Global Warming Expected to Intensify Hurricanes 589
DoraLives writes "Think this hurricane season was bad? Well according to the New York Times, a study was published online on Tuesday by The Journal of Climate indicating that warming ocean temperatures are going to make for stronger, wetter hurricanes in the coming years and decades. An abstract of the article concludes cheerfully enough that 'greenhouse gas-induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms.' Oh joy."
Nature's way... (Score:5, Insightful)
Weather is complicated (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to motivate (Score:3, Insightful)
Hurricanes in Florida (Score:3, Insightful)
This year our damages are estimated at $18 billion because of the hurricanes (that's $3 billion more then Andrew). I can only imagine how much we will loose if we get stronger and more frequent hurricanes.
Conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not a conclusion. That's a hypothesis. When they conclude 'greenhouse gas-induced warming probably lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms' or something equally as strong, let me know.
I mean, anyone with the slightest knowledge of the subject could have you told that this _may_ happen. What's needed is someone to get a good idea of how likely it is to be true.
Re:What? We didnt blame Bush for it? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's complicated and there are 2 compelling sides (Score:2, Insightful)
Global Warming (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:one problem ... (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact there is much much evidence, that perhaps you have chosen not to see.
Funny how Dubya can invade Iraq, killing 10's of thousands of innocent civilians, and over a 1000 americans on NO ACCURATE EVIDENCE of there ever being ANY WMD's in Iraq
yet at the same time, he can totally ignore the decades of research that show the world is getting warmer (whether or not its by our own hand).
hmmm coincedentally, Dubya is an Oil man
damn I dont know why you Bushies can't see the damage Bush has done for his own personal greed. Instead you blindly follow him, ignorantly thinking he's saving you.
Re:Nature's way... (Score:5, Insightful)
If this doesn't do it nothing will. It is the equivilant of being hit on the back of the head and not bothering to turn round to stop whatever hit you from hitting you again.
Re:Kyoto to the rescue (Score:1, Insightful)
If the later were the case, do you really think that all the economies of the west were in favor of it with the notable exception of the US?
Re:Weather is complicated (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Cause of Global Warming (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually thousands of scientists have come out and stated our CO2 emissions ARE a significant factor. You've chosen to ignore them.
I guess you are ignoring that we've nearly doubled atmostpheric CO2 since our industrial revolution. (I bet you didnt even know that)
I guess you are ignoring the huge greenhouse effect of methane, which we spew into the air in tremendous amounts through Oil/gas production and through the raising of Billions of cattle each year. (I bet you thought that burnt oil just disappeared, that it didn't make CO2)
I guess you have chosen to ignore the large percentage of the planet where we have eliminated trees and other plants, removing a huge carbon sink. (did you even know that plants absorb CO2 as part of their metabolism?)
dumbass.
Re:The only way to motivate (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now we're running into a dark cave and hoping there isn't a bear in it. Not a very good strategy for survival.
Re:The only way to motivate (Score:5, Insightful)
If we stop pushing out green house gases, we stop agravating the situation. We do not improve the current situation. The pollution already released will remain. The issue is not about improving the situation, but stoping its deterioration.
History (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nature's way... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd also like to point out that carbon dioxide emissions should not be confused with traditional pollutants, such as carbon monoxide (CO) and surphur dioxide (SO2). The irony is that continued advances in catalyst technology used in ULEV vehicles is eliminating these poisons, only to produce more water and, you guessed it, carbon dioxide. Of course, the answer is to increase efficiency of internal combustion engines until they can be eliminated by a more efficient technology entirely.
Re:Weather is complicated (Score:1, Insightful)
The more remarkable finding would have been that warmer ocean water somehow doesn't increase hurricane strength, or that global warming doesn't increase surface ocean temperature. No such conclusions were reached, and at this time all evidence suggests the educated guess behavior, that heat drives storm strength, will lead to more intense storms.
This also doesn't mean the current hurricane season is caused by global warming -- I don't think many sefl-respecting climate scientists will try to say that -- but it does mean that over the decades storm intensities could increase as the average surface temperature increases.
going out on a limb here... (Score:1, Insightful)
(A) given that it has not yet been established that there actually IS any long term warming due to green house gases or due to anything else for that matter (because nobody has measured it yet),
(B) and given that there's no conclusive evidence (measurements)that human activity is even a significant contribution to this as-yet unmeasured warming, much less causative,
(C) and given the amount of foul play there's been lately in the "scientific" community regarding the subject of warming (google up "Death Valley temperature sensor" for a giggle, or "urban heat island effect" or "hockey stick chart debunked" or "Bjorn Lomborg" maybe),
(D) perhaps the conclusions of aformentioned study may be a trifle premature. Possibly. Maybe.
