Landfall Nears For Strongest Hurricane In Recorded History (cnn.com) 273
An anonymous reader writes: Patricia — the strongest hurricane ever recorded — barreled closer and closer Friday to Mexico's Pacific coast, where residents have been told to brace for its 200-mph sustained winds and torrential rains. The early Friday central pressure recording of 880 millibars (the barometric pressure equivalent is 25.98 inches) "is the lowest for any tropical cyclone globally for over 30 years," according to the Met Office, Britain's weather service. One other thing alarming about Patricia is its rapid rise in intensity. It rated as a tropical storm early Thursday, but 24 hours later it had become a Category 5 hurricane. Among other effects, El Niño has contributed to ocean waters off Mexico being 2 to 3 degrees warmer than usual. "That warm water from El Niño probably just pushed this slightly over the edge to be the strongest storm on record," CNN's Myers said.
Time to add a category? (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps Cat 5 isn't enough anymore. Cat 6 has more twisters than Cat 5.
Re:Time to add a category? (Score:5, Funny)
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:Insert joke comparing cat 5 and 6 cables here:
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You replied to a joke about the difference between cat 5 and 6 cables. Read closer.
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As expected (Score:3, Insightful)
Science knows this would happen. Ever since we started unlocking the secrets of chaotic systems this has been well understood. Climate’s the biggest chaotic system there is.
There is nothing weird about this at all. This is the new direction. Not the new normal because that implies they’re all going to be like this from now on. The reality’s worse.
The new normal is for each new weather disaster to be ‘unprecedented and weird’ and it’s been happening for years already and not slowing down but speeding up.
Alarmist? Fuck yes. Alarms are necessary and this is what they’re for. We are soon going to need to concentrate on clinging to life on this fucking planet, never mind ‘fighting climate change’. Climate’s WAAAAAY bigger than us. We’re pretty smart humans and we’ll succeed in adapting, but it’s gonna look like colonizing Venus and Mars put together, and one hell of a lot of innocent people will die in vast numbers trying to survive this.
Maybe we can string up some Koches at some point to make ourselves feel better, because this was DONE by the decisions of stupid people, much like an avalanche can be kicked off by a person pushing over a snowbank.
Failing that, somebody film this. Media might not want to undermine vested interests, but media can’t help but drool over footage of outrageous unthinkable destruction. Use that. Which is to say: please, dronebros, go and get your wealthy asses famous. It will be awesome footage, guaranteed ;P
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colonizing Venus and Mars put together,
I'm climate stabilization action now supporter #1 and have put tens of $thousands where my mouth is but to be fair we can at least breath the air...unless you literally mean it will be like living on a planet where Venus and Mars have been merged somewhere in the middle resulting in a planet pretty much exactly like the Earth and thus will face the exact same challenges we face now.
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Oh hell yeah! We can call it the Venus and Mars Rock Show :)
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Which is to say: please, dronebros, go and get your wealthy asses famous. It will be awesome footage, guaranteed ;P
The problem is, it's hard to fly a drone in 200 MPH winds...
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Oh, come on, don't tell them that. It'll be hilarious!
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Science knows this would happen. Ever since we started unlocking the secrets of chaotic systems this has been well understood.
I KNEW IT! It's the damn scientists fault!
See--the AGW people are right! It's not that the scientists are making money off their climate studies, it's that they screwed up and created this mess by studying it! See? It's like that whole Schrodinger's Cat thing! Everything was fine until they started studying this stuff and now look at the mess we're in. They're just trying to cover their asses!
Get the pitchforks out! Let's get 'em!
Re:As expected (Score:5, Interesting)
How long is the recorded history of similarly accurate storm measurement? How old is the planet? Maybe we're just in a cycle that is a bit longer than the amount of time people have been able to measure hurricanes, or have been able to measure them as accurately.
The other reply is misleading.
We've been using "modern" measurements for hurricanes since about 1959, which just happened to have a record storm. BUT... that year also had an El Nino. And the strong El Nino of this year again made one more likely. Nothing terribly special about that, statistically. And nothing particular connecting it to "global warming".
