What's Causing The Hurricanes? (yahoo.com) 442
An anonymous reader quotes AFP:
Hurricane Irma, now taking aim at Florida, has stunned experts with its sheer size and strength, churning across the ocean with sustained Category 5 winds of 183 miles per hour (295 kilometers per hour) for more than 33 hours, making it the longest-lasting, top-intensity cyclone ever recorded. Meanwhile Jose, a Category 4 on the Saffir Simpson scale of 1 to 5, is fast on the heels of Irma, pummeling the Caribbean for the second time in the span of a few days. Many have wondered what is contributing to the power and frequency of these extreme storms. "Atlantic hurricane seasons over the years have been shaped by many complex factors," said Jim Kossin, a NOAA hurricane scientist at the University of Wisconsin. "Those include large scale ocean currents, air pollution -- which tends to cool the ocean down -- and climate change"...
Some think a surge in industrial pollution after World War II may have produced more pollutant particles that blocked the Sun's energy and exerted a cooling effect on the oceans. "The pollution reduced a lot of hurricane activity," said Gabriel Vecchi, professor of geosciences at Princeton University's Environmental Institute. Pollution began to wane in the 1980s due to regulations such as the Clean Air Act, allowing more of the Sun's rays to penetrate the ocean and provide warming fuel for storms. Vecchi said the "big debate" among scientists is over which plays a larger role -- variations in ocean currents or pollution cuts. There is evidence for both, but there isn't enough data to answer a key question...
The burning of fossil fuels, which spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and warm the Earth, can also be linked to a rise in extreme storms in recent years. Warmer ocean temperatures yield more moisture, more rainfall, and greater intensity storms. "It is not a coincidence that we're seeing more devastating hurricanes," climatologist Michael Mann of Penn State University told AFP in an email. "Over the past few years, as global sea surface temperatures have been the warmest on record, we've seen the strongest hurricanes -- as measured by peak sustained winds -- globally, in both Southern and Northern Hemisphere, in both Pacific and now, with Irma, the open Atlantic," he added. "The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle. We're seeing them play out in real time, and the past two weeks have been a sadly vivid example."
Some think a surge in industrial pollution after World War II may have produced more pollutant particles that blocked the Sun's energy and exerted a cooling effect on the oceans. "The pollution reduced a lot of hurricane activity," said Gabriel Vecchi, professor of geosciences at Princeton University's Environmental Institute. Pollution began to wane in the 1980s due to regulations such as the Clean Air Act, allowing more of the Sun's rays to penetrate the ocean and provide warming fuel for storms. Vecchi said the "big debate" among scientists is over which plays a larger role -- variations in ocean currents or pollution cuts. There is evidence for both, but there isn't enough data to answer a key question...
The burning of fossil fuels, which spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and warm the Earth, can also be linked to a rise in extreme storms in recent years. Warmer ocean temperatures yield more moisture, more rainfall, and greater intensity storms. "It is not a coincidence that we're seeing more devastating hurricanes," climatologist Michael Mann of Penn State University told AFP in an email. "Over the past few years, as global sea surface temperatures have been the warmest on record, we've seen the strongest hurricanes -- as measured by peak sustained winds -- globally, in both Southern and Northern Hemisphere, in both Pacific and now, with Irma, the open Atlantic," he added. "The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle. We're seeing them play out in real time, and the past two weeks have been a sadly vivid example."
The Russians. (Score:5, Funny)
There, I said it.
Re:The Russians. (Score:5, Funny)
I think they're caused by heat and pressure differences.
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Sure. Heat and pressure differences create Russians.
Re:The Russians. (Score:5, Funny)
I thought it was Vodka and furry hats.
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Pretty much. One of the worst to hit FL was in the 1920s. If you point to a hurricane and scream climate change you are an idiot. If you point to a bad winter and say look global warming is a fraud your an idiot.
PS this Post is coming to you from South East Florida, Irma is so annoying. On the West Coast and Keys it is terrible.
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The 1920 storm was a baby child in relation to Irma, Andrew or Katrina.
It simply did more(?) damage and costed more lives because of much worse infrastructure and late/no warning.
Regardless of climate change, you always can have an out of the line event.
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I have yet to hear this or any other hurricane being described as the worst hurricane ever. Whenever one of these record-breaking weather phenomena occurs, it is always said that it was the worst on record. What you have done is reworded how they are described and then complained specifically about the rewording.