We could even check the historical record and discover that this year's storms (although bad) were not extrordinary for the region in either number or severity, and that generally there are less such storms during the last 50 years than previously.
Or we could just go with it and scream DEATH TO THE SHRUB!!!
By all means, let us not cloud the issue with facts.
Re:Forseen 18 years ago (Score:2, Insightful)
Did your dad ever mention what caused enough global warming 11,000 years ago to cause the glaciers to receed? I know it wasn't my SUV. Maybe it had something to do with proto-republicans?
Earth's climate has been going through changes for millions of years. Why are we so vain to think that it will stop changing just because we like it the way it was?
Re:you mean Look Out East Coast! (Score:2, Insightful)
Right now the northern limit for hurricane strikes seems to be Hatteras, with very rare exceptions. If the SSTs are higher, then the whole curve may be lifted a notch and in addition to more force 5s in the Gulf region we may start seeing force 1 and force 2 hurricanes making landfall between Hatteras and New Jersey and New York.
Hurricane Karl recently travelled nearly to ICELAND while maintaining tropical characteristics!
Federal Insurance and FEMA (Score:3, Insightful)
I have thought that a lot of money gets wasted by the USA government by always coming to the fiscal salvage of disaster. I am really a beliver that the feds should quit paying out for reoccuring natural damage. IOW, if something happens every 10 years or less, it is natural. Good example is Hurricanes in Florida. While we should help with rescue, we should not be paying for the rebuilding of a home, a business, etc. Yet we do. In fact, I think that every state and/or locale should be evaluated for what is naturally occuring and make locals pay the insurance and/or increase the building codes. Some example
Re:Global Warming (Score:5, Insightful)
The question isn't what the planet can handle but what WE can handle.
Re:Whoa : Florida has very little to worry about. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hurricanes do NOT kill people. The supply strong winds and lots of rain but people actually die from pore planning, stupid choices, ineffective government and most importantly large scale poverty.
I.e. Florida lost less than 40 people in Hurricanes this year. They were directly hammered by 3 big ones (Category 3 to 5). A single category 4 passed 30 miles south of Jamaica and killed 16 people (.jm is small, 2.7 million). Meanwhile, Haiti was grazed by a tropical storm (not strong enough to be called a hurricane) and around 2000 people have died with another 100000 or so left homeless and starving (I.e. Likely to die if massive amounts of help isn't forthcoming).
PS: I am writing from Jamaica. In case that matters.
Re:Forseen 18 years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably because the evidence clearly shows that the rate of change has been accelerating since the industrial revolution. But don't let the facts get in the way of your nice comfortable lifestyle.
Re:Nature's way... (Score:5, Insightful)
The ULEV vehicles you trash actually eliminate far worse greenhouse gases. Methane, for example, is 100x as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2, and the advanced catalysts do eliminate almost all the hydrocarbons (like methane) from the exhaust.
These hurricanes are really Nature's way of suggesting to Floridians that their vote really matters.
Thad
Scientists don't know EVERYTHING=lets do NOTHING? (Score:5, Insightful)
But the models all disagree exactly how much. And there are other sources of C02 (although there is no evidence any of them are responsible for the increases since the industial age). And since models always have to take a few shortcuts (instead of modelling every atom) they may have ignored something that could affect climate. Unfortunately, there are things we don't understand; our computer models don't explain all historical climate changes (even though every model has more C02 = climate change). And who knows, maybe the sun is hotter (even though the evidence for this is sketchier than any of the other data).
Some people turn these little bits of uncertainty into a complete lack of action. They argue that climate change is
natural", ignoring the fact that it's catastrophic and we might be able to do something about it. They choose to do nothing, and rush us ever faster into the abyss in our giant, wasteful SUVS.