Prior to that time, hurricanes were only actually measured at all when they made landfall. Others were only estimated from ships or from shore. Which means most of them were never measured, and in fact we actually have no idea where Patricia falls in the severity range since records began.
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The connection between "global warming" and hurricane intensity has been well established [nature.com] (PDF [mit.edu]) by Dr. Chris Landsea and many other authors. Can Jane link to a peer-reviewed paper refut
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The connection between "global warming" and hurricane intensity has been well established (PDF) by Dr. Chris Landsea and many other authors. Can Jane link to a peer-reviewed paper refuting Dr. Landsea?
How about your vaunted IPCC, and its "low confidence" rating for same?
Further, that isn't a demonstrated connection. It says right in the abstract that it's a speculative projection based on models. And we know very well now that the models are severely flawed.
There are papers on both sides of the issue, but of course you only want to present those on your side, as always.
Grinsted et al. 2012 measured Atlantic hurricane surges back to 1923:
No, he didn't. He estimated them using proxies. He didn't "measure" them at all.
I have no more to say about it to you. It isn't
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So big that we would have to drop a few HUNDRED nuclear bombs
So... Is the equivalent of 2.2 billion [4hiroshimas.com] nuclear bombs enough?
Wow, slashdot editors can not RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
From the article
"Patricia the third strongest tropical cyclone in history (by wind)
Super Typhoon Nancy (1961), 215 mph winds, 882 mb. Made landfall as a Cat 2 in Japan, killing 191 people.
Super Typhoon Violet (1961), 205 mph winds, 886 mb pressure. Made landfall in Japan as a tropical storm, killing 2 people.
Super Typhoon Ida (1958), 200 mph winds, 877 mb pressure. Made landfall as a Cat 1 in Japan, killing 1269 people.
Super Typhoon Haiyan (2013), 195 mph winds, 895 mb pressure. Made landfall in the Philippines at peak strength.
Super Typhoon Kit (1966), 195 mph winds, 880 mb. Did not make landfall.
Super Typhoon Sally (1964), 195 mph winds, 895 mb. Made landfall as a Cat 4 in the Philippines.
"
Its a big one but not the strongest on record. From the look of it, they tend to happen every few years so not even a weather anomaly.
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It's not entirely happened yet so this is a fine time to say 'it's not much of a hurricane'. Please wait until all the people have been killed before coming around all 'climate change is a myth and this was no big deal'.
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Then maybe you can wait until it actually occurs and we have real information before you run around claiming we will all die.
Re:Wow, slashdot editors can not RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Did you RTFA?
Highest reliably-measured:
"The aircraft measured surface winds of 200 mph, which are the highest reliably-measured surface winds on record for a tropical cyclone, anywhere on the Earth."
The other ones aren't reliable:
"However, it is now recognized (Black 1992) that the maximum sustained winds estimated for typhoons during the 1940s to 1960s were too strong. The strongest reliably measured tropical cyclones were both 10 mph weaker than Patricia, with 190 mph winds—the Western Pacific's Super Typhoon Tip of 1979, and the Atlantic's Hurricane Allen of 1980."
Re:Wow, slashdot editors can not RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Adjusting previous figures to show the current as maximum is a tried and true technique.
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Errors can be demonstrated and old records thus corrected. But missing data can't be conjured out of thin air. So what exactly do you want? People not to correct errors when they find them? Or people to find a way to conjure nonexistent data out of thin air? What exactly do you want?
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But that's exactly what they do. Unless you claim that Siberia, American Southwest, the Empty Quarter, middle of the Pacific, etc have full coverage. They make estimates for the majority of locations on the earth.
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When the facts dont meet the hype you adjust the facts?
So the rest of the data is wrong just the stuff we have collected in the last 28 years?
That's EXACTLY what is being done, and it SHOULD be CRIMINAL.
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To be fair, they just left out the phrase "in North America...", and for some reason title real-estate is at a premium.
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The story I read was "strongest hurricane out of all the storms in places where giant storms are called hurricanes" so the typhoons didn't count.
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You missed the bit where it's in the east pacific. Historically the west pacific typhoons are stronger. It's like comparing a tornado in California to ones in Kansas. An F4 tornado in LA would be a statistical anomaly where as Kansas gets one pretty regularly.
