But where does global warming and therefore hurricanes come from? Just ask a Kennedy (no, it really doesn't matter which one):
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...6_200508291805
Bad Republicans! Bad!
Azi
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But where does global warming and therefore hurricanes come from? Just ask a Kennedy (no, it really doesn't matter which one):
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...6_200508291805
Bad Republicans! Bad!
Azi
Global warming is occuring. The Global Warming debate is if man is a significant contributor. What this thread is about is how much of a contributor is global warming to hurricanes.
Hurricanes are heat powered engines that have a threshold of about 300K to generate. An increase above the threshold increases the amount of energy available. The physicists have still not created a model that accurately generates what the increase of power in a hurricane will be with increase in thermal load... they are pretty close but there are lots of holes to fill in the blanks.
Better understanding of hurricanes will lead to ways to mitigate the damage... I don't think seeding of the eye wall like in the 70's will happen again.
In fact the first thing that will happen will be insurance premiums in hurricane zones will change... then zoning laws will change as local governments will want to avoid the liabilities... more nomadic families with a storm season home away from hurricane zones and a non-storm season home... more redundancy in emergency facilities, pumps, evacuation routes...
Tiny??? Alaskan temperatures up by 5 F annually is tiny? Smithsonian ran an article by a fellow measuring glacial melt over the past 100 years by looking at old survey photos, postcards, etc. The loss of the glaciers is pretty large.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
McCain and others on Alaskan Warming
There have also been concerns about some apparent reduction in the gulf stream flows. This study is still in its infancy.
We already know average temperatures are higher.
We also know that water temperature is a major driver for hurricanes. I don't care what jack ass says otherwise, it is a major player once a hurricane is underway. Hurricanes are complex engines, and water temperature is one of the factors among many.
My favorite link...a big boo-boo by the Global Warmning deniers who can't seem to get their signs right...
Spencer and Christy Results were Erroneous
Ooopssss
Of course, they still say that the warming trend is irrelevant...despite their own calcs having a systematic underprediction of 40%. ~:rolleyes: These guys should take up cold fusion. It gets better, recent corrections to the data indicate the actual value is 120% more than Spencer and Christy's results, while actual surface temperature measurements show Spencer and Christy to have been off by 71%.
"In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was Barbour’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast."Quote:
Originally Posted by Azi Tohak
Pat needs to read the book of Job a few dozen times...
linkyQuote:
In case you’ve missed the hype, MIT's Kerry Emanuel has a paper in the online version of Nature magazine saying that hurricanes are becoming dramatically more powerful as a result of global warming.
Merely venturing into the discussion of hurricanes and global warming is more dangerous than most tropical cyclones. About Emanuel's article, William Gray of Colorado State University -- the guy who issues the annual hurricane forecast that grabs headlines every summer -- told the Boston Globe, "It's a terrible paper, one of the worst I've ever looked at."
Feel free to read the whole article. :bow:
I'm with AdrianII on this one. There is no credible reason to think that global warming would create more frequent, stronger hurricanes. In fact, there is just as many, probably more reasons to think that global warming would actually decrease hurricane severity. For example, every El Nino year the environmental activists march out and claim how global warming makes for more often and stronger El Ninos. However, a strong El Nino creates conditions that are extremely adverse to hurricane development. So which is it? It seems that any natural event that occurs is held up by certain environmentalists as a catastrophic consequence of global warming, no matter how contradictory the events are.
El Nino effects the South Pacific not the Altantic.
Australia is going through a severe drought in some regions while others flood.
The insured value is for all the coast... all the coast would have to be destroyed for a claim greater then a year of GDP.Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick J. Michaels
Then:
Katrina Damage May Bring $26b In ClaimsQuote:
The property and casualty insurance industry, hit hard last year when four separate hurricanes slammed into Florida, now faces as much as $26 billion in claims from Hurricane Katrina's foray into Louisiana and neighboring Gulf Coast states, according to preliminary risk assessments.
AIR Worldwide Corp., a risk modeling firm based in Boston, said late Monday that insured losses could range from $12 billion to $26 billion.
At the high end, that would make Katrina more expensive than the previous record-setting storm, Hurricane Andrew, which caused some $21 billion in insured losses in 1992 to property in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.
The insurance companies are not happy and are having record payouts.
Allow me to spell it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
linkQuote:
The primary explanation for the decline in hurricane frequency during El Niño years is due to the increased wind shear in the environment.
In El Niño years, the wind patterns are aligned in such a way that the vertical wind shear is increased over the Caribbean and Atlantic. The increased wind shear helps to prevent tropical disturbances from developing into hurricanes. In the eastern Pacific, the wind patterns are altered in such a way to reduce the wind shear in the atmosphere, contributing to more storms.
(See link for pretty grahpics/charts)
Good point, I knew the conveyor belt effected Indonesia to Australia to Chile (the cold upwellings which feed the fish) and had an effect on South Africa.
I didn't know that the winds hit the Atlantic... learn something everyday. Should have thought that one out, basic butterfly in all.
