Running out of Hurricane Names 712
fm6 writes "LiveScience is reporting that the 21 names reserved for tropical storms and hurricanes in Atlantic Basic are almost used up. If there are more than 21 storms, they'll start using the Greek alphabet. The most storms ever recorded was 21 in 1933, before they started giving them official names. The connection between this record-breaking storm year and global warming remains controversial."
Easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
> Use the Chinese alphabet. If you have a year where you run out, it's all just one big hurricane.
Or FEMA could just stall and clean up two at a time, so we'd only need half as many names.
Use Two Names... (Score:5, Funny)
single names for the year. By October we'll get hurricanes like Bubba Earl, Ellie Mae, Joe Bob, etc.
Re:Retiring names (Score:3)
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Easy solution (Score:3, Funny)
Record set in 1933 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Record set in 1933 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Record set in 1933 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Record set in 1933 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Record set in 1933 (Score:3, Funny)
I hold that Vikings were Pirates, and therefore we're all doomed.
Re:Record set in 1933 (Score:5, Insightful)
Global warming is 'controversial' only as long as one forgets three undeniable facts: melted water lakes in the middle of Greenland, glacier melting and permafrost melting. We have more than 100 years on documented data on the length of glaciers and they have been getting smaller at an accelarated pace.
These phenomena can not be explained by anything else than a long term change in climatic conditions.
Re:Record set in 1933 (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the Mt. Saint Helens eruption added about 4% to the US greenhouse gas emissions for 1980 (one part in twenty five!). On average, volcanos put about 110 million tons of CO2 into the air per year. Human activity puts about 10 billion tons of CO2 into the air per year (about 90 times as much as volcanos). Volcanos also tend to pump out more SO2 than anything else, and SO2 is a reverse greenhouse gas (causing global cooling).
The largest eruption in recent history (and probably the largest in the last twelve thousand years) was Tambora in 1815. That eruption is believed to have produced 300 million tons of SO2 and 80 million tons of CO2. But the output of the biggest volcano in recorded history is just a drop in the bucket compared to modern human activity.
Regards,
Ross
Re:Record set in 1933 (Score:3, Insightful)
As a counterpoint, I'd point you at:
http://www.junkscience.com/Hurricanes/Hurricanes.
More importantly, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml [noaa.gov] has the raw data. I tend to agree with the JunkScience analysis of it, which implies that we're simply on the rising edge of the cycle coming out of a lull.
Re:Record set in 1933 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Record set in 1933 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Record set in 1933 (Score:3, Insightful)
Quit Making up Stuff (Score:3, Informative)
When you have alot of chicken littles running around crying 'the end is near', and make unsubstantiated claims, nobody can take you seriously. You end up getting compared with crop circles, yeti and ufo's.
Outsource to India (Score:3, Funny)
Hurricane Punjab
Hurricane Krishna
Hurricane Patel
etc...
Re:Outsource to India (Score:3, Funny)
What? (Score:5, Funny)
Names... (Score:5, Funny)
These will be a hit with techies...
"That hurricane isn't ready for release."
"Why not?"
"Because it's Beta!"
Thank you, I'm here all week.
Future News (Score:5, Funny)
Tropical depression #36 has increased in intensity to a tropical storm with maximum sustained windspeeds of 49 miles, and has been named tropical storm Pi. Its eye wall has circularized surprisingly early, and the storm is expected to gain strength as it squares the radial islands of the Florida Keys.
Hurricane Delta continues to change latitude, longitude, pressure, and windspeeds in the west, Atlantic, with d-la=-1.3, d-lo=0.2, d-p=-15 mbar, and d-w=15 mph. This is quite the contrast to last year's hurricane Iota, which refused to change much at all. It is recommended that all residents in the eastern Carribean continue to plot the course of this dangerous storm carefully, as all of this data is subject to change.
Hurricane Beta has been downgraded to tropical storm beta as it decays over the North Atlantic. Beta caused quite a scare after it formed from the reminants of the collision of tropical storm alpha and the eastern antilles, but has passed harmlessly through open water ever since it was spawned.