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A F4 tornado in California would probably cause more damage because their cities probably aren't built with tornadoes in mind. They like to use natural obstacles that keep tornadoes from forming like rivers and bluffs.
/. commenters can'y read summaries, either (Score:5, Informative)
It clearly said "strongest hurricane", which is true. Typhoons are on the other side of the Pacific ocean. Hurricanes are only in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific.
"They happen every few years". 50 years is not what I would call "few". If so, I would only be a "few" years old.
Katrina much worse (Score:2)
This thing has higher winds but is more like a tornado. It's hurricane winds are about 25 miles wide vs Katrina which was 125 miles. The flooding required a large wall of wind to really pile up the water. This is more like Charlie in 2004 which had really fast but narrow winds.
Wow, slashdot commenters can not RTFA (Score:3)
From the article
"However, it is now recognized (Black 1992) [noaa.gov] that the maximum sustained winds estimated for typhoons during the 1940s to 1960s were too strong. The strongest reliably measured tropical cyclones were both 10 mph weaker than Patricia...".
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Because MPH was defined differently back then. In black and white, or something.
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According to what someone else posted above, it's because the wind speed was estimated by looking at the storm and guessing how fast the winds were. It's not what I'd call the most accurate or reliable methodology.
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And it's not what I would call anywhere near an accurate statement. The Anemometer was invented in 1846. No one was looking at the storm.
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From the look of it, they tend to happen every few years so not even a weather anomaly.
Yeah, it's a complete non-story, no one should pay any attention to it at all, there's no one even there. Let's get back to watching Donald Trump on TV! Oh, and fuck Mexico!
Sounds More Like (Score:3)
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A tornado hits peak winds for a relatively short period of time. A slow moving hurricane could maintain peak winds for an hour, or for hours.
I'm sure they're taking it more seriously than Slashdot is (predictable really) but it gets to a point where what CAN they do? Again, it's like telling people to prepare for a direct nuclear blast. Hours of 200 mph winds makes the entire world basically a sort of sandblaster, using flying shrapnel to scour away all traces of civilization. There ain't a lot you can do t
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I'm sure they're taking it more seriously than Slashdot is (predictable really) but it gets to a point where what CAN they do? Again, it's like telling people to prepare for a direct nuclear blast.
So they were all told to get under a school desk and cover the back of their necks with their hands?
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There ain't a lot you can do to prepare when Mother Nature's been chugging too many hydrocarbon espressos and goes into a seizure.
You really are a Climate Change zealot aren't you?
This is El Nino. It is entirely expected. This is not an unusual weather pattern, nor is it the strongest storm ever. You really need to calm the rhetoric.
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I agree, it is a beast of a storm, but attributing a single storm to AGW is absurd.
I personally feel for the people being hit by this storm. I have been lucky, despite some dooseys hitting my area, I have never lost anything to a hurricane, but they can cause you to lose everything, so they are no laughing matter.
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it's like telling people to prepare for a direct nuclear blast
So... hide in a refrigerator?
I mean, Lucas and Spielberg would never have steered me wrong on that, right?
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Yep, basically a 100 mile (or more) wide F4 tornado. Most buildings aren't really build to take that kind of hit.
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FTFY.
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I hope the people there are going to take that thing seriously.
Sure, they are. But for all the progress they've seen since for example the last time I was there almost twenty years ago, a lot of them are still living in plywood shacks. A lot of little villages are going to literally blow away.
Let's Remember the Important Thing Here (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's cut all the crap about global warming/climate change and remember that there are people living where this storm is making landfall. It doesn't matter if this is the strongest storm ever or if climate change caused this, there are real people in harm's way. This is not going to be pretty, between storm surge and rainfall over mountainous terrain and the flooding that will bring. So please keep these people in mind.
Do whatever you think best to help. whether that be prayer or cutting out a Starbuck's run to donate to the Red Cross. What are we put on this Earth for if not to help one another?
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The thing that really strikes me about this storm is that on Tuesday night I hadn't heard of it as a tropical storm, and 24 hours later it's a very powerful storm, far more powerful than the models predicted it was going to be, and it's headed directly toward a populated area and major tourist destination. The people there had virtually no time to prepare for it, by the time a lot of tourists heard that they needed to evacuate the airports were already closed and the buses were full. The story is both the
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The "crap about global warming" is about the next one.
