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THE CHANGING ATMOSPHERE-CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Increasing and shifting populations in the United States have created the potential for weather and climate disruptions and for losses on a scale never before experienced in this country. Millions of people have been attracted to the beautiful but hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean coasts. Even with more stringent building standards, a catastrophe will occur when a strong hurricane strikes one of these densely populated areas, as one inevitably will. Rising sea levels will increase this danger.

• The increase and shift of population to the sunny southwestern United States and California have created major adverse impacts on the local and regional air quality. Moreover, because increased population has led to increased needs for water, these regions are now more vulnerable than ever to prolonged drought, which would have severe and long-lasting effects on the quality of life and the economies of these regions. In the southeastern United States, the demand for water has exceeded the supply and is depleting aquifers in many locations, so even a one-year drought can have serious consequences.

• Many of the nation's most vulnerable industries and activities are concentrated in confined locations that are prone to severe weather. For them, encounters with severe weather are disastrous. For example, a single 100-mile stretch of the Texas and Louisiana coastline, particularly hurricane prone, contains more than one-third of the nation's petrochemical industry. Land subsidence, owing to collapse of depleted aquifers, will greatly increase the depth and extent of flooding expected from hurricane storm surges. Other high-risk activities in vulnerable areas include the transport of nuclear weapons by truck, and the operations of nuclear power plants, refineries, and offshore drilling rigs.

• Space-Age activities are also vulnerable to the weather. The protective heat-absorbing tiles of the Space Shuttle can be destroyed by the impact of medium-and large-sized cloud drops. As the March 26, 1987, launch of an Atlas Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral showed, atmospheric electricity is a serious hazard. About 48 seconds after lift-off, the rocket triggered a four-stroke lighting flash to the ground. The resulting failure of the guidance system created stresses that caused the vehicle to break apart.

• The single 1982/1983 "El Niño" event, in which warm waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean triggered atmospheric anomalies around the world, caused economic losses in excess of billions of dollars in the United States and elsewhere because of the impacts on agriculture and fishing industries. Thousands died from starvation in the associated African droughts.

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