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What part of AGW do you feel is insufficiently well supported? What's your alternate theory?
(this line of questioning is a trap designed to reveal your ignorance of the empirical evidence; you could save some time by admitting your dishonesty up front)
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Kay. So none of that is true, but even if it were, then we would still have this issue of excess atmospheric carbon, n'est-ce pas?
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Or that. We can always go with that.
Re:The Russians. (Score:4, Funny)
The Butterfly Effect (Score:3)
Except they're Russian butterflies. You know the kind--tattoos and wife-beaters, heavy drinkers and smokers -- the whole lot of 'em!
Water [Re:Deforrestation of the Amazon] (Score:5, Informative)
Massive deforestation is not being considered? Seriously.
indeed. A fascinating image of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/g... [nasa.gov]
The thing to look at is not merely the carbon dioxide being emitted from the northern hemisphere-- it's fascinating to look at the plume of carbon-dioxide depleted air wafting off of the rain forests of south America.
One unit of burnt coal or gas produces 1 unit of CO2 and one of H2O! Yes, water is a greenhouse gas.
Indeed, water is a greenhouse gas. But.
But water precipitates out of the atmosphere very very fast, so the water actually emitted by humans doesn't really contribute for very long. The carbon dioxide, on the other hand, sticks around for an estimated lifetime of about a hundred years. More to the point, the hundred and fifty million square miles of ocean surface evaporates so much water into the atmosphere that the amount emitted by humans really is, in this case, trivial-- the equilibrium water content of the atmosphere is driven by evaporation, not by direct emission.
For the most part, the humidity in the atmosphere is driven by the temperature, not vice versa.
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Hawker (Score:5, Funny)
Hawker, later known as Hawker-Siddeley. Also responsible for typhoons and tempests.
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I'm pretty sure Tempest [wikipedia.org] was made by Dave Theurer.
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I thought The Tempest was created by Shakespeare.
Streetcars, lozenges and security (Score:3)
Man made climate change.... (Score:2, Informative)
for the feeble minded.
One active season and now everything is different? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Obviously it's politics causing the storm. Oh and Trump caused it too, and in turn the reason why Mexico had an earthquake is because they're not paying for the wall and illegals are still crossing.
I think I've got all the crazy shit I've seen in the last week in there.
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People have short memories when it comes to weather, unless it's something really weird. We had a really nasty winter a couple of years ago, and people were freaking out about it. "This is the worst I've ever seen!" I remember winters from 20 years ago that were much worse, but it seems like most other people do not. I think the difference is that I like to ski, and it seems like skiers, being outside more often in the winter, recall the particulars about winter weather more than most.
Re:One active season and now everything is differe (Score:5, Funny)
Ugh, this is the worst Slashdot clickbait. Future Slashdot headlines:
You won't believe what MS-DOS looks like now!!
Tim Cook finds Linux on his laptop and his reaction is priceless!!
Family warns others to learn from their tragic Android mistake!!
Re: One active season and now everything is differ (Score:2)
Priceless! I'd totally click. (No I wouldn't)
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Comparing Atlantic and Pacific storms is a little unfair - much less space for an Atlantic storm to develop in.
Yes, Irma is just an outlier, and storms like the 1935 labor day storm were probably even worse. Nothing to see in this one particular storm, move along, take your CO2 emissions with you.
What is certain, however, is that there is a Hurricane season, and it comes when the waters are warmer. So, anyone who is thinking in the back of their mind: "So what if we get global warming, won't that make thi
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Actually climate change models are mixed with respect to the intensity and frequency of Atlantic cyclones. Hurricanes are extremely complex entities and models just can't predict how many will end up in Texas or Florida in some future year.
What's worrying about AGW and hurricanes is the more tractable complicating factors: sea level rise and atmospheric moisture. High winds destroy property, but it's storm surge and flooding that kills people. Yet another predictable factor is development; there are more
Re:One active season and now everything is differe (Score:5, Insightful)
A century isn't a particularly long period of time. So far, Irma has busted two (known) records but data for these have only been collected for a couple of decades.
The *big* issue is not what the hurricanes are doing, it is what mankind has managed to splop down right in front of said hurricanes - lots of people, lots of expensive infrastructure and a whole bunch of video cameras. Build it and they will come. And expect the federal government (or somebody with more money then they have) to bail them out from some bad investment choices.