I just went through my first typhoon, visiting inlaws in Taiwan. They're getting hit a lot more frequently now - my wife has some pics of typhoon damage from a trip she went just a month before. At one point there were 3 cat 4 typhoons in the Pacific at the same time, also a historical first.
There's the path "it's caused randomly so we can't do anything about it" there's also the path "it's caused by ____ so lets yell at ____ so we feel better, but it
Patricia is Fair Warning to the US West Coast (Score:2)
When you search "Pineapple Express" in Wikipedia, you realize we are only a few years away from a repeat due on the 160 year cycle of mega storms hitting the West Coast.
Geologists studying the California valley sediments know these groups of storms over a month's time will dump around 10 feet of water on California in a month.
NOAA has been studying the size of the warm water buildup in the Eastern Pacific that feeds these storms for decades, so we know it is coming.
Patricia is likely only the first one.
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we are only a few years away from a repeat due on the 160 year cycle of mega storms hitting the West Coast.
How do you know it's a 160-year cycle? Are there records of west coast storms from the early 1700s? That would be 2 data points, a third would require records from the 1540s.
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I imagine archeometeorologists can get it from tree rings or whatever. Still, a quick Google search didn't give me any hits regarding a '160-year cycle'.
Update (Score:2, Interesting)
About an hour ago another NOAA plane did readings while flying through the storm:
"the plane reported an extrapolated surface pressure of 902.6 millibars based on measurements from the aircraft. Peak flight-level winds were 166 mph during this pass."
So, um, the storm weakened by > 20% in an hour? So now it is just a regular Cat 5 which have hit this area regularly.
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Yep, now we know: the weather blows.
Bad name for a storm.... (Score:2)
I recall the crap gals named Katrina underwent during/after Hurricane Katrina, since my wife's name is Patricia, I sincerely hope she doesn't get any of the same, being that this is supposedly the most powerful recorded hurricane in history...
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Well, if this is just a one time thing, it's weather.
It'll be climate if the number of hurricanes keeps increasing, or if every year the hurricanes keeps exceeding the previous year's wind record.
One time thing - weather. If it becomes a trend, it's climate.
Re:Weather of Climate? (Score:5, Informative)
Well... sort of. It's climate if any statistical property of hurricanes undergoes any statistical shift. Climate is the signal. Weather is the noise. It's like, say, driving home from work. Let's say it normally takes you an average of 20 minutes to drive home from work. Your numbers may go 17, 21, 14, 29, 19, 16, 26, 18, etc depending on local conditions... but the average is 20. But when a statistically significant sampling of drives starts averaging out higher - say, 27, 20, 21, 34, 20, 26, 31, etc... the underlying baseline has changed. The noise still exists, but it's on top of a different signal.
In terms of hurricanes, a warming average climate does not inherently mean "more hurricanes". Hurricanes from due to a complicated series of circumstances - some of which we understand well (like sea surface temperatures), some which we don't (like African dust). There's not only sea surface temperatures but the depths to which it exends, wind shear, dry air, and literally dozens of other factors. Not all of the changes that are associated with a warming planet encourage hurricanes - some discourage them. And the impacts can vary from one hurricane basin to another.
The North Atlantic basin, which most Americans care most about, has two strongly opposing effects in a warming world: increasing ocean heat versus increasing wind shear. Wind shear is death to hurricanes. The airflow patterns that fuel a hurricane require that the core be vertically aligned, so when you shear it horizontally, it fails to be able to power itself. Larger hurricanes can somewhat protect themselves against it, at the cost of declining intensity, but smaller storms get torn to shreds. It combines with dry air to worsen its effect, funneling the dry air into the core (dry air = subsidence = shutting off upflow-driven storms like hurricanes).
