No, We Cannot Control the Weather

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Daily Mail
While I am glad the President and First Lady visited Kentucky, his statement is ridiculous. We have no way of controlling the weather regardless of the level of the CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 ≠ meteorological thermostat.

The President was accompanied by Deanne Criswell, the Director of FEMA. I was surprised by the number of comments in The Daily Mail and elsewhere along these lines of, "I hope FEMA doesn't screw this up." 

The Kentucky floods are a perfect example of why we need a National Disaster Review Board (more on that topic, here). Thirty-seven people have died and there are reports that more are missing. The forecasts and warnings of this flood were pretty good yet the death toll was high. Some meteorologists on the scene told me the warnings were not believed. Why? How can we fix that? How can FEMA be made more effective?

A National Disaster Review Board would employ the meteorologists, earth scientists and social scientists we need to get to the bottom of these issues. It would also keep track of the accuracy of the National Weather Service's storm warnings instead of the NWS evaluating itself. 

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