Cleaner Air Leads To More Atlantic Hurricanes, Study Finds (apnews.com) 85
Cleaner air in United States and Europe is brewing more Atlantic hurricanes, a new U.S. government study found. The Associated Press reports: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study links changes in regionalized air pollution across the globe to storm activity going both up and down. A 50% decrease in pollution particles and droplets in Europe and the U.S. is linked to a 33% increase in Atlantic storm formation in the past couple decades, while the opposite is happening in the Pacific with more pollution and fewer typhoons, according to the study published in Wednesday's Science Advances.
NOAA hurricane scientist Hiroyuki Murakami ran numerous climate computer simulations to explain change in storm activity in different parts of the globe that can't be explained by natural climate cycles and found a link to aerosol pollution from industry and cars -- sulfur particles and droplets in the air that make it hard to breathe and see. Scientists had long known that aerosol pollution cools the air, at times reducing the larger effects of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuel and earlier studies mentioned it as a possibility in increase in Atlantic storms, but Murakami found it a factor around the world and a more direct link.
Hurricanes need warm water -- which is warmed by the air -- for fuel and are harmed by wind shear, which changes in upper level winds that can decapitate storm tops. Cleaner air in the Atlantic and dirtier air in the Pacific, from pollution in China and India, mess with both of those, Murakami said. In the Atlantic, aerosol pollution peaked around 1980 and has been dropping steadily since. That means the cooling that masked some of the greenhouse gas warming is going away, so sea surface temperatures are increasing even more, Murakami said. On top of that the lack of cooling aerosols has helped push the jet stream -- the river of air that moves weather from west to east on a roller-coaster like path -- further north, reducing the shear that had been dampening hurricane formation.
NOAA hurricane scientist Hiroyuki Murakami ran numerous climate computer simulations to explain change in storm activity in different parts of the globe that can't be explained by natural climate cycles and found a link to aerosol pollution from industry and cars -- sulfur particles and droplets in the air that make it hard to breathe and see. Scientists had long known that aerosol pollution cools the air, at times reducing the larger effects of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuel and earlier studies mentioned it as a possibility in increase in Atlantic storms, but Murakami found it a factor around the world and a more direct link.
Hurricanes need warm water -- which is warmed by the air -- for fuel and are harmed by wind shear, which changes in upper level winds that can decapitate storm tops. Cleaner air in the Atlantic and dirtier air in the Pacific, from pollution in China and India, mess with both of those, Murakami said. In the Atlantic, aerosol pollution peaked around 1980 and has been dropping steadily since. That means the cooling that masked some of the greenhouse gas warming is going away, so sea surface temperatures are increasing even more, Murakami said. On top of that the lack of cooling aerosols has helped push the jet stream -- the river of air that moves weather from west to east on a roller-coaster like path -- further north, reducing the shear that had been dampening hurricane formation.
Well that sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
So do we need to pollute more to be safer?
Would we rather die of cancer or being dispatched by a hurricane?
Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
... the EU has got its knickers in a twist about diesel cars. Back in the 90s they were heavily promoted because of their lower CO2 emissions per mile compared to petrol. Now they're persona non grata and petrol car sales are going up again (albeit alongside electric). So great, we've got rid of very short term particulate and NOx emissions in exchange for rather more long term CO2 emissions. Genius. Its not as if the particulate and NOx issue wasn't know about 30 years ago but I guess priorities change. Will they change again and lithium mining for batteries becomes the naught step child?
Re: Well... (Score:2)
Re: Well... (Score:2)
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It is apparently very possible to make diesel engines really quite clean... as well as performant. But the tricks to make that trade-off go away only became known after dieselgate.
I kinda like diesels. I think we're going to need them since they're easier to run on non-fossil fuels, like biodiesel. And seeing how we feed the world through mechanised agriculture, we're probably going to need a lot of that.
The thing nobody is asking is why just diesels, and why not just VW, but just about every car maker is
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The thing nobody is asking is why just diesels, and why not just VW, but just about every car maker is guilty of lying about emissions to some degree.
My guess:
Government: "We are planning to impose these restrictions on car emissions, what is your opinion about them"
Car manufacturers (in public): "Yeah, looks good to me"
Car manufacturers (in private): "Ha, this is almost impossible to achieve, our competitors will bankrupt themselves trying to achieve this, but we are smarter, we have a way to cheat the system"
Also, I do not know how much a regular person cares about emissions. Cars that burn more fuel are more expensive to drive, so someone may choose a
It's easy to achieve those goals (Score:2)
it's the same reason monitors are shit now because they're all glossy screens. yeah, they're not fit for purpose, but they look great in a showroom so they sell well.
