Gore's Staff Says He Was Misquoted On Hexametric Hurricanes 216
jamie writes "In a story on Thursday, Slashdot and its readers had a little fun at the expense of Al Gore, who was quoted as saying that the hurricane severity scale was going to go to 6. A correction was made the next day. The author of the piece that Slashdot linked now writes 'I retract the balance of my criticism.' Turns out Gore was misquoted. Luckily for Gore, this is the first time he's been ridiculed for something he didn't actually say. Well, except for Love Story, Love Canal, farm chores, and everyone's favorite, inventing the internet. (The original Slashdot story is here and its central link now includes the Washington Post's correction.)"
From Ezra Klein's update on his earlier piece: "I'm out-of-town and so away from my tape recorder. So I asked Gore's staff about the line and they have Gore saying: 'The scientists are now adding category six to the hurricane ... some are proposing we add category 6 to the hurricane scale that used to be 1-5.' That doesn't offend my memory of the discussion and it's entirely possible I missed Gore's qualifying sentence while trying to keep up. If so, that's my fault, and I apologize."
The rest of the criticism remains valid (Score:2, Informative)
Generally, Gore’s characterization of the links between global warming and hurricane intensity is a bit fast and loose. Whereas Gore tells Klein hurricanes are “stronger now” due to manmade warming, the freshly leaked United Nations climate assessment is much more equivocal. Although the assessment says hurricane activity has become more intense in the Atlantic since 1970, there is “low confidence” of a human contribution.
Re:AL GORE CREATED THE INTERNET! (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, WOW! The story has been SOOOO debunked. Al Gore never said that he invented the Internet! He said that he *created* the Internet which is the total opposite!
I know you're just trolling, but here's your sign [umich.edu].
creating the internet (Score:2, Informative)
Al Gore authored the legislation that made Darpanet public, which created the internet thus making his comment which was "I practically invented the internet" correct. A lot of people don't remember Darpanet.
Other Hurricane Scales (Score:5, Informative)
The Saffir-Simpson scale is pretty antiquated for the exact reasons mentioned. Just measuring wind speed gives a very poor idea of how dangerous or destructive a storm will by, and gives no indication of relative size.
The better scale that the AMS is starting to lean toward is the Hebert-Weinzapfel scale, which has a much easier to spell name as the Hurricane Severity Index, or HSI.
With the HSI model, the speed of wind and the size of the wind field are taken in to account so a storm that is moderate intensity but very large in footprint, like Katrina, has a similar rating to a hurricane with a high intensity and very small footprint like Andrew. Both were similar in the amount of destruction they caused but Katrina was only SS Cat 3 at landfall, where Andrew was SS Cat 5.
But hey, lets just make jokes about Al Gore instead, cause Al Gore. Am I right here people?
Re:The rest of the criticism remains valid (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Two peas in a pod (Score:5, Informative)
a storm four times more powerful means 540mph winds. do you seriously think that we will have storms in the 700mph wind speed category?
This is a willful misreading of the original post. "4x more powerful" is vague, of course, but by no reasonable reading would interpret it as "4x windspeeds". I read it to mean "4x as destructive". That could be a matter of an increase in as little as 10 mph. Damage to manmade structures is what we're interested in.
That by the way, is how the Saffir-Simpson scale was defined. If you look at the speeds involved, it seems to make little sense:
Cat 1: 119-153 kph
Cat 2: 154-157 kph
Cat 3: 158-208 kph
Cat 4: 209-251kph
Cat 5: 252+ kph
Herbert Saffir, who conceived of the scale for Atlantic hurricanes, was a civil engineer, and his scale was calibrated in terms of potential damage to a well-built frame house. Category 1 hurricanes have dangerous winds but pose only minor danger to a well-built frame house. Category 2 hurricanes commonly cause extensive roof and siding damage to well-built frame houses. Category 3 hurricanes commonly cause major damage to roof decking and gable ends of well-built frame houses. Category 4 hurricanes will cause loss of most of the roof structure and some side walls of well-built frame houses. Category 5 hurricanes cam be expected destroy many well-built frame homes in their path.
Now it's clear that in terms of just describing the potential effect of a hurricane on a well-built frame house, you don't need a category that goes above "complete destruction to many well-built structures". But the very success of the scale in terms of its impact on building codes means we probably should recalibrate the scale because of a change in the meaning of "well-built". But that would be confusing when comparing current to past hurricanes, so adding a category 6 representing "widespread destruction of frame structures built to modern building standards" might make sense.
If more powerful hurricanes become more common, we may also wish to have a category that represents potential catastrophic damage to reinforced concrete homes with shallow hipped roofs -- structures you'd expect to survive lower-end Cat 5 hurricanes largely intact.
Re:creating the internet (Score:5, Informative)
Of course he never said "I practically invented the internet". He said "I took the initiative in creating the Internet", which in a political sense was completely true.
Sure, he wasn't writing code for the TCP/IP stack, nor does he have a single RFC to his name, but the people who were doing that work have always been very clear that Al Gore was the first and for a while only politician to really understand the value of what they were doing. After the legislation you just mentioned (called the "Gore Bill") was passed, and Gore became VP, he continued to push the Clinton administration to make the Internet more ubiquitous. He also remains the only VP with a photo-op of him putting Cat-5 cabling into a school.
So yeah, he totally did that.
Re:I'm confused... (Score:4, Informative)
You're trying very, very hard to be confused.
The original quote said they were adding a 6. Full stop. 6 is coming. There's no debate.
The amended quote says some scientists are proposing to add a 6. There is a debate over whether or not to do so.
If you can't see the difference between those two concepts, you are deliberately trying to be confused.
Further, your third quote only refutes the first - It is only relevant if Gore says they are absolutely adding a 6. But he didn't.