How these two factors ultimately play out is very difficult to predict, and particularly in the North Atlantic. The number of hurricanes per year in the North Atlantic Basin ranges from zero to dozens. And where they impact varies widely as well - the US can get nailed many times by powerful storms, or they can get hit by nothing at all. The general expectation is "mixed": that the increasing wind shear may reduce the total number of storms and will almost certainly rip apart more "vulnerable" storms - but that when conditions are right (as wind shear is constantly varying, and there are always times and places that there is little to none), storms will appear faster, grow faster, and reach higher top speeds.
That said, again, hurricanes are very complicated systems to model and predict, so it's hard to make predictions on this front with too much confidence.
Re:Weather of Climate? (Score:5, Interesting)
We were also pretty lucky that Joaquin steered out to sea rather than slamming into the east coast (and even then managed to dump catastrophic rainfall on South Carolina. It was within a day or two of really hammering some heavily populated areas that aren't really built to withstand regular hurricanes.
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Well... sort of. It's climate if any statistical property of hurricanes undergoes any statistical shift. Climate is the signal. Weather is the noise. It's like, say, driving home from work. Let's say it normally takes you an average of 20 minutes to drive home from work. Your numbers may go 17, 21, 14, 29, 19, 16, 26, 18, etc depending on local conditions... but the average is 20. But when a statistically significant sampling of drives starts averaging out higher - say, 27, 20, 21, 34, 20, 26, 31, etc... the underlying baseline has changed. The noise still exists, but it's on top of a different signal.
That said, again, hurricanes are very complicated systems to model and predict, so it's hard to make predictions on this front with too much confidence.
I think the point is if we start having several outliers in a row then we can be pretty certain it's climate. To use your driving record example, if next week your times go 33,37,32,47 then we know something has changed. Likewise, if over the next 5 years we see 3 huricanes with greater than 200 mile winds make landfall then we know that something significant has changed. We obviously can make conclusions with less dramatic data but multiple record breaking hurricanes is probably what it will take to g
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Climate is the signal. Weather is the noise.
Splendid metaphor...wish I'd thought of it.
Re:Weather of Climate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Strongest in history, it must be climate change! /s
The strengthening though is interesting, and the tie in to El Nin~o does make for interesting weather geeking.
Re:Weather of Climate? (Score:5, Interesting)
The belt of warm water feeding this late-season hurricane is from El Niño, which is a cycle independent of all other cycles, and not a part of any carbon warming that may be occurring.
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The belt of warm water feeding this late-season hurricane is from El Niño, which is a cycle independent of all other cycles, and not a part of any carbon warming that may be occurring.
WTF is "CARBON Warming"???
Yet ANOTHER pseudo-science term!
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WTF is "CARBON Warming"???
The GP didn't define it clearly, but from the context it's obvious s/he means warming induced by the greenhouse effect from adding carbon compounds (such as carbon dioxide and methane) to the earth's atmosphere.
Re:Weather of Climate? (Score:4, Insightful)
And how many million years have dinosaurs fart? How many million years have plants and animals decomposed? How many million years have forest fires raged for months, and maybe even years, on end?
What kind of dumbass argument is that?
Throughout the world, in a year all volcanoes combined (above and below water) emit around 145 to 255 million tons of CO2. In the US, forest fires release around 290 million tons every year. That's great. Maybe people have contributed to worse fires in recent decades, maybe overall not so much. Either way, it's in the range of several hundred million tons of CO2 every year.
The largest coal power plant, in Taiwan, releases 40 million tons per year. That means that, at the low range of estimates for volcanoes, only 4 of those power plants would emit more CO2 than all volcanoes on the planet. China alone emits over 10 billion tons per year. That is far more than all forest fires. The US is about half that, about 5.3 billion tons. Overall, people emit over 30 billion tons in CO2 through burning of fossil fuels (power plants, cars, etc), and that level has nearly tripled in the past 15 years.
Since the 1880s we've been burning coal, fuel oil, and natural gas for power, non-stop. Since the early 1900s we've been driving gas-powered cars, non-stop, and also been flying gas-powered planes, non-stop. Since the early 1800s we've been driving CO2-emitting ships around, non-stop. Since the early 1800s we've also been operating CO2-emitting trains, non-stop. That's several hundred years of steam ships, steam trains, power plants, cars, and planes, and if you crack open one of your history books you'll notice that since the introduction of those until today the usage has actually increased. They have gotten larger, hungrier, and more numerous.