Moral hazard. It's what's for dinner.
Re:One active season and now everything is differe (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, for a mere 20% increase in the cost of construction, houses in Florida could be made to withstand these storms... it's what's done in the islands, but that would be bad for the construction industry, so we build with sticks and paper instead.
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It's not just the houses. It is power / water / sewer / police / fire and now, likely Internet service as one of the core components of civilization. (Boy does that hurt to say.) It is flood control systems. Rebuilding hospitals and nursing homes.
Yes, you COULD make an area flood proof. But it's going to cost a lot more than 20%.
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Re:One active season and now everything is differe (Score:4, Insightful)
Again, we haven't had landfall of two Cat 4 storms in 100 years
Landfall isn't really the correct metric. What is the frequency of cat 4 or cat 5 hurricanes, regardless of where they happen to go? A hurricane or typhoon that expends itself over the ocean or a relatively unpopulated area just doesn't make big news.
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Very short historic records except of the ones that made landfall. Shorter than one cycle.
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That doesn't make sense. Category 3 is 112-129 mph sustained. Category 4 is 130-156 mph. It's in the DEFINITION of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
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Re:One active season and now everything is differe (Score:4, Insightful)
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Perhaps because category at landfall doesn't tell us anything about climate, while category at peak does.
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"Maybe. We haven't had two Cat 4 hurricanes hit for more than a century."
Really?? More than a century for 2 cat 4??
Maybe. How about 4 category 5s in one year?
And I didn't realize 2005 was more than a century ago.
Emily - July 2005 - Category 5
Katrina - August 2005 - Category 5
Rita - September 2005 - Category 5
Wilma - October 2005 - Category 5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Atlantic_hurricane_season
Re:One active season and now everything is differe (Score:4, Informative)
The last time two Cat 4+ storms made landfall in the North Atlantic [wikipedia.org] was 2008. Gustav hit Cuba as a Cat 4. And Ike hit Great Inagua Island and Grand Turk Island as a Cat 4. (Paloma hit Cat 4 just south of Cuba, but dropped to a Cat 2 before landfall.)
If you mean landfall in the U.S., well the U.S. lies at the extreme northern edge of hurricane territory. So you're basically just counting outliers if you're only counting U.S. hurricanes. They're too infrequent and random to draw reliable stats from. With modern satellite coverage and flights into major storms to get precise measurements, there's no reason not to use the entire database of every storm that forms in the North Atlantic.
And those trying to tie hurricanes in with climate change invariably focus on the North Atlantic because that's the storm basin whose recent history [noaa.gov] fits their desired narrative. Meanwhile, storm frequency in the East Pacific [noaa.gov] is flat. The West Pacific [researchgate.net] is mostly flat with a recent slight downward trend. The South Pacific [metservice.com] is down, as is the North Indian Ocean [scielo.org.mx].
Re:One active season and now everything is differe (Score:5, Informative)
And those trying to tie hurricanes in with climate change invariably focus on the North Atlantic because that's the storm basin whose recent history [noaa.gov] fits their desired narrative. Meanwhile, storm frequency in the East Pacific [noaa.gov] is flat. The West Pacific [researchgate.net] is mostly flat with a recent slight downward trend. The South Pacific [metservice.com] is down, as is the North Indian Ocean [scielo.org.mx].
It should be noted that most climate change models currently don't predict a significant increase in the number of hurricanes in a season. This was not true in the past but we get better with modeling over time so its not surprising. Most do however predict that the storms will be larger on average. That part seems to be holding worldwide.
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The sample size for hurricane numbers is just too small to win any statistical arguments, either way, both sides can dig in and call "fluke."
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Weather is not climate, and you can always find patterns and 'signs' in random sequences of events.
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True, but sometimes there is a plausible mechanism to explain or even predict the changes.
That's not enough, it's a classic "correlation is not causation." For example, for years scientists thought that eating saturated fat caused heart disease, because elevated levels of saturated fat in the blood correlates with saturated fat. It turns out that's not true: despite having a reasonable explanation, we now know that eating saturated fat doesn't cause heart disease.
More specifically in your case, the statistical analysis is woefully incomplete. You haven't even answered basic questions like, "wh
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We haven't had two Cat 4 hurricanes hit for more than a century.
