Social Impacts
Wikipedia reports that Gonu's devastation reached across Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran. Sadly, 72 people died and there was an estimated $4.2 billion (USD) worth of damage- RO1.25-1.5 billion ($4 billion USD) in Oman alone.
I have read about the torrential winds, heavy rains and high waves. Images of flooded streets, destroyed cars, the damaged Al Qurm National Park, etc. are haunting. What impacts have you seen? Do you still see a year later?
Climate Impacts
One interesting article I read, stated that Gonu delayed the arrival of South-West Monsoon last year. In the Arabian Sea the SW Monsoon is very influential on phytoplankton through its impact:
- on upwelling nutrient-rich deep waters to the coast
- on transferring this water to other regions, and
- on keeping phytoplankton in the euphotic zone where photosynthesis can occur
[Goes, et. al (2005) Science 308, 545-7. DOI 10.1126/science.1106610]. So, in the ocean what were the consequences from this delay of the monsoon? How was the production of phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish, etc affected? Did delays cascade up the food web?
5 comments:
Hi Carrie,
Many congratulations to you on a super job of the blog spot. There was another storm brewing over the Arabian Sea about 3 weeks ago (first week of June 2008), but it dissipated out at sea before it hit land. Please check this website http://www.accuweather.com/mt-news-blogs.asp?partner=accuweather&blog=Andrews&pgurl=/mtweb/content/Andrews/archives/2008/05/arabian_sea_cyclone_talk_1.asp
Large parts of the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal have been warming at quite an alarming rate over the last 10 years. It is unclear whether these warming trends in the three basins are responsible for the intensity of the cyclonic storms that we have seen in the last 2 years. Nargis was responsible for the deaths of several thousands of people and loss of property running into billions of dollars.
HI Carrie, Hi joaquim,
(introduction of myself will follow soon)
I am currently working on a presentation of climate impacts on hurricanes, tornadoes etc., especially in regards to future developments
Hopefully this will be finished until next week.
Maybe, if more info on this topic is wanted, I can upload the presentation to this blog ?
Otherwise I should be able to give some summarizing comments.
Trying to actively participate more often.
best regards
Albert
Hi Carrie,
My name is Adnan Al-Azri, I am an assistant prof at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. I am an oceanographer and working with Goes team towards understanding the climate change and its impact on the Arabian Sea. I just wanted to congratulate you on this excellent work. I believe this is a good window for US and Omani students to exchange their views on climate change.
It has been a year since Gonu hit Oman, most of the infrastructure are back to normal.However the concern is that we are still trying to understand what are the changes happened in the marine environment.
I am currently heavily involved in bringing awareness in the country on what are the implications of climate change in the marine environment especially in the Arabian Sea.
Please check the article that I realeased recently in our English newspaper on this website:
http://www.omanobserver.com/17/index.htm
Clik on feature and scroll down the article reads"Probing the secrets of the Arabian Sea"
Wishing you all the best,
Adnan
Hi Carrie,
I'm very happy to see that you have a blog on the Arabian Sea.
I'm Ahmed Sajwani. I'm from the UAE.
Gonu will be remembered here in the UAE since it was kind of new to the people here. We took it for granted that we are away from natural disasters.
While cyclones are not unusual in the Arabian Sea, the intensity and the strange track of Gonu were very unusual.
Oman was hit hard, and the UAE was spared as Gonu changed its track and weakened. However, the waves along the East coast of the UAE were huge and they caused a lot of damage. (The models were also very poor in handling Gonu track)
As for consequences here in the UAE, everything is back to normal. But, hopefully, people now pay more attention to Arabian Sea cyclones, which is good.
Please visit my site:
www.meteo.ae
P.S. As I write now, tropical depression 03B is unleashing flooding rain in Yemen.
Post a Comment