Tropical storm Lambda continues to redefine itself as it disintigrates now that it has moved inland from the Texas gulf cost. A category 5 hurricane on impact, it left a swath of destruction as a void in its wake. After making landfall, it took a break before continuing for n>3 days across the continental United States. The variable number of refugees that fled in advance of the hurricane are not expected to return any time soon; garbage collection must be done and the environment cleaned up first.
Re:What? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:4, Interesting)
Naming Chart Coolness [babynamewizard.com]
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:controversial? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, that's the current theory. If it turns out that we consistently get more, we'll end up with some new theories. Global warming is a big uncontrolled experiment, so it's hard to say. That's pretty sloppy science; I say we should have waited until we had two planets so we could try this side by side. And really, 20 or 30 would be better, so we could get a good statistical sample.
Re:controversial? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: controversial? (Score:3, Informative)
> From what I understand hurricanes are caused when you have warm water and cooler air. Generally this is caused by quick temperature drops in the air. This is why most hurricanes happen in september, when air is starting to cool
Hurricane season peaks in September, but we still get a darn lot in June-July-August, when there's not a heck of a lot of cooling going on in the tropics of the northern hemisphere.
I think a more accurate description is that you need hot water+air at the surface and cooler air way up high, so that seawater will evaporate, the hot damp air will rise, and the water will condense out of the air when it gets high enough to cool down.
> It seems to me, and I could be wrong, but global warming would cause warmer air, and possibly cooler water as less of the suns rays would hit the water.
FYI, global warming shouldn't be visualized as "everything's warmer", but rather as "more thermal energy in the atmosphere and oceans". It will not necessarily be spread evenly (it never has been), and uneven spread is probably a recipe for more storms - especially heat engines like hurricanes, but also more winter storms and other things you wouldn't expect from a naive understanding of what "global warming" means.
RealClimate is a biased source (Score:4, Informative)
RealClimate is not a credible source. It's run by an environmentalist lobbying group out of Washington DC - do a WHOIS on the domain.
Using them as a source is like producing a GOP press release that says that George W. Bush is the best President ever. That may or may not be true, but one can't expect impartial analysis from someone who has a definite interest in pushing one side or the other.
Re:controversial? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:controversial? (Score:5, Informative)
Then you haven't been looking very hard [bbc.co.uk].
Re:controversial? (Score:5, Insightful)
They like to set up models, but their climate models can't prove a connection either, because they're all based on a lot of assumptions, abstractions, and potentially erroneous inputs. We're a long way off from weather models with any level of certainty. When they can give spot-on weather reports for a month out, then it'll be time to start paying attention to the models.
All they have now are measurements, where they hope to see a correlation. But no matter what correlation they saw, even if it was the most beautiful curve you've ever seen, with a curve fit with an R value of 1.0, correlation does not imply cause and effect. But at least it wouldn't contradict their theory.
What they actually have is a tiny sample, where nearly any conceivable data set would mean nothing. The problem is that there are so many factors. While their actual data set is really jumpy and shows no really strong trend, suppose it were different- suppose they got their "ideal" data set over the past 30 years. Suppose it showed that the number of hurricanes is trending up sharply and steadily. If they had seen this trend, which would most strongly support the hypothesis of global warming, it would equally strongly support all of the following hypothesis:
1. We're in a natural cycle of hurricanes increasing, which global warming is making worse.
2. We're in a natural cycle of hurricanes increasing, which global warming is having no effect on.
3. We're in a natural cycle of hurricanes increasing, which global warming is partially alleviating.
4. There is no natural trend, and global warming is causing a rise in hurricane activity.
5. We are in a natural cycle of reduced hurricanes, and global warming is counteracting that entirely and actually increasing the number of hurricanes.
6. There is no actual trend at all. The number of hurricanes every year is entirely random, with no natural tendency or influence from global warming, and our 30-year sample happens to look like it has some trends, because any series of random numbers will appear to have some trends over certain samples.
Furthermore, with so many factors that affect weather, less than two dozen hurricanes per year, an apparently large natural variability, the probability there are many natural trends that could be working in conflict or in concert, using a mere 30-year sample is like trying to estimate global warming with a 30-day temperature sample. It would make all the difference in the world if you take your sample during spring or fall, and time you take it at all, it's extremely unlikely it would give you an accurate picture of what's going on at all. If they had 1,000 years of data, I might expect them to find something more convincing there.
