Hurricanes and global warming

Flying Headbutt · Oct 24, 2006

First off, global warming is a fact. NASA's EOS system of satellites (which my dad helped build) pretty much confirms it all.

However that's independent from my next statement.

I interviewed a hurricane expert from NOAA and the National Hurricane Center last spring. He told me to ask him about global warming. So I did, and he said it had NOTHING to do with last year's hurricanes. It simply didn't. And it wasn't going to have an effect on this year's hurricanes.

A number of complex weather patterns fell into place in just the right way last year to provoke all the havoc and destruction we saw. This year, different patterns emerged.

And just because I feel like I have to say it. If the world is millions of years old, and really anyone with even half a nut for a brain knows it is, how can you confidently say that last year's hurricanes were the worst ever, when we only have about 150 (at the most) years of data? Worse in destruction of infrastructure and lives and such, yes. But who is to say that it hasn't been repeated in centuries gone by, just with no one to accurately record the information that we have today, and no where near the infrastructure built back then either?

Bob Cook · Oct 24, 2006

Mystery Meat said:

One thing people failed to recognize last year was that the global hurricane output for 2006 was actually pretty close to normal, monster Atlantic season notwithstanding. The Eastern Pacific had a normal year for named systems and a slightly below-normal year for hurricanes, and that had been the case for a few years (paralleling the Atlantic's upswing). I can't find the wikipedia site that I saw this on the first time, but I believe the Atlantic and the South Pacific were the only basins to see above-average storm development, and the Western Pacific (which is almost always the most active area for hurricane/typhoon development) was down.

Last year had the right combination for explosive storm development -- already-warm waters that were a degree higher than normal in the Gulf, plus waters that ran warm deeper, which gives hurricanes a higher maximum intensity ability (that's why a Category 5 won't hit New York -- you need waters well above 85 degrees to sustain a storm of that magnitude, and in fact Camille is the furthest north a Cat 5 has ever been in the Atlantic). And the upper-level winds favored development.

This year was supposed to be bad, but in the early part of the season, tropical waves crossing the Atlantic were killed on sight by unusual amounts of dry air and dust from the Saharan deserts (you could see it on satellite images). If a disturbance developed further west, like in the Carribean or Gulf, it often got sheared by strong upper-level winds that, as it turned out, were the product of an unexpected El Nino starting up in the Pacific (warmer waters in the Pacific lead to a change in the wind patterns that make for big seasons in the Pacific and smaller ones in the Atlantic).

The best argument anyone can make about global warming vis-a-vis hurricanes is that the warmer waters allow storms to be stronger (90-degree water is more conducive for high-end development than 86-degree water). But last year's explosion in storms were probably an anomaly in a 30-year period of higher storm frequency (hurricane meterologists, regardless their stand on global warming's relationship with tropical cyclones, agree that development ebbs and flows in 30-year cycles, and they've been calling for a bad cycle to start for some time, one that kicked off in 1995 with an 18-storm season).

We're almost certainly safe this year, because the upper-wind patterns are even worse for hurricane development now than they were in August, and of course water temperatures are dropping to below-tenable levels except in the southern Gulf and the Carribean.
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But what's the temperature tomorrow? What's the seven-day? Get to the forecast already!

/my mother-in-law watching Tom Skilling on WGN

Mystery_Meat · Oct 24, 2006

Flying Headbutt said:

First off, global warming is a fact. NASA's EOS system of satellites (which my dad helped build) pretty much confirms it all.

However that's independent from my next statement.

I interviewed a hurricane expert from NOAA and the National Hurricane Center last spring. He told me to ask him about global warming. So I did, and he said it had NOTHING to do with last year's hurricanes. It simply didn't. And it wasn't going to have an effect on this year's hurricanes.

A number of complex weather patterns fell into place in just the right way last year to provoke all the havoc and destruction we saw. This year, different patterns emerged.

And just because I feel like I have to say it. If the world is millions of years old, and really anyone with even half a nut for a brain knows it is, how can you confidently say that last year's hurricanes were the worst ever, when we only have about 150 (at the most) years of data? Worse in destruction of infrastructure and lives and such, yes. But who is to say that it hasn't been repeated in centuries gone by, just with no one to accurately record the information that we have today, and no where near the infrastructure built back then either?
Click to expand...

And really, we don't have 150 years of GOOD data. People make a big deal about Wilma setting the Atlantic basin record for barometric pressure, but we weren't flying into storms regularly until the 1950s, and even when we had the basics of forecast technology like radar and sats, they were well behind what we have now. So the 882mb that Wilma posted might have been bettered by some fish storm in the 1930's that didn't show up on the proverbial radar (since the literal one hadn't been invented). There's probably a bunch of storms that developed that never got identified because they didn't affect land or shipping lanes.