A large climate change is bad news for humans, and we have some evidence that we are responsible for some of it, and we have some evidence that we might be able to slow or reverse it. Do we need more evidence? Hell yes. But if we wait for the climate experiment known as "the earth's atmosphere" to finish, we'll be doomed. I believe that human ingenuity will be able make the world a place where humans can continue to thrive.
P.S. I don't understand why "less pollution, less waste" is seen as more as a burden and not an opportunity for business.
Re:Weather is complicated (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think we have more than a couple hundred years or so of reasonably accurate overall hurricane reporting, and even of those that have hit land, it's not more than a few hundred years of accurate records in North America. I imagine the records are even worse for typhoons in the Pacific, though the Indian Ocean cyclones may have somewhat better records, having been part of civilized life for a few thousand years there.
Re:Forseen 18 years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey num-nuts. There is a difference between 5 degree change over 100,000 years and 5 degree change of 10 years.
Re:Nature's way... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd also like to point out that carbon dioxide emissions should not be confused with traditional pollutants, such as carbon monoxide (CO) and surphur dioxide (SO2). The irony is that continued advances in catalyst technology used in ULEV vehicles is eliminating these poisons, only to produce more water and, you guessed it, carbon dioxide. Of course, the answer is to increase efficiency of internal combustion engines until they can be eliminated by a more efficient technology"
In these two conflicting [naturalscience.com] reports [oism.org], the CO2 concentrations is shown to increase from about 310 ppm to 360 ppm from year 1960 to 2000. About a 0.4% increase per year. Of course the rate of increase is increasing so the current value is higher than 0.4% increase per year; therefore, the 1% increase per year figure is certainly possible. The two reports cited are but an example of several reports trying to understand the connection of CO2 to future surface temperatures. I think you will have to take all these reports into mind before coming to a conclusion on whether the current trend of CO2 increase will affect hurricanes.
I think its pretty obvious from most studies that rapid deforestation, massive livestock populations, and industrialization have pretty much been the cause of the CO2 and methane increases over the past 200 years. If there is a connection between our pollutants and global temperatures and events like hurricanes or if it is sufficiently probable then it is logical to impose some kinds of restrictions on the above mentioned pollutant emissions. Currently, there are no absolutely conclusive reports one way or the other so it is a view of opinion which studies you agree are more probable in being correct. I tend to agree with the global warming hypothesis but I am still going to monitor the other literature to see if it will change my opinion.
Re:Forseen 18 years ago (Score:2, Insightful)
BTW I'm all for clean air and water simply for the sake of clean air and water. Heck I even went as far as putting cats on my 1967 Pontiac GTO and before you accuse me of driving a evil gas guzzler just think of all the energy I saved by recycling a car rather then buying a new one that wasted all that energy being manufactured.
And you electric vehicle assholes, where do you think your pollution is going. It's being made at those big electric power plants like Navajo in Arizona and YOU ARE CLOUDING MY GRAND CANYON and CHOKING the poor Native Americans with you F^CKING POLLUTION!!
Re:going out on a limb here... (Score:4, Insightful)
A: the planet is warming faster than it has done for millions of years
B: human releases of CO2 is almost certainly the main cause
and I would observe that B actually doesn't matter. If the planet is warming, we should release less CO2, to try and cool it, regardless of the reason.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What? We didnt blame Bush for it? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would not really see it as a sign of coincidence that his brothers butt currently is literally blown away by the environment down in Florida, which currently gives its vote on this issue.
Re:The Cause of Global Warming (Score:2, Insightful)
I see that you are trying to make a correlation here, so answer me this: How do you explain CO2 concentrations that rapidly increase with a similar magnitude, pre-industrial revolution, pre-history, and even pre-homo-sapien? And why is CO2 concentration a lagging indicator of warming in previous cycles?
The climate is changing, but people trying to propose solutions based on cherry picking and pulling data out of context to suit some particular ideological viewpoint is a lot of foolishness that will create more problems than it will solve. It would make things seem so easy and ideologically pure if anthropogenic CO2 was the fulcrum of climate change, but it isn't that way in fact. There are a hell of a lot of other processes that are major contributing factors that will have to be acknowledged if a real solution is to be found, and a great many of those have nothing to do with CO2. It could very well be the case that all manmade CO2 sources could be eliminated tomorrow and it still wouldn't make a substantial difference in the climate trajectory.