Re:Faulty Grasp of Science (Score:5, Interesting)
I wasn't publishing a peer-reviewed scientific paper, I was posting a comment on Slashdot. I wasn't trying to use the scientific definition of "proof," the mathematical definiton of "proof," or the legal definition of "proof," I was just speaking plainly. I'm sure to your reasoning, the theory of gravity, the theory of evolution, the germ theory of disease, and the heliocentric theory of the solar system are only conjectures, which are not, and can never be, proven. But to all of us who are having a friendly discussion about what all this stuff means, these things have been "proven" by a commonly accepted colloquial use of the word "prove [reference.com]." Any conjecture that passes peer review, stands the test of time, makes it into the textbooks, and becomes a scientific theorem might be considered to have been "shown to be correct," or "generally accepted," or "undoubtedly accurate," or any other synonym or euphemism you might choose for the word "proven." I'm sure, from your message, that if I'd said "Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem" or "Louis de Branges proved the Bieberbach Conjecture," you'd attack me for "having a faulty grasp of mathematics," because they "only provided a logical proof within an assumed framework."
I'm fascinated by the way you twist your semantic quibbling into a "disproof," if you will, of every actual point I made in my post. It is as if I were to point out that your statement "their coherence with the rest of the accepted body of science" is redundant, because that's part of what constitutes "the weight of evidence supporting them", and then concluded that everything you'd written were false because I caught something that could be improved upon in the way you state your case.
In this case, there would be no reason to fall back on illogical, unscientific arguments for why you're wrong in saying "Currently the theory that nastier hurricanes are caused by global warming has more evidenciary support and is more coherent than competing theories, thus it is the currently accepted explanation," since I can rely on reason and scientific literature to back me up. With your keen grasp of science, I'm interested that you didn't feel the need to, for example, offer any sort of references, arguments, or data supporting any assertion you made in your post. So here's some. First, start with every argument I made in my post, and see if you can actually offer any counter argument to any of them. Then try to actually RTFA linked to the Slashdot story, and notice that this "trend" only exists for the narrow subset of data the researchers choose, and as soon as you throw in the data from 1925, the trend is reversed.
Unfortunately it isn't available online, (well, you can see some of it at Amazon. [amazon.com]), but chapter 5 of Bjorn Lomburg's The Skeptical Environmentalist provides an overwhelming accumulation of peer-reviewed data culled from Science, Scientific American, and the UN Meteorological Organization showing that there is no positive correlation between global temperature and hurricane frequency or severity. In fact, the best available data shows a week negative correlation, although any long-term trend is nearly lost in
Re:controversial? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Return to the old? (Score:3, Funny)
Free Republic has no credence (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the Free Republic article was spent summarizing the science article, which concluded as was quoted. The conclusion they reached first mentioned the observed trend from satellite data over the past 30 years: an increasing frequency of intense hurricanes. They also mentioned that this observed trend is consistent with predictions made by an extremely sophicasted simulator, such as this one [prime-intl.co.jp](from the science article's references). The simulator's function is to provide predictions of hurricane type, location, and frequency based on as wide of a variety of climate conditions as possible, and to provide them as accurately as possible (which is tested by comparison with observations).
So the simulators can accurately predict some trends in hurricane activity. Here that trend was an increasing frequency of intense hurricanes, given an increase in CO2 concentration and an increase in ocean temperatures, which is what has been observed [wikipedia.org] over the last 30 years.
Since the Free Republic author didn't like the conclusion reached by the scientist, he tries to append some non-satellite data to the beginning of the study and make his own new study. Any numbskull would notice that the data he appended is much noiser than the data in the study, and he clearly isn't qualified to attempt such a study (which is why his article wasn't published in a peer-reviewed journal like Science).
The best thing to do in these situations is school yourself [wikipedia.org] and then come to your own conclusions on this matter.
What? (Score:2)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml [noaa.gov]
Katrina was the (one, two three.. ) 11th tropical depression/storm/hurricane of the 2005 season.
Next year, the 11th storm will be named 'Kirk'.
Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.
Retired Names (Score:5, Interesting)
No, not really (Score:5, Informative)
The letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z aren't used because there aren't enough names that start with those letters (in our culture). Otherwise, you run a pretty good chance of having hurricanes Xavier and Quentin pretty much every year.