Re: It's easy to achieve those goals (Score:2)
You're an idiot, these are all personal preferences. I personally prefer glossy screens for monitors, and matte for laptops. Glossy screens produce an objectively sharper image, though they're bad in places where you can't control the lighting and glare becomes a problem, which often ends up being the case with laptops. Capacitive touch displays MUST be glossy for a lot of reasons, and given people use them all the time for their phones, it follows that people's personal preferences will gravitate more towa
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I know I don't care about emissions and the people I talked to do not seem to care about them either - primary reason to buy a newer car, either fossil fuel powered or electric is so that it's cheaper to drive.
Most people around here drive trucks or full size SUVs, so I don't think cheaper to drive is that important a metric either.
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People who choose inefficient cars obviously do not care about fuel consumption or emissions, but I have never heard someone say that he/she chose a more fuel efficient car because of emissions - it's always "this is cheaper than my old car, it will pay off". Cost is also the reason diesels are very popular in my country - diesel used to be cheaper and diesel cars burn less of it. The same reason why some cars get LPG installed - LPG is cheaper, though as I understand it's lower emissions as well, but nobod
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... shitty 30-year old non-turbo rattletrap diesel designs.
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So great, we've got rid of very short term particulate and NOx emissions in exchange for rather more long term CO2 emissions. Genius.
Why do we have long term CO2 emissions? You think the EU is hyper friendly to Gasoline cars? That just shows how little you know about the EU, or the subject you're talking about.
But hey if you really are desperate to die of cancer it's never to late to take up chain smoking. That is still available to you in lieu of breathing in NOx and PM10 emissions while your eyes water from the smog.
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"But hey if you really are desperate to die of cancer it's never to late to take up chain smoking. That is still available to you in lieu of breathing in NOx and PM10 emissions while your eyes water from the smog."
Pollution was FAR worse in the recent past (up until the 70s here in the UK) yet we don't have a large percentage of the elderly population dropping dead from lung cancer. As usual the threat to health from NOx and PM* has been exaggerated just like every other Thread Du Jour.
Re: Well... (Score:2)
They weren't dropping dead from it in post war times either when coal smoke was everywhere and half the population smoked yet life expectancy was still in the 70s. But whatever , you're just another neurotic.
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The other kicker is that petrol cars also produce NOx and particulates. Even more hilarious most of the NOx in cities comes from gas central heating and most of the particulate comes for people with wood burning stoves.
After that the next biggest NOx polutant comes from buses and lorries. However the average daily mileage of a bus is already way lower than the range of a BEV bus.
Cars are way down on the list of bad things but they are persona non grata. It's utterly banana's.
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That is the thing everyone ignores. Climate change or otherwise the composition of the atmosphere *is* changing that is an observable fact. The null hypothesis there is also that its changing because the collective we are rapidly accelerating one part of the carbon cycle.
This is really the case that should be made for controlling our CO2 emissions. Its the legitimate scientific case; cautionary principle says we don't know what will happen to the complex system that is earth if you radically alter atmospher
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I've seen many discussions about lithium mining and battery chemistries. A lot of work is being done on both fronts, it doesn't mean everything has to stop until all issues are resolved.
Brine extraction from the Salton Sea for example;
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/0... [cnbc.com]
Silicon anodes;
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
Sodium ion batteries;
https://www.autoevolution.com/... [autoevolution.com]
Re: Well... (Score:2)
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... the EU has got its knickers in a twist about diesel cars. Back in the 90s they were heavily promoted because of their lower CO2 emissions per mile compared to petrol. Now they're persona non grata and petrol car sales are going up again (albeit alongside electric). So great, we've got rid of very short term particulate and NOx emissions in exchange for rather more long term CO2 emissions.
The worst part is, when petrol cars switched to "gasoline direct injection" their particulate emissions increased to the levels of the 90s diesels. [www.empa.ch] They've been able to avoid regulation because they have built up a reputation as being cleaner.
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European NOx and non-methane organic gases (NMOG) regulations have been getting tighter over the years, although not as good as US regulations. [theicct.org]
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Would we rather die of cancer or being dispatched by a hurricane?
You're asking the wrong question, the right question is: Would anyone really miss Florida?
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You're asking the wrong question, the right question is: Would anyone really miss Florida?
A lot of good comedy comes out of Florida. Florida has its own tag on Fark. That is something to think about before writing it off.
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Well, sure...they have the best beaches in the US.
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As an Australian I equate what you said to "it's the cleanest spot in the landfill" :-)
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Causation or correlation ? (Score:2)
I find it hard to believe there's enough data or equivalent repeat experiments to identify cause versus correlation. I would suspect it's also correlated to umbrella purchases too
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exactly, I also hear there's an increase in tornados striking trailer parks. If we get rid of the mobile homes and trailer parks then we'd have fewer or no tornados right?
