing was done about it kind of peeved me.”
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