Fat-fingered the link (Score:3, Informative)
Bad PR (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bad PR (Score:5, Funny)
Hurricane Killer
Hurricane Throat-Ripper
Hurricane Goatse
I mean, who would decide to "just stay here and weather Hurricane Goatse"?
Re:Bad PR (Score:3, Insightful)
Which of course reminded every news caster in the country of apparently the only Ivan they've heard of; Ivan the terrible.
Certainly made the storm seem more imposing calling it that all the time.
Re:Bad PR (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bad PR (Score:4, Funny)
And yes, it would be male. They alternate genders, and the last hurricane on this year's list [about.com] is "Wilma." [nju.edu.cn]
Re:Bad PR (Score:3, Funny)
Hurricane living below sealevel gets you killed
Hurricane living on the beach destroys your house
Hurricane this happens every year so move dumbass
Hurricane there goes another $2000 from every taxpayer.
One or two more of these this year, and the US economy will collapse completely as we repeatedly bail out people too stupid to move.
Re:Bad PR (Score:3, Insightful)
Your comparison between rich people buying yachts and poor people buying food is a strawman. The tax cuts take money the government would have spent (i.e. wasted, since the choices the government makes have nothing to do with efficiency) and gives it back to the people it came from in the first place. Impoverished people have nothing to do with this. No one got a reduced welfare check because of the tax cuts.
Rich people investing their money leads to unemployed people getting jobs, as the companies invested in use the money to expand their businesses and purchase goods and services. This is better than the government spending the money if you believe that the money will be spent more wisely by the person who earned it and worked for it rather than by some government functionary who decides based on who contributed the most to his re-election campaign.
Re:Bad PR (Score:3, Insightful)
The tax cuts take money the government would have spent (i.e. wasted, since the choices the government makes have nothing to do with efficiency) and gives it back to the people it came from in the first place.
Wrong. The money has already been spent ("wasted") by the government. Tax cuts are an additional expense, driving the nation even further into debt. The tax cuts have not decreased federal spending ("wasting") at all.
This is better than the government spending the money if you believe that the money will be spent more wisely by the person who earned it and worked for it rather than by some government functionary who decides based on who contributed the most to his re-election campaign.
You're forgetting that the government is already the one spending the money. A tax cut is just another free handout from the government to a targeted selection of people. Follow the money and see who benefits most, and then watch the cycle of publicly funded political contributions continue.
Re:Bad PR (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh huh. Keep goin'.
The rich people who invested the money did invest it in their businesses, and they did hire unemployed people. Those people went and bought goods and services as you said - in fact they are incredibly good at finding the cheapest goods and services. They demand them. Because everyone wants to keep as much of their money as they can, right? Which leads to increased competition. Rich people then say, we need to make more money to prove to our shareholders that we rock and are competitive. Companies look for ways to reduce costs via globalization. Workers are cheaper in other places than Country A, so this is good business. Prices of goods sold come down, poor people get laid off. Even poorer people in Country B get Sniny! New! Jobs! - which are paid pathetically (to stay competitve) and are forced to work in horrible conditions because Country B has no workers' protection laws. Manufacturing leaves Country A bit by bit. Country B finds niche providing manufactured goods to the first country. Country B isn't so poor anymore - they start buying up our now-increasing debt, so that the original country's now-laid-off-again poor people can continue to buy their cheap stuff. Country A now makes nothing but software and entertainment.
Meanwhile, the now Richer people in Country A lobby some government functionary who decides based on who contributed the most to his re-election campaign that they can make things easier for them here, like say, eliminating the fair wage laws after a devastating hurricane.
You cannot just take a little snapshot of economic transaction and declare it to be a Great Thing when Rich People Get Richer. It's such a fallacy that it is almost below contempt. Look at what is happening in N.O. right now - it is just like the petri-dish economic experiments that had the corporatist types all lathered up about Iraq. I don't know how many times it has to fail before people figure out that it does not help anyone except a tiny tiny minority in the long run. Either you have empathy or you don't.
