Inquiring minds, with an eye on coastal development, protection and insuring valuable human & property assets, may be asking if any of the environmental agencies, and our advocate NGO's such as the Jamaica Environmental Trust (JET), are modeling and tracking effects of climate change...now and future.

Hurricane (Superstorm) Sandy, which was only supposed to occur occasionally may be, according to some climate predictors, harbingers of future destruction including flood-drought cycles.
We don't have to be seduced by climate models ("modelitis") to admit that computing tools have advanced exponentially as a data accumulator, and prudent planning tools ought to be at our disposal for executing a wide range of adaptations.

"One swallow does not a summer make, so it is too early to attribute what we have seen from Sandy directly to climate change. But what we do know is that the sea surface temperatures are much higher because of global warming and because of that, it has the ability to support systems like Sandy this late in the season and that far north..."

"Under normal conditions, the sea surface would have become too cool to sustain a hurricane reaching that far north. We have them [hurricanes] in the tropics up to November, but to have a system reaching category two strength and with such high latitude, it might be little different..."

"It is a wake-up call to everybody, to us here in Jamaica that we can now look forward to more systems coming from the south that can reach hurricane strength before they impact on the south coast...So while we are used to the systems coming from the east, these systems that originate south of us can move north across our area. It is something that we must now be aware of."

"As we prepare for Doha Climate Change Conference 2012 [later this month and in] December, the mitigation ambitions that have been pledged by the developed countries are still woefully inadequate. So when we have large countries like the US now being impacted [by hurricanes], they will understand even better what the vulnerable countries have been experiencing over the years..."

"They are coming out of one of the worse droughts they have had in history and now that the north-east coast [has been] faced with a storm, these [things] should be a wake-up call for the major emitters to realise the reason behind the urgency [with which] we have been pressing for action..."
--Clifford Mahlung, Head of Jamaica's Climate Branch at the Meteorological Service & Senior Climate Negotiator

Read More in Observer::Sandy Spotlights Climate Change:
www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Sandy-spotlights-climate-change_12871225

VIDEO: Community Based Adaptation:
www.thegef.org/gef/content/jamaica-community-based-adaptation

"Partial" Climate Change Risk Profile for Jamaica
www.caribsave.org/assets/files/CCCRA%20Final%20Documents/FINAL%20Summary%20Docum ent%20CCCRA%20-%20Jamaica.pdf

‘4-degree’ threshold of global temperature increase...how hot is too hot before triggering multiple climate-triggered catastrophes. Environmental voices, especially in developing countries, need to coalesce and align in demanding more carbon-lowering strategies from the highly industrialized economies...being an example by fostering alternative energy prospects for their own growth & development.

The World Bank is urging stepped-up efforts to meet world carbon-reduction goals after looking at what it says would be the catastrophic consequences if average world temperatures rise more than 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century.

Read More @:
www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/world-bank-warns-of-4-degree-threshhold/ 2012/11/19/aa298dd0-3023-11e2-a30e-5ca76eeec857_print.html