And you're talking about dinosaurs walking around farting several hundred million years ago. Get a grip. If you want to compare something, then compare a forest fire that started 200 years ago and has grown larger and larger each and every year, culminating in the doubling of size every few years for the past couple decades. And keep in mind that the stuff that was burnt doesn't extinguish, it keeps burning, all 200 years. Then you'll have a comparison with the human effect on CO2 production. Save your farting dinosaurs for your kids.
Let me know if you got my point, or if you need me to rewrite that while capitalizing random words.
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So you are asserting that belt of warm water is not warmer than it would have been without the general increase in global temperature?
Just to be clear: you are saying that because the specific mechanism by which warm water was moved into the region is independent of warming that there is no way that any warming mechanism (such as CO2 emissions, methane release, etc.) is related.
Hmmm... so if a stolen firearm is used in a bank robbery the original theft is irrelevant as long as the original thieves did not t
Re:Weather of Climate? (Score:5, Interesting)
And said El Nino is being fed by carbon warming.
If it were, that would be good for California, because they can use some extra water (which tends to come in El Nino years).
Unfortunately there is no good computer modeling able to predict El Nino, and the models are divided on whether El Nino will increase or decrease as a result of AGW.
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No, there is no equivalence between sane people and the destructive right-wing extremists who are driving us off a cliff.
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Scientific community vs nihilist right-wing shills is a pissing contest now? No, there is no equivalence between sane people and the destructive right-wing extremists who are driving us off a cliff.
And no equivalence between actual science and the grant-money-grubbing, lying "scientists" that will publish literally ANYTHING to get the next Grant.
And no, I am CERTAINLY no "Right-Wing" ANYTHING, let alone an "Extremist". If anything, it is the "Climate Change" mob (that is actually just the money-chasing mob) that is the "Extremists".
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The fact that it is the strongest in history is not really all that important. It isn't so far off the charts that it was inconceivable.
However, the fact that it's particular intensity is believed to be related to El Nino means that there is something of a climate effect. Of course, I'm not stating El Nino is a result of AGW, in fact I don't have any idea if it is supposed to be or not.
So, being the most powerful in history helps in one respect. Since it has broken an upper observed value, it becomes eas
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In a pissing contest, you always want to be on the downwind side.
(And WTF /. - you're messing things up again. Can't moderate, the posting dialog box reminds me of one of beta's really bad days. )
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Well we know we can ignore your opinion since there is no such things as cat 6 or 7 hurricane. Also this is the first cat 5 to make landfall in 11 years, so 1 event every decade is now proof that it will constantly happen every year now.
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At this rate North America is going to be hit by 2 Cat5 hurricanes next week alone.
Re: Weather of Climate? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Weather of Climate? (Score:5, Insightful)
> This is no pissing contest, this is called 'hard experimental evidence'.
This is called "a single data point". Hurricanes have been down in recent years.
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Not to mention that the records keep getting revised: there were hurricanes measured at higher strengths in the 1960's, but they've been "revised" downwards. Now new hurricanes are "the strongest ever recorded."
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> That's one of the many reason the LYING, money-sucking "Climatologists" had to drop the moniker "Global Warming" in favor of the "Well, we can always claim it" name "Climate Change".
To which the proper response is still: "What part of 'chaotic' do you not understand?"
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> That's one of the many reason the LYING, money-sucking "Climatologists" had to drop the moniker "Global Warming" in favor of the "Well, we can always claim it" name "Climate Change".
To which the proper response is still: "What part of 'chaotic' do you not understand?"
I would say the same thing, to those who see "Patterns" of "Climate Change" where in reality, none exist.
Hence, Chaos.
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The name change was initiated by Republican strategist Frank Luntz over a decade ago in a memo to the Bush administration:
"It’s time for us to start talking about “climate change” instead of global warming and “conservation” instead of preservation.
'Climate change' is less frightening than 'global warming'. As one focus group participant noted, climate change 'sounds like you’re going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale.' While global warming has catastrophic connotations
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Let me guess, they are communists trying to brainwash people against energy companies and destroy our economy?