Re:Bad PR (Score:3, Insightful)
The government didn't earn the money, and when it's spent there's more where that came from, so they don't care nearly as much. The person deciding what to spend it on decides based on politics, not whether the money will be put to good use. The money tends to go to companies who've given large campaign contributions and spent the most money on lobbyists.
That's a simple utilitarian argument about why it's better, but there's also a moral argument to be made that the people who best know how to spend the money are the ones who the money belongs to, as in the people who earned it. Remember, a tax cut doesn't mean giving money to the rich, it means taking less money from the rich. There's a difference, if you're not a frothing at the mouth slashdot leftist.
Re:Bad PR (Score:3, Insightful)
Global warming issue (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Global warming issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Levels of methane, another potent greenhouse gas, are approaching 1000% higher than any previous peak on record.
BOTH of these curves begin a sharp exponential climb right around 1700 AD - the industrial revolution.
It is a fact that these gases contribute to a greenhouse effect, and it is also a fact that humans have contributed to the greenhouse gas content of the atmosphere.
Re:Global warming issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Global warming issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Levels of methane, another potent greenhouse gas, are approaching 1000% higher than any previous peak on record.
Oh, well in that case, it's a good thing the Bush administration has a plan to significantly reduce the amount of methane being released into the atmosphere [techcentralstation.com].
What's that you say? You haven't heard about this on the BBC, CBC, NPR, CNN or even FOX News? How interesting.
Re:Global warming issue (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Central_Station [wikipedia.org]
Re:Global warming issue (Score:3, Interesting)
Lemme ask you this: How much of your future and your children's future are you willing to gamble on all us scientists being wrong?
Re:Global warming issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Prior to enacting laws and restrictions that cost our economy hundreds of billions of dollars (trillions over time), I'd like to know that not only is this not a natural cyclic phenomenon, but that 1) The proposed changes will actually make a difference; and 2) That global warming is BAD for us.
I have never heard an argument about why raising the temperature a few degrees is actually bad, and I'm not talking about raising sea level 5 or 10 feet. Don't more plants grow if the climate is warmer?
Also, why do pro environmental climatologists exclude data that does not fit their model, and overemphasize data that does? Ever heard of the hockey stick and the BS surrounding it? What about the medieval warm period? Notice how most of the historic temp graphs don't cover pre 1500 AD. Also, notice how the climatologists have flipped since the 70's, when we were headed for an ice age. Should we have burnt more fossil fuels then and turned on our heaters 24/7?
I'm all for wait and gather more data, then decide the best course of action for the results we want to achieve. And my SUV gets 15mpg, but I rarely drive it because I DO pay more than most people, every time I fill up the tank.
How much of you and your childs future (economically) are you willing to gamble on the scientists and big check writing politicians being wrong?
"From your question, it appears that you have never studied science, but letting that go, I always have to wonder about what it is with people that seem so resistant to the idea of global warming. After all, what is it that you are objecting to? Not being able to drive your 9MPG SUV without having to pay more?
Lemme ask you this: How much of your future and your children's future are you willing to gamble on all us scientists being wrong?"
Re:Global warming issue (Score:5, Insightful)
To disclose, I'm a chemist/statistician, and I drive a prius. I'm in favor of hedging our policy on the side of safety - but purely as a scientist, claiming any sort of accuracy in terms of climate prediction seems ridiculous given the current models.
You say "all us scientists" as if you have 100% consensus, and as if you're a climatologist. Are you?
evidence for global warming (Score:3, Informative)
First, the climate has become slightly warmer over the past hundred years. This is known fact, over the period for which accurate measurements and records are available.
Second, there are suggestions from analysis of tree trunk rings that the climate has become progressively warmer over the past several centuries. This research is controversial, and not everyone accepts it.
Third, records from antarctic ice show that there is much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any time in the recent, or even quite distant, past.
Accepting global warming requires a belief that the first item is part of a trend, and that it is a result of human behaviour. Although that isn't proven, it does seem a distinct possibility, especially in light of the third item.
PING! (Score:2, Interesting)
You will also notice that use of gopher space has gone down with the rise of hurricanes this year. I think it is time we all dropped the internet and went back to gopher space.
so in another ten years (Score:2)
RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh Lordy it's snowin, must be global warming!
Oh Lordy a TORNADO! We never had those before global warming!