The climate isn't a sitcom. You can't get a neat and tidy solution to anything in a half hour, and as is true of many types of systems, we may in fact be impotent when it comes to directing outcomes in a meaningful sense. Changing our CO2 emissions is far from free, and it would be prudent to study the systems more thoroughly before putting ourselves on a path that could find us in an even worse position than if we did nothing at all. Jumping on a ridiculously simplistic bandwagon as a solution in what is largely an absence of good knowledge is a sure way to generate a hell of a lot of heat with precious little light.
A lot of people are eager to jump on a bandwagon completely oblivious to the long-term consequences and unintended consequences that might occur -- we could end up screwing ourselves far worse than climate change. Ecosystems, fundamental economics, and a great many other things are profoundly effected by CO2 levels. You can't change global temperature in isolation by playing with CO2 levels, and the result of doing so naively may end up causing more harm than it prevented. And because of the changes made and their consequences, we may find ourselves in a situation where we are far less capable of dealing with the new mess we made.
More study, less slogan.
Re:Nature's way... (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the seriousness of the disasters we're talking about if we're right, I think its important that we do whhat we can to eliminate it until we're sure global warming is not our doing. You wait till you're 100% sure your house is on fire before buying fire extinguishers, do you? If a few businesses lose a few percent of their profits and SUV drivers have to pay extra...tough.
Re:Nature's way... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's really no other way to study the effect of global warming without using some sort of simulation, aside from waiting until the warming occurs and then measuring the result. At which point, if the predictions of this study bear out, it'll be a little too late for anything more than "shit, they were right".
It describes what could happen were CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to increase by 1% annually.
I think the point of the study was to describe what would probably happen. There could be a decrease in storm intensity, but the study said that there would probably be a rather significant increase.
Of course, the answer is to increase efficiency of internal combustion engines until they can be eliminated by a more efficient technology entirely.
I disagree that this is the answer. It is certainly an answer, but it misses the point. The U.S. is the largest polluter on the planet largely by choice (and I'm considering laziness [i.e. I was too lazy to wait the 45 seconds for the computer to boot up in the morning, so I left it on all night] as a choice). There are already ICEs that are more efficient than others (i.e. my Toyota Corolla gets near 40 mpg the way I drive, various large SUVs get 10 or less), but huge numbers of Americans CHOOSE to drive less efficient vehicles.
And it's not all about ICEs either -- IIRC transportation accounts for about a third of the average person's greenhouse emissions. More insulation in homes would go a long long way towards helping, and doesn't even require high tech solutions (yes, you could heat your house with a candle if it was insulated with aerogel, but fiberglass works pretty well too). Buy an on-demand water heater and stop keeping a tank of water hot while you're at work all day. Buy a compact fluorescent light bulb or two, or turn off a light or two when you leave the room. Etc, etc, etc, etc.
Re:Nature's way... (Score:3, Insightful)
If so, nature needs to speak up. A few hurricanes don't mean much to the US which has experienced seasons like this before. I suspect instead that you are projecting your psychoses on the weather.
Second, by "world's biggest polluter", you of course ignore China which pollutes more in certain very substantial categories (eg, heavy metals, particulate matter, human fecal material) and would at least be a contender for the title.
Re:you mean Look Out East Coast! (Score:3, Insightful)
What's wrong with wood? It's getting expensive, as demand goes up. Forests can only grow so fast, even with good managements practices. It's gotten to the point where steel framing is comparable in price to wood. Wood is susceptible to termites and dry-rot (note: this was only a problem in more recent decades, since termites were imported from the far east) (dry rot is mainly a problem in the desert).
Some people might argue the environmental aspect; I'm not sure exactly how "green" wood is, but I've read some environmentalists saying that they believe wood is a better material than others because it's "renewable". Concrete and steel are not, and both take a lot of energy to produce in factories/plants. Wood gets its energy for production from the sun.
As others have pointed out, well-built wood structures can actually withstand hurricane-force winds quite well, thanks to their flexibility. The big problem with wood in these conditions is the joinery. Using better joinery than just simple nails usually solves all the problems. Also, architecture is very important: avoid overhangs which allow the wind to easily pick up the roof. A traditional New England house designed to hold tons of snow on the roof is not appropriate for a hurricane zone in the south where there is no snow.
Re:Nature's way... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:History (Score:3, Insightful)
Hurricane severity may be cyclical, but it doesn't mean global warming is not involved.