Other than being an interesting bit of statistical trivia, what meaningful information does that really give us about whether there has been an overall change in frequency over time? Are you saying that the act of one hurricane making landfall in the U.S. at Cat 4 decreases the odds that any other hurricane that season will reach the U.S. as a Cat 4?
Re: One active season and now everything is differ (Score:5, Insightful)
"For more than a century". - so what you are actually saying is that this is not unprecedented at all.
No. He's saying that a century ago weather satellites didn't exist, instrumentation was more primitive, and we just don't know how big the storms were. The first time aircraft were used to monitor a hurricane before it came ashore was the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane [wikipedia.org].
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No. He's saying that a century ago weather satellites didn't exist, instrumentation was more primitive, and we just don't know how big the storms were
Given that we've only had weather satellites for about 50 years, that's exactly why it's impossible to make apples-to-apples comparisons over the past 100.
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Re:One active season and now everything is differe (Score:5, Informative)
You obviously don't know how science works. Here you go:
1) When you have unusually hot or volatile weather, that's evidence of man-made climate change.
No. One hot summer (in one place) or one warm winter (in one place) is not due to climate change. Say this over and over, this is important. Climate change is real, but it is global and it is long term.
No single event, no single warm summer, is evidence of climate change (nor is a single cool summer evidence against it.)
A continuous series of record breaking temperature, on the other hand, might be something to point at. But, again, even there, look for global temperatures-- regional temperatures (even regional temperature records) are just weather.
Re:One active season and now everything is differe (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that we have evidence that the higher temperatures, increased atmospheric CO2, etc. are clearly not unprecedented. The issue is that those higher temperatures, then and now, are not so conducive to human life.
We can be reasonably certain that the rate of increase is unprecedented.
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"[W]e use a diatom record from El Junco Lake, Galápagos, to produce a calibrated, continuous record of sea surface temperature in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean at subdecadal resolution, spanning the past 1,200 years. Our reconstruction reveals that the most recent 50 years are the warmest 50-year period within the record."
J. L. Conroy, et al., "Unprecedented recent warming of surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean", Nature Geoscience, vol. 2, pp. 46-50, 2009.
"We provide updated
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Please read this page very carefully:
https://climate.nasa.gov/evide... [nasa.gov]
Also the other tabs.Causes, Effects, Scientific Consensus...
Pollution uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
So because the air is cleaner with less particulates it rains less and because it rains less there's more moisture in the air which makes the storms larger. Well time to remove the scrubbers from those coal power plants then. No wait. Like a couple dozen people might die with the hurricane compared to the hundreds of thousands (or millions) who would get a reduced lifespan from the particulate pollution. Great.
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Pollution is still pollution. I say the solution is to build giant dehumidifiers, the size of which would be used for terraforming.
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Try watching "1492: Conquest of Paradise" sometime. It shows a pretty nasty tropical storm.
Reversion to the mean (Score:5, Insightful)
12 years without a major hurricane landfall. Where were the front page slashdot posts talking about how extreme that was?
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Thank you for highlighting the issue.
without a LANDFALL.
The number of atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes is increasing very obviously just by eyeballing the charts at this point.
The crap shoot is whether we have a weak or strong high over the northern atlantic. If it's strong, they land- if it's weak they don't.
Likewise, it depends on whether El Nino is going- because it weakens hurricanes.
Trust me , we had plenty of AGW foes posting about every year of the lack of landfalls.
Tropical storm + hurricane
Did you forget Huricane Sandy? (Score:2)
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Hurricane Sandy made landfall in the United States as a Category 1 hurricane (technically, a "post-tropical cyclone", not a hurricane, but they use the same scale). A "Major Hurricane" is classified as Category 3 or higher.
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Sandy hit Manhattan, which is a feat in and of itself remarkable - did major, unprecedented damage. Go all semantic pedantic if you wish, Sandy was unusual by all accounts, regardless of where you draw the boundaries of the discussion.
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No one forgot that it wasn't a hurricane when it made landfall.
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Those who study this in detail have found opposing forces: warmer temperatures do make bigger, stronger storms and a longer season, but there is also some pushback in upper level air current patterns that offsets this somewhat... it's a chaotic system and a simple change of one input can push things like landfalls of major storms in either direction.
However: more energy (heat) in the system does make more energetic storms. Are we seeing a result of that this year? Too soon to really call it, either way.