A WHOLE CITY FLOODED BY A HURRICANE! ACK! That surely couldn't happen without global warming!
For the love, what a bunch of fear-mongering horse shit.
Everyone but you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why did you frame 'left' and 'irrational' together? Or do you conclude that any non 'right' argument is automatically irrational?
If so, then you needn't worry - the irrationality here is alive and well, thanks to your efforts. Kudos! :)
On topic, I don't think its irrational to ask the question: is climate change a factor in the hurricane season? The scientific consensus (i.e. peer-reviewed Science and Nature-type consensus) is that it is not a major factor, not the underlying cause. Hurricane seasons appear to be cyclical, historically.
However that same consensus says that global climate change is absolutely, inarguably, happening. The causes of that are measurable and observable. Whether the Earth itself goes through its own cycles or not - and it likely does - we have definitely fucked with that cycle and now the outcome/effects are unclear.
Am I being 'irrational'?
Only controversial if you're in denial (Score:4, Interesting)
The Bushies have been in denial about global warming and have been spreading FUD at every chance. Most real scientists have accepted the fact of global warming. This "controversy" is just another example of denial and FUD.
"Free Republic is the premier online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America. And we always have fun doing it. Hoo-yah!"
These people aren't scientists, they are politicians.
Not linked to more, but will effect strength. (Score:4, Interesting)
However, due to how hurricanes gain strength (by pulling heat from the water) global warming could be linked in an increase in strength.
Re:Only controversial if you're in denial (Score:5, Informative)
From The American Association for the Advancement of Science's Journal Science [sciencemag.org]
"Human activities
Global Warming causes sea-surface temperatures to rise.
From NASA: [nasa.gov]
""There has been a strong warming trend over the past 30 years, a trend that has been shown to be due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere"
Special Multimedia Bonus Goodness! [nasa.gov]
Sea-surface energy fuel hurricanes
From Nasa: [nasa.gov]
"Hurricane winds are sustained by the heat energy of the ocean, so the ocean is cooled as the hurricane passes and the energy is extracted to power the winds.
PROFIT!
Well Then, Read What A Scientist Says (Score:3, Informative)
Fine then, ask the scientists. William Gray, the grand daddy of hurricane forecasting and the go-to guy at the beginning of the season thinks the hurricane-to-global-warming connection is way overblown to non-existant [discover.com].
If that is too definitive for you, a group of scientist out of the University of Colorado have come to the conclusion that the claims of a linkage between global warming and hurricane impacts are premature [PDF] [colorado.edu]. So the brightest minds in hurricanes don't see it and I doubt that they would be in denial.....
Re:Only controversial if you're in denial (Score:3, Insightful)
As the creationists are fond of pointing out, evolution is only a theory. Similarly, global warming is only a theory. Both of these theories do have the support of the vast majority of legitimate scientists.
This leaves room for FUD by political manipulators since too many people don't have any real understanding of science.
Trolling? (Score:3, Interesting)
So we may hit a total that we hit in 1933. How is this evidence of a change or part of the global warming debate? Shouldn't we be seeing totals consistently higher than the past? Or is someone just trying to stir up a liberal/conservative debate?
Re:Trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of the question as to whether this is from a natural cycle, or whether from global warming effects causing increased baseline ocean temperatures, or simply a statistical fluke year. As a first pass, either of the first two sounds credible as a cause. (If you RTFA, the last sounds less so.)
We know climate moves in cycles; we also know that hurricanes are formed by (and get their energy from) warm water. We don't have detailed records for a long enough time frame to readily determine if it's just a natural swing in the cycle. Ergo, we should be doing climate research, perhaps specifically focused on what affects hurricane formation.
Perhaps it's Global Warming; perhaps it's a natural oscilation in the deep ocean currents; perhaps it's just a statistical outlier event. Depending on which, the responses might be different. If it's an outlier, we can just plan for a short term headache with the rebuilding. If it's caused by human-induced global warming, we should start taking measures to ameliorate it. If it's just an unstoppable natural cycle unrelated to human influence, we should start considering what extent build-up of coastal developments ought to be insurable/taxed/regulated/&c, and considering how to minimize the impact on our national transportation infrastructure.