Climate Change leads to more extreme weather (Score:2)
Newspapers aren't dying because of the Internet, they're dying because they stopped informing the public when they got bought out. Why the hell would I pay $2 bucks for Jeff Bez
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We need to pollute the right material. Or stop producing Green house gasses.
Smog and aerosol do combat global warming, but comes at a high cost of just making the air bad for Lifeforms to breath. We have been able to reduce the Smog by a high degree with cleaner burning engines, and factories... However they are still producing CO2 which is causing global warming.
The acceptable solutions are to find a way to produce less CO2 and/or find a reflective agent that isn't bad for living creatures, to send to the
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Air pollution doesn't really stay in one place, where the paths that hurricanes take are more or less the same.
I vote for clean air, while also cleaning off Florida via hurricanes. Two birds, etc.
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I hereby accuse the universe of being a dick.
I've suspected for a long time that decreasing atm (Score:1)
And here we are.
Re: I've suspected for a long time that decreasing (Score:1)
Since when does /. cut off titles
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People complain here regularly that comments should go into the Comment box, and not the Subject. Because it gets overlooked, or the important parts get truncated.
But here we are.
Well DUHHH (Score:3)
The contrary effect is called Global Dimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. It's been known/understood for quite a while, and was proven with the unintended experiment in atmospheric pollution that occurred just after September 11, 2001.
I suspect it's also one reason why so many climate change models are so dire (with short term predictions often wrong), it's because the past 20 years carbon levels hasn't been the only thing changing, but also jet fuel has been getting cleaner, reversing the effects of
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I suspect it's also one reason why so many climate change models are so dire
Climate models have been very good.
with short term predictions often wrong
Short term? Not a climate model requirement.
and now very suddenly the pollution has been going down, so the earth is getting more sunlight.
Yes, to the extent that models have been a bit deficient, it's often because they have slightly underestimated current warming because of this, although models get revised to take into account the current state of affairs, so they still tend to track quite well. However, even then the change in temperatures observed since the IPCC AR in 2001 are within the bounds of the projections, and even for Hansen's in 1988 if you include fi
Bullshit. (Score:2, Funny)
I don't believe this for one second.
Re:Bullshit. (Score:4, Informative)
Newsflash: Your beliefs don't change the data.
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Get with the times, man, and watch a few news outlets. Feelings and beliefs are the new data.
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Correlation does not equal causation.
Pulling random data and coincidence does not make a valid point to falsify.
Might as well say that fish swimming in circles caused the hurricanes.
Some of you people are fucked in the head!
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Some of you people are fucked in the head!
Agreed.
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> Correlation does not equal causation.
"Well here's a dead person with a bullet wound in his skull, there's a smoking gun nearby that matches the bullet, and he had a guy in custody saying they shot the victim and the fingerprints match those found on the gun, plus there's video of it... but correlation does not equal causation so we can't rightfully say any crime was committed."
Given the overwhelming amount of evidence and understanding we have about the global climate, that's pretty much the level of d
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Correlation does not equal causation.
No, but given we have a good handle on the physics, for it to be correlation without causation would be unlikely. In fact, less than 5% likely according to the IPCC.
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This illustrates why we have so much trouble getting things done politically. Whether it's the effectiveness of vaccines, or the causes of hurricanes, or the beginning of human life, people already have their minds made up, and can't be persuaded by science. They agree with the findings that fit in with their own preconceptions, and everything else is a "lie" or a "conspiracy."
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The science is worthless if you need to be an expert in the field, or have practically unlimited funds for verification, to spot the lie in the data. Most simply don't have the means to understand it or reproduce the experiments. Which means they ar
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Yes, science is messy, and scientists do have agendas and do lie. Being human, it can be no other way.
The difference between scientific debate, and blind faith, is evidence. You don't have to be a professional to draw logical conclusions from the evidence. But there's a big difference between saying "I don't believe it" and "I don't believe it because of this contradiction (or this other evidence or this obvious commercial bias etc.)".
Is linked to (Score:1)
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Dirtier air led to less hurricanes (Score:3)
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You missed the point that the aerosols prevented some of the effects of CO2 warming of the oceans so hurricane frequency didn't change all that much. Now the aerosols are reducing we're in for a wild time.
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In one study the use of a variety of strawberry which was mold-resistant was believed to have reduced particulates so much (by reducing mold spores) that it reduced rainfall. The world is a complicated place.