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"12 years without a major hurricane landfall. Where were the front page slashdot posts talking about how extreme that was?"
Here the list of Texas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
2010–present
Satellite image of a tropical cyclone well inland. The storm is still very organized and has banding features.
Tropical Storm Hermine (2010) over Texas
June 30, 2010 – Hurricane Alex made landfall at Soto la Marina, Tamaulipas in Mexico as a large Category 2 hurricane, bringing hea
Stolen from twitter (Score:5, Funny)
Credit Twitter [twitter.com]
2006: "Hurricanes are going to be worse and more frequent!"
2007:
2008:
2009:
2010:
2011:
2012:
2013:
2014:
2015:
2016:
2017: "Told you so!"
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Okay so... we get a break until 2027, then more hurricanes in 2028?
Edit. (Score:2)
2007:
2008:
2009:
2010:
2011:
2012: Sandy [wikipedia.org]
2013:
2014:
2015:
2016:
2017: "Told you so!"
There's also a lot of Hurricanes that just aren't making landfall so they're not getting coverage. And yes, we should care about the ones that don't make landfall since eventually one of them will, and if they're worse so are the ones that hit us.
Re:Edit. (Score:4, Informative)
Sandy wasn't a hurricane when it made landfall.
Also, the only reason for the extensive damage was because it hit one of the most populated areas in the world.
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Sandy wasn't a hurricane when it made landfall.
Also, the only reason for the extensive damage was because it hit one of the most populated areas in the world.
Legally speaking, yes, it was not considered a 'hurricane' at the time, but if the winds are only 73MPH instead of the required 75MPH, we're debating semantics. Additionally, it was the duration of the storm that was similarly a problem; it covered a massive area and thus it spent plenty of time battering the area. Yes, the damage costs were indeed due to the northeast being a population center, but "extensive damage" is still "extensive damage". I very much remember standing in a gas line shortly thereafte
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Humberto 2007
Gustav 2008
Dolly 2008
Ike 2008
Irene 2011
Sandy 2012
Author 2014
Matthew 2016
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You have a funny way of spelling Arthur.
Re:Stolen from twitter (Score:5, Informative)
Note you're taking a very US-centric view here. Not all hurricanes are Atlantic hurricanes, and not all Atlantic hurricanes hit the US. And your memory of US hurricanes must be spotty, since you don't seem to recall Hurricane Sandy.
Let me fill in the some of blanks you've left.
2007: Dean and Felix were both extremely deadly Category 5 Atlantic Hurricanes that hit Mexico instead of the US.
2008: Gustav was a Category 4 storm in the Carribbean but dropped to Cat 2 by the time it hit Louisiana.
2009: Gustav is a powerful storm on the high end of category 4, but hits wind shear when it enters the Gulf of Mexico which weaken it to a category 1. Hurricane Paloma, the third strongest Atlantic hurricane on record, develops off Nicuragua and hits the Cayman Islands and Cuba; it weakens by the time it hits the US but it does drop 14 inches of rain.
2010 [wikimedia.org]: a grand total of 12 full-fledged Atlantic hurricanes form, the second highest number on record. As usually happens in bumper-crop years most of the hurricanes were relatively weak, but Earl, Ivan and Julia reached category 4. Both Ivan and Julia turned away from the US, and Earl succumbed to wind shear before striking the US.
2011 [wikipedia.org]: another extremely active year with 19 named tropical storms, most of them modest in intensity. Irene, was a category 3, but like most hurricanes that make landfall north of Cape Hatteras it had slowed to Category 1. Katia was a category 4 but moved up the Eastern Seaboard well offshore; Katia was similar Irene.
2012 [wikimedia.org]: the third super-active Atlantic hurricane season in a row, with twenty named storms, including Hurricane Sandy , aka "Superstorm Sandy". You do remember that one?
2013: An actual quiet year, with only two hurricanes which did not affect the US.
2014: Another below average year with only one hurricane.
2015: Thrid straight below average year -- again for Atlantic hurricanes. The most powerful was the Category 4 Joaquin, which hammered Bermuda and threatened the Eastern Seabord of the US. It turned north instead. It's also important to note that 2015 wa the year of Hurricane Patricia, which formed on the Pacific side of Mexico. Patricia was the second strongest storm ever recorded with peaked sustained winds of two hundred and fifteen miles per hour.