The fact that we are headed for a record year and don't know the cause suggests we should be doing more research into climate and oceanography, in order to determine the best reactions... preferably backed more by clearly stated measurements and mathematically calculated confidence intervals, rather than more by political pre-evaluation of what the implications might be for Senator Bedfellow's congressional district. Mother nature doesn't give a damn what we think the world ought to be like; she's going to hit us with the way it is.
more intense != more storms (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty straightforward: the force of the storm depends on the temperature on the ocean's surface. Higher temperature means nastier storms.
Look, if you don't believe humans are affecting the climate with CO2, fine. If you think things aren't getting worse, fine. But can you quit mis-representing people's arguments and research conclusions?
Now back to reading that dupe about IE being more secure than FF. Gotta love editorial standards here.
1933 number is deceiving (Score:5, Interesting)
As to the Global Warming/hurricane connection, here are the words of hurricane guru Dr. William Gray:
BTW - I am a meteorologist... or meaty urologist, I never quite remember.More descriptive huricane names (Score:5, Funny)
I always wondered why they give them nice polite names.
I think "Hurricane Bastard" or "Hurricane Stalin" would be more appropriate .
Just name them after real scum bags
Hurricane KHANNN!... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:More descriptive huricane names (Score:3, Funny)
"Hurricane Andrew? Why would you call a hurricane Andrew? Did the hurricane show up in a little cravat and a dickie, smelling of polo, sipping of perrier, going "Scurry, scurry, Andy's here!!!" What do they call tornado? Tornado. You get the message. They don't go,"Tornado Timmy's coming, FLEE!" Why, if they're going to give a hurricane a name, give it one that applies, like Hurricane Jesus-Christ-On-A-Crutch! Followed by the next big one, Hurricane Holy-Fucking-Moses!"
Science: controversial (Score:3, Insightful)
Note how institutions (like, oh, say the office of the president) tend to protect themselves despite attacks not being 100% certain. Note how secret service agents protect the president, even though not all law enforcement officials worldwide agree that it's completely certain that at 12:31 on november the 30th a bullet will enter the presidents head at a 30 degree downward angle fired by a middle aged assassin whose motivations have been understood fully.
That's a very valid approach - overprotect where the downside of a realized small risk would be great. I just wish we were as smart when it comes to protecting the species. As it is, we can't even protect the inhabitants of one city with days of advance warning.
so what they are saying is... (Score:3, Funny)
Alpha and Beta Bugs (Score:3, Funny)
Corporate-sponsored hurricanes. (Score:5, Funny)
Just think: Pepsi Presentes Hurricane Melvin. Hurricane Ashlee: A Joint Venture of Wal-Mart, Google, and Dell.
When I becomes president, I tells ya.
freerepublic dot com? (Score:3, Insightful)
what if a greek letter is retired? (Score:3, Interesting)
-Sean (OutdoorDB [slashdot.org] - The Outdoor Wiki)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Even more problematic than the lack of names... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Targets gulf coast"
"Directs its wrath at..."
Free republic... (Score:5, Informative)
Michaels, P.J., and R.C. Balling, Jr. 1999. Global warming: The political science of exaggeration. Prometheus 1, 63-70.
Hansen, J.E. and P.J. Michaels. 2000. AARST Science Policy Forum, New York. Social Epistemology 14:133-186
Michaels, P.J., and R.C. Balling, Jr. 2000. The Satanic Gases. Cato Books, Washington DC. 234 pp.
Additionally, his research interests on that UVA page (where he is the CATO Institute Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies) include:
The core issue over the next ten years will not be "How much will the climate warm?" but, rather, "Why did it warm so little?" My research also leads me to believe that the next decade will see the emergence of a paradigm of "robust earth," as opposed to the fashionable "fragility" concept. The papers listed below provide some evidence for these observations. It is entirely possible that human influence on the atmosphere is not necessarily deleterious and that it is simply another component of the dynamic planet.
Ok, so let's look at 'Tech Central Station,' the location hosting the article the free republic is referencing. Dr. Michaels articles on there include:
Stepping up the Pressure:The all-out, last-ditch effort by global warming alarmists to find any excuse to compel the US to take action.
Tip of the Iceberg:Yet another predictable distortion.
Conjecture vs. Science: Are the editors of Science are more interested in conjecture than in firm scientific findings?
