Editor:
I am commenting on the article Flood forecast expresses facts, failures and foulups by Lynn Martel on May 22. I have not read the book and do not plan to as I check history first.
It is obvious that Martel has not checked the facts before quoting Obama. There have always been tornadoes in “tornado alley” and in spite on an increase in CO2, 2013 had one of the lowest numbers of tornadoes in recent history. Severe weather and hurricanes have not shown an increase with warming. In addition, there has been no statistically significant warming in 17 years.
Sanford is incorrect when he says that we have been told five times that the world is warming – it was not stated in the 5th Report by the IPCC. Furthermore, the less than 100 political writers doing the Summary do not follow the reports done by the scientists who assessed the studies. One can verify this by reading the complete report and commentaries.
With respect to floods, in1879 and 1897 the Bow River had peak flows of 2,265 m3/s compared to 1,740 m3/s in 2013. So the so-called warming was not the cause over 100 years ago.
Sanford is in error when he states that, “With a warming climate we can expect extreme weather events to occur more frequently.” These are repeated remarks with no proof.
Calgary and other locations should always be prepared for extreme events and not build in flood plains, which was the main problem in Calgary and High River.
Gerald Machnee,
Lockport, Man.