2016: An active hurricane year with fifteen storms, seven hurricanes, four of them major, including the Category 5 Matthew, the Category 4 Nicole, and the Category 3 Gaston and Otto.
Now to summarize:
(1) The Atlantic Basin is not the *world*. Often quiet Atlantic years are not quiet at all elsewhere.
(2) The US is not the entire Atlantic Basin.
(3) It takes more than atmospheric energy for a powerful hurricane to hit the US. Think of energy being like gravity, and the hurricane being like a pachinko ball. Most of the time, hurricanes don't fall into one of our slots. Most hurricanes that do hit the US weaken, not for want of energy but because of wind shear; Cape Verde hurricanes ride the tradewinds across the Atlantic but then nearly always weaken substantially if they turn north to the US.
Lots of heat energy and no El Nino to kill. (Score:2)
Lots of energy to fuel them without crosswinds from El Nino to rip the apart.
Graphs of energy, and totals here.
The number of tropical storms has increased since 1970. //policlimate.com/tropical/
The number of major hurricanes has increased since 1970.
There is a cycle - not every year is up- but the bottoms are higher and the highs are higher.
Plus population on the coasts has increased tremendously since that's where the jobs are.
El Nino (Score:3, Informative)
Apparently it's actually due to the lack of an El Nino. The formation of the hurricane started 6 months ago and grew be because there wasn't a lot of wind sheer to stop it from forming. Maybe the better question is why wasn't there an El Nino?
Re:El Nino (Score:4, Informative)
Because El Nino / El Nina is a long-term oscillationg due to a build up of heat in the Pacific. A lot of these ocean and air currents operate like air conditioner thermostats. When heat builds up, ocean and air currents start gaining speed. Eventually they start cooling the water faster than it gains heat, then the currents slow down. Then the heat builds up again. This can take a decade to complete one cycle.
The Sun is delivering 2 kilowatts of energy onto every square meter of the ocean every hour.
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from: What are El Nino and La Nina events? [bom.gov.au]
Also: El Nino and La Nina Years and Intensities. [ggweather.com]
Global warming and Atlantic hurricanes (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with linking global warming to Atlantic hurricanes is that hurricane activity isn't necessarily predicted to increase in the Atlantic from global warming. In the north Pacific, sea surface temperatures will warm and vertical wind shear is predicted to weaken. This favors an increase in hurricane activity in the north Pacific. While the water in the north Atlantic basin is predicted to get warmer due to global warming, vertical wind shear is expected to increase. It's not entirely clear which of these opposing factors will have the greater impact, so it's not certain that hurricane activity will increase in the north Atlantic.
There is a naturally occurring wave called the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) that can either enhance or suppress tropical convection. The phase of the MJO has likely helped to enhance Harvey, Irma, Jose, and perhaps even Katia. La Nina also enhances convection in the north Atlantic basin, generally results in a moister atmosphere, and weakens the vertical wind shear. All of these are favorable for hurricane activity. It's also the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, when the waters are warm and vertical wind shear is still rather weak.
The main reason Harvey produced so much rain over Texas and Louisiana was that it sat over that area for several days. It's not that the rain rates were souch more extreme, but that it just sat over the same area. While rain rates might be enhanced a little due to global warming, the main reason Harvey was so extreme was because it was almost stationary for days. That is not a consequence of global warming, just an unusual weather event.
I also tend to view Irma and Jose as another unusual weather event, but not necessarily linked to global warming. It just doesn't match up with the predictions for the north Atlantic, and so I hesitate to blame global warming for those storms. It's possible that when the shear abates due to the weather, warmer water might result in stronger Atlantic hurricanes at those times. However, the overall increased shear will likely limit hurricane activity more at other times. One hypothesis is that global warming might result in fewer Atlantic hurricanes, but the storms that do occur will tend to be stronger. I understand the logic of that, but I'm just not convinced that Irma and Jose are significantly linked to global warming. There just isn't enough scientific evidence to support that link.
If you have to ask ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... then you don't know.
We know climate change is happening and we know that humans are not helping the situation, but we don't know the percentage of human/nature.
Humans don't actually give a shit until it's personal.
By then it's too late.
The solution is to migrate as needed.
Don't cherry pick the data (Score:2)
Any hypothesis about hurricane frequency has to account for the last eleven years of very low activity. Now we have an active year, like 2005. What is different his time?
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There was no 11 years of low activity.