On the other hand, since weather is chaotic and specifics of climate are difficult to model the only real option we have is to try to put things back the way we had them. We don't actually understand the details well enough to make intelligent decisions, which we should have considered before we broke t
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The conclusion in the headline has things bass-ackwards. There were less hurricanes than would have been expected over the last 100 years, due to the aerosol levels. Low levels are the norm, the deviation was a century of poisoning the atmosphere. Now that we are actively trying to reduce the levels, we are seeing just how badly off-balance the system has become. It may seem convenient to say "Let's just go back to the way it was", but that sort of wholesale, oblivious geoengineering could just as easily have opposite effects or other unintended consequences. We need to truly address this problem, and solve it in a sustainable manner so that humanity can coexist with Mother Earth instead of fighting her at every turn.
Fine with me. Go nuclear energy! And figure out how to technologically sequester carbon.
Oh ... not what you meant?
I know how to fix it (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I know how to fix it (Score:4, Informative)
I trust you mean a glaciation. We have been in an Ice Age since before humans evolved, and will continue to be in one long after humans vanish (probably. it's possible humans will last tens of millions of years but don't bet on it).
Note that when the Ice Age finally goes away, we can expect normal temps higher than our worst case estimates for AGW. Again, humans will likely be extinct long before that (not many species last tens of millions of years)....
so...put sulfur *back* into the atmosphere? (Score:5, Interesting)
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https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org] which is just as ironic as this clear atmosphere story. way back in the 70s and 80s the environmentalists were fighting to get lead out of gasoline and sulfur out of smokestacks to cure acid rain.
Lead in petrol has nothing to do with acid rain. Acid rain is definitely not a good thing, though.
Now they want to put pollution back in the sky to fight climate change.
Are you sure about that?
Or is it that ... (Score:2)
hurricanes blow the pollution particles and droplets out of the air (or at least blow them somewhere else) ?
Need more pollution? (Score:2)
And here I thought it was supposed to be climate change. /s
On a serious note: Although the number of storms and hurricanes varies enormously year to year, AFAIK after accounting for better detection, the number is actually trending *down*.
tl;dr: with more satellites and better radar, we derect a lot of storms that previously would have gone unreported.
Maybe just China using a 'hurricane gun'? (Score:1)
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Time to check the history books (Score:2)
So if this is scientifically accurate, then in theory we would have had the most hurricanes prior to the industrial revolution. Either that or we get more hurricanes after cleaning up the air after it's been polluted, but maybe that trend won't last.
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Right before the industrial revolution the climate was in the Little Ice Age. That was probably not representative either. And during the Medieval Warm Period there were no written records from the SE US or Caribbean.
The Medieval Warm Period in Europe was also the Medieval Drought Period in the American SW down through Central America, so that part does seem to be rhyming.
As to the article's main topic, file that under No good deed goes unpunished.
Yes, but how about pacific being dirtier? (Score:2)
Add in that both S. Korea and Japan increased their emissions after Fukushima.
I have to wonder what other impact it is having.
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China continues to increase their pollution
Beijing PM2.5 [statista.com] levels have gone down from 101.5 micrograms per cubic meter of air in 2013 to just 40.5 in 2021. They need to keep going, of course!
Been my theory for years (Score:2)
That the *warming* we are seeing is largely natural; but the 'hockey stick' bend *itself* is the product of anthropogenic sources.
If warming was natural over time, the slope would be far more gradual.
However, human creation of particulates and other pollutants on a growing scale from the start of the industrial era blocked what would have otherwise been this gradual upward slope of warming, instead presenting temp-over-time as an (artificially) flatline.
Then, as environmentalism took global hold in the 60s
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That the *warming* we are seeing is largely natural
So why the change from 8000 years of cooling just recently?
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What are you talking about cooling for the last 8000y?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We've been more or less steadily warming for the last 20k years, as we climbed out of the last ice age.
The last 10k years has more or less been flat.
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What are you talking about cooling for the last 8000y?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We've been more or less steadily warming for the last 20k years, as we climbed out of the last ice age.
The last 10k years has more or less been flat.
Flat compared to the roller coaster before, but a definite downward trend all the same until 150 years ago, roughly. Comparing things when not in an interglacial to conditions in an interglacial is comparing apples to oranges. The bit labelled 'LGM' on the graph is when Paris was under a mile of ice. The period of 'coming out of an ice age' that people seem to trumpet ended 10,000 years ago. There was the Younger Dryas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas), and then after the '8.2ka' event and the
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- the recent spike is a result of human action, in fact reaction, but not in the way it's presented.
Why has it spiked higher than any point in the last 8000 years? And so recently? What is the cycle that could be causing this?
"Scientists" are ruining science (Score:1)