No no, wait, they are zombie drones OF the communists who don't even realize they are being used to brainwash people against our economy?
Ah wait no, I get it ... YOU'RE a zombie drone who may or may not realize your paranoid delusions were carefully crafted by the energy companies!
Nope. None of that.
Just the usual boring prosaic goals of human beings seeking self-fortune and self-aggrandizement. Nothing special.
No Communist plots. Just run-of-the-mill Greed and Avarice.
Re:Weather of Climate? (Score:5, Funny)
You completely skipped the cat 5e hurricane. You'll never get your Network+ like that.
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You obviously have absolutely no idea the scale of the energies at play here. Many times the Hiroshima Bomb per second.
How many times? Apparently the anthropogenic effects of climate change are currently causing the earth to accumulate and addition 4 Hiroshima Bombs per second [4hiroshimas.com]. The grand total is now at around 2.2 billion bombs. So, I'm curious. Do you think this hurricane is 4 billion times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb?
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You are wildly off. A Cat-5 hurricane sustains about 1 petawatt of power output, or ~50x the rate of humanity's fossil fuel consumption. A year's worth of human output could power this hurricane at full strength for about a week. These storms typically last at peak intensity for a couple days. In other words, humans are adding about two or three Cat-5 hurricanes' worth of energy per year to the global environment.
And how much gets bled off into space?
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Mexico is basically a third world country. The homes on the coast will blow over almost immediately.
Won't someone think of the expats!?
Re:There will be many deaths (Score:5, Informative)
Mind you, this third world country has infrastructure that year after year withstands hurricanes on both coasts, and they are seldom "catastrophic" (i.e. one strong event per decade). The area where it is hitting is moderately populated, and has available shelter places with great resistance that have been used before (such as the touristic compounds in Puerto Vallarta region).
Our country has hurricanes volcanos, sismicity, poverty and whatnot. But is much better prepared for a Katrina-style event than the USA.
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[...] sismicity [...]
SimCity? So you get Giant Lizards and Meteor Showers, too?
It's "Seismicity."
(Sorry to be pedantic, I just thought it was funny when I first read it as "SimCity.")
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Why add plain nastiness to all your other foaming wrongness in other posts on this story?
Professional troll?
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Well we do know about the ones that ended up on land for quite a ways back. Not sure what you're getting at with your untestable supposition. Is this not a big deal because it might have happened before?
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The problem here is that every big storm is taken by the "alarmists" to be solid evidence of catastrophic climate change. This only fuels the "deniers" who say that "alarmists" take every excuse to push their agenda ... something both sides actually do.
When we phrase everything as a contest between "sides" we lose track of the reality. If dangerous climate change is indeed taking place while we're so caught up in fighting for our "side" we will really be in trouble. If dangerous climate change isn't taking
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Study chaos theory. It's relatively new in that it didn't exist in the time of Galileo or Isaac Newton, but it's the exact model you need to predict what's happening.
Since it's chaotic it's impossible to pin down exact outcomes but the overall behavior is extremely stable and predictable. We know exactly what happens in a chaotic system, we know the exact threshold where periodic events break down and go into chaotic flow, we know specific signposts (such as Period Three Implies Chaos) telling us we're work
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We know for a fact that warming is real, it's just that the propagandized right-wing lunatics can't accept that they're driving us all off a cliff. Hate-radio, and right-wing fake-news has done us a lot of harm.
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If one of those suckers happens to hit near LA or NYC, millions of people get to meet their maker.
If one of these suckers hits ANYWHERE on the planet, Millions, if not Billions of people get to meet their maker.... You'd have to evacuate the whole damn planet...
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There's no reason to believe this one is unlike other storms that have been forming out in the Pacific since the last Ice Age.
A la contrair.
As the size and strength of storms grows with water temperature, and we have now the highest temperatures since the last glacier period, it is save to assume that our days storms are stronger.
Obviously there might have been single cases in history where a storm was equally strong or even stronger.
The clear trend (even if denied by weather frogs) is ofc a scientific fac
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It was caused by all the hot air exiting the Benghazi investigation yesterday, Hillary was on the stand for 11 hours after all.
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Keep telling yourself that, I am sure Hillary will win...
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