Just because they did not hit Florida or Texas does not mean they were not there.
The summary/articles are contradicting themselves (Score:2)
So "air pollution which tends to cool the oceans" and air pollution which causes global warming and warmer ocean temperatures.
And then you wonder why people don't believe the global warming narrative.
Re:The summary/articles are contradicting themselv (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is, particulate matter is heavier than air, so quickly precipitating out of the atmosphere. Since we've stopped allowing factories to pump out tons and tons of black smoke (because that was giving everyone lung cancer), there is less and less particulate matter flying around.
CO2 on the other hand, only leaves when something on the surface absorbs it, whether that's trees or algae or ocean water. That happens much more slowly, over the course of thousands of years. So we're stuck with the warming.
What? (Score:2)
Strongest hurricanes to hit the USA (based on the metric of lowest barometric pressure):
1) Florida (Keys) 1935, 26.35 inches
2) Camille (Miss., Louisiana), 1969, 26.84
3) Katrina (Louisiana, Miss.) 2005, 27.17
4) Andrew (Florida, Louisiana) 1992, 27.23
5) Texas (Indianola), 1886, 27.31
6) Florida (Keys, Texas), 1919, 27.37
7) Florida (Lake Okeechobee), 1928, 27.43
8) Donna (Florida, Eastern Coast), 1960 27.46
9) Florida (Miami, Miss., LA) 1926, 27.46
10) Carla (Texas) 1961, 27.49
Only th
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Some think a surge in industrial pollution after World War II may have produced more pollutant particles that blocked the Sun's energy and exerted a cooling effect on the oceans. "The pollution reduced a lot of hurricane activity," said Gabriel Vecchi, professor of geosciences at Princeton University's Environmental Institute. Pollution began to wane in the 1980s due to regulations such as the Clean Air Act, allowing more of the Sun's rays to penetrate the ocean and provide warming fuel for storms.
Also note that 5 of 10 of those happened in the few decades prior to WW2. So quite a nice distribution showing that WW2 didn't really affect the biggest hurricanes either way.
All about that bass (Score:2, Interesting)
The hurricanes are caused by too much butt sex:
http://metro.co.uk/2017/09/06/... [metro.co.uk]
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/... [rightwingwatch.org]
Coriolis effect (Score:5, Funny)
No Coriolis effect, no spin, no hurricanes.
I'm starting a campaign to stop the earth's rotation. Who's with me?
Re: (Score:2)
Let's all become flat-earthers. If we believe hard enough there won't be any pesky curvature left.
I know what it is (Score:2)
What is causing such terrible hurricanes?
Short memories, poor education, and confirmation bias.
The simple fact is that hurricanes are neither more intense nor more frequent than "usual", the only thing that makes us think there are is that "we"are stupid.
In fact, the relative dearth of hurricanes in the U.S. Is probably the major cause of this ignorance.
There aren't enough pirates (Score:3)
Trump and the witches (Score:2)
Trump is at fault — blame his recklessly reversing Obama's Executive Order banning hurricanes.
And then there are the well-meaning witches seeking to end Trump's Presidency ASAP [thesun.co.uk] — well-meaning, but clumsy and unprofessional, miscasting their spells...
Cyclones (Score:3)
The Cyclones were created by Man. They rebelled.
It's Global Warming, stupid (Score:3)
As a late friend and literal rocket scientist used to say, "it's not like turning up the thermostat, it's pumping more energy into a heat engine."
I'm old enough to be farther, or grandfather, to most slashdotters, and I have *NEVER* seen three hurricanes, much less Cat 4, in three weeks, or even in a season.
But as long as you're making money from petrochemicals, you'll deny reality. And if you're not making money... you're a sucker.
It's Human-caused climate change. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
But the world is ending! With each passing day, we are one day closer to the end of the world!
Oh you meant an actual, pretty soon-ish date? No idea about that.
Re: (Score:2)
But the world is ending! With each passing day, we are one day closer to the end of the world!
Calm down. Trump just tweeted that everything is fine.
Re: (Score:2)
Millennials KNOW that the world is ending.
They have ARRIVED, and it's time for a CHANGE!
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Thoroughly debunked by the distinguished scientists at Mark Steyn Enterprises [wikipedia.org]? We should all be so lucky.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
You're sure it wasn't Emacs? I mean, there's good ol' C-x M-c M-Butterfly, right?