And, incidentally, as stated on the About TCS webpage, 'Tech Central Station' is published by DCI Group, LLC. And, DCI LLC is "top Republican lobby and PR firm associated with telemarketing company Feather Larson & Synhorst DCI and the direct-mail firm FYI Messaging. The DCI group publishes the website Tech Central Station and has close ties to the George W. Bush administration." according to Source watch [sourcewatch.org].
This is pretty clearly an guy who does not buy into global warming as a concept, despite near universal agreement in the scientific community. To hear him proclaim 'no its not' arguments to scientific articles in both Nature and Science seems to carry rather little weight...particularly when he is publishing on a clearly partisan website. Write a Science/Nature (or hell PNAS, whatever) article refuting this, have it peer-reviewed and then there might be some reason to talk. Until that point, this is little more than personal ideaology posing as "science."
-Ted
21 storms in 1933?!?!?! But ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm confused. Can some Liberal help me out with this?
The Global warming link is irrelevant... (Score:3, Informative)
There will always be hurricanes. Just like there will always be tornados, droughts, earthquakes, sinkholes and other natural disasters. That's why they're called natural disasters. They're natural. They're a part of nature. The fact that there are 200 hurricanes this year and only 10 next year doesn't help the people affected by them any more or less.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that there isn't global warming. I have skin. I can tell it's there, even over my relatively short lifespan. We should get in on the Kyoto accord (or at least emulate like we're a part of it), cut back our emissions and do our best not to perturb the natural rest-state of the environment. But in the short term, we need to figure out better ways to evacuate people from affected areas and find better methods to deal with disaster recovery.
There is no controversy (Score:3, Insightful)
The only reason there appears to be a controversy is because of the media's misguided efforts to present a "balanced" story, leading them to quote any crackpot that believes the opposite of the current scientific consensus. Like that FreeRepublic author.
Seriously, saying there's a controversy because some random internet author from a grassroots convervative organisation who has no scientific background claims there is one, is like saying that the moon is made of blue cheese because the hobo yelling at traffic says so. Never mind the actual objective science that says otherwise...
Controversial? (Score:5, Informative)
So we have an industry shill and a thinktanker on one side, and almost the entire climatology community on the other [slashdot.org]. (out of 928 peer-reviewed papers published, NOT ONE denied global warming was real and was occuring now due to human activities. 75% accepted that conclusion explicitly or implicitly, and the remaining 25% made no mention either way.) Yeah that's controversial, and so is the planet being round [wikipedia.org].
Just last week it was reported that arctic sea ice melting was accelerating, and therefore we have passed the tipping point [slashdot.org].
There may have been controversy 30 years ago. The only controversy now is the manufactured one for political gain. Then again, I suspect fm6, also believes that the white house was changing scientific results [slashdot.org] simply to make it "fair and balanced" [foxnews.com].
Re: Greek alphabet? (Score:3, Funny)
> What's the point in using the Greek alphabet, since all the US media is going to use English/Roman letters to report the names?
I suppose they could use numerals: 0liver, 1ouanne, 2ebulun, 3lizabeth, 4arry, 5andy, 6ob, 7erri, 8???, 9ale, 10uis,
Re: Greek alphabet? (Score:3, Funny)
We're sorry, the name "Hurricane Sam" is taken. How about "Hurricane TNBabe2348"?
Re:Controversial? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, maybe if you'd read up a bit (Score:3, Informative)
Current theories seem to suggest that storm frequency varies on a long term cycle independent of global warming. However weather models do suggest that a warmer ocean means that the storms we get will be stronger.
Re:Errrr.... (Score:3, Informative)
The link has some interesting quotes [noaa.gov]:
"The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."
"The results described above are based on a recent simulation study carried out by Thomas R. Knutson and Robert E. Tuleya at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). This study examined the response of simulated hurricanes to the climate warming projected for a substantial build-up of atmospheric CO2. Such an increase in the upper-limit intensity of hurricanes with global warming was suggested on theoretical grounds by M.I.T. Professor Kerry Emanuel in 1987."
MIT, NOAA - pretty reputable sources. So point me to the articles where the link between Global Warming and extreme weather (like hurricanes) is dismissed?