And Tom Skilling's still on WGN? He's been around for-freaking-ever.

Columbo · Oct 24, 2006

Four hurricanes - all Cat 1 and all in Florida - have hit the U.S. in November since 1900.

Bob Cook · Oct 24, 2006

Mystery Meat said:

Flying Headbutt said:

First off, global warming is a fact. NASA's EOS system of satellites (which my dad helped build) pretty much confirms it all.

However that's independent from my next statement.

I interviewed a hurricane expert from NOAA and the National Hurricane Center last spring. He told me to ask him about global warming. So I did, and he said it had NOTHING to do with last year's hurricanes. It simply didn't. And it wasn't going to have an effect on this year's hurricanes.

A number of complex weather patterns fell into place in just the right way last year to provoke all the havoc and destruction we saw. This year, different patterns emerged.

And just because I feel like I have to say it. If the world is millions of years old, and really anyone with even half a nut for a brain knows it is, how can you confidently say that last year's hurricanes were the worst ever, when we only have about 150 (at the most) years of data? Worse in destruction of infrastructure and lives and such, yes. But who is to say that it hasn't been repeated in centuries gone by, just with no one to accurately record the information that we have today, and no where near the infrastructure built back then either?
Click to expand...

And really, we don't have 150 years of GOOD data. People make a big deal about Wilma setting the Atlantic basin record for barometric pressure, but we weren't flying into storms regularly until the 1950s, and even when we had the basics of forecast technology like radar and sats, they were well behind what we have now. So the 882mb that Wilma posted might have been bettered by some fish storm in the 1930's that didn't show up on the proverbial radar (since the literal one hadn't been invented). There's probably a bunch of storms that developed that never got identified because they didn't affect land or shipping lanes.

And Tom Skilling's still on WGN? He's been around for-freaking-ever.
Click to expand...

And he'll probably still be there after his brother gets out of prison.

Buck · Oct 24, 2006

Last season was a bad hurricane year for the U.S., and people wanted to to tie it to global warming.
This year was a mild hurricane year for the U.S., and people want to use it as evidence that the global warming threat is being overblown.
There's no way to make a direct connection from such a narrow data field, which is the problem with the entire global warming debate.

OTD · Oct 24, 2006

But what's the temperature tomorrow? What's the seven-day? Get to the forecast already! Don't drop the soap in the shower!

/my mother-in-law watching Jeff Skilling in his PMITA prison
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old_tony · Oct 24, 2006

Flying Headbutt said:

And just because I feel like I have to say it. If the world is millions of years old, and really anyone with even half a nut for a brain knows it is, how can you confidently say that last year's hurricanes were the worst ever, when we only have about 150 (at the most) years of data? Worse in destruction of infrastructure and lives and such, yes. But who is to say that it hasn't been repeated in centuries gone by, just with no one to accurately record the information that we have today, and no where near the infrastructure built back then either?
Click to expand...

I agree whole-heartedly, but in using that same logic, couldn't the same be said about global warming? Who's to say it wasn't warmer "in centuries gone by, just with no one to accurately record the information we have today"?

I find your words to be quite legitimate.

slappy4428 · Oct 24, 2006

Bob Cook said:

But what's the temperature tomorrow? What's the seven-day? Get to the forecast already!

/my mother-in-law watching Tom Skilling on WGN
Click to expand...

Don't be rippin Tom Skilling....I know people who live hundreds of miles away from Chicago who will watch WGN just to see Skilling...

And OTD? Outstanding work!!

Buck · Oct 24, 2006

We have some information about past weather trends through secondary sources: soil evidence, tree rings, etc.
But it's not enough to draw any concrete conclusions about the current warming trend.

JackS · Oct 25, 2006

I'm sure global warming is a fact, but I'm not completely sold on the cause (fossil fuel burning certainly isn't helping, but there is some data that makes it questionable whether or not that is actually the cause) nor the effect on hurricanes.

Reading Elizabeth Kolbert right now. Pretty good book.

leo1 · Oct 25, 2006

the miami herald did a great piece earlier this year on how despite having vastly improved technology the national hurricane center is woefully inadequate in its level of prediction and forecasting. throw a few hundred more million dollars and it could predict with much more accuracy what storms will do. in some ways they're still using the same technology as a half-century ago when they started flying into storms.

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Hurricanes and global warming

Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

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Hurricanes and global warming

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