So in non-El Niño years you will see an increase in hurricanes in the Atlantic... and we are below the El Niño threshold ie not an El Niño year.Quote:
In general, warm El Niño events are characterized by more tropical storms and hurricanes in the eastern Pacific and a decrease in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.
El Niño are a natural weather event. Are they changing due to global warming? Maybe, maybe not. The El Niño is large enough that it can obscure other trends and it may be a natural buffer in stopping spikes by circulating the waters... like an air conditioner for the entire Pacific.
Hurricanes feed on heat, so wouldn't it make sense that the more heat the stronger/longer the hurricane?Quote:
There is no credible reason to think that global warming would create more frequent, stronger hurricanes
I have to say, Im with Pape on this. Increasing the heat (energy) of a system like that can only have one effect. How exactly this manifests itself is without a doubt extremely complicated, but the simple physics that govern it still determine the overall direction of the outcome. Increase enegry input means incresed energy output. What is there not to understand? Sure we can debate on how exactly this will effect them, but surely we can all agree on the above?
Untrue. Hurricanes are driven by many things, including water temperature. It is the evaporation and condensation of this water that is powering the dynamo. Higher temp provides more potential power (higher water content per temperature difference per unit volume of air.) The difference in vapor pressure is 6% for a 1 C change at 86 F.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xiahou
Of course the temperature itself doesn't create the conditions, it also depends on the atmospheric events driving it, particularly the driving force difference with the atmospheric winds and their level of saturation as well as pressures. With a small sample size each season, and with the el nino cycle, etc. it is going to be challenging to get good correlations without very long term data. The atmospheric cycle isn't nearly as well understood as we would like. This is why the end result could be different.
If you want to see how global water temp changes with season:
Animated Gif of water temp
While the article in Nature doesn't look credible to me, there is reason to be looking for these types of correlations. Global temp. is changing rapidly on us and it is a very complex feedback system. To think hurricanes would not be effected in some way by global warming defies logic. As to how they might be effected longterm, there are many possibilities.
And in some places in the world glaciers are increasing. Thus we have what we have always had; varying weather. Saying that there's global warming if every single glacier doesn't increase is deceitful. The earth is a huge environment, so local variations are very possible. And while the loss of glaciers in Alaska may be large, it is likely that overall, glacier mass has remained steady.Quote:
Tiny??? Alaskan temperatures up by 5 F annually is tiny? Smithsonian ran an article by a fellow measuring glacial melt over the past 100 years by looking at old survey photos, postcards, etc. The loss of the glaciers is pretty large.
Admiting that, overall, the temp has incresed a couple degrees in the past hundred years- it is not the fault of humans. Temp changes have occured before and will occur again (See: Ice Ages, and Little Ice Age with a frozen Thames in England). Also, the temp, worldwide, remained steady 1940-70 while greehouse gases were still increasing. Kinda shoots down the 'greenhouse gas' theory, huh?
So a increase of a couple degrees increases wind power by 50%? :dizzy2:Quote:
Increasing the heat (energy) of a system like that can only have one effect.
If the temp of the water was increasing, wouldn't it become closer to the air temp, thus lowering the difference and potential power of the storm?Quote:
Higher temp provides more potential power (higher water content per temperature difference per unit volume of air.) The difference in vapor pressure is 6% for a 1 C change at 86 F.
Crazed Rabbit
Heat.
Water retains a lot more heat then anything else.
With the same energy input copper will rise in temperature ten degrees while water will rise 1 degree.
Sea water can hold about four times as much heat as air.
----
Blackbody radiation.
All the molecules do not have the same amount of energy. An increase in temperature is not a linear increase in the amount of molecules at each energy amount.
Name all the places in the world where glaciers are increasing in size. To aid you in your search, I'll help out by providing a link to the World Glacier Inventory, a product of the World Glacier Monitoring Service which is funded by the NOAA, the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the Univ. of Colo. and the UN Environment Program. Happy hunting. ~D
Next find an old 1950's photo of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Now find a current photo of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Notice the difference in the size of the glacier. It's really hard to miss.
Now search the net for articles on the increasing speed of the Greenland glaciers or the increasing speed of the Columbia glacier in Prince William Sound in Alaska. Increased glacier speed is a result of increased melt under the glacier.
Examine articles on glacier retreat in someplace known for glaciers, say... oh, Glacier National Park in Montana.
Examine articles on the glacial melt occuring in the Himalayas, such as at Imja glacier or the Khumbu glacier on Mt. Everest.
Examine articles on Andean glaciers which have lost size and increased in flow speed
The list grows. How about shrinking Pyrenees glaciers, Alps glaciers, and more.
All over the world glaciers are shrinking. In case your search of the above database was in vain, I'll give you a hint on the only location in the world with a couple of glaciers which increased in size over the last 20 years - think Scandinavia.
Now, add up your couple of growing glaciers and subtract the total number of shrinking glaciers worldwide (I'll give you another hint - it's all of them except the few in Scandinavia). The result is Rush Limbaugh's IQ.
First only 5 codes are listed...oops... easy assumption that Africa is 3 and is unused.Quote:
The six continent codes used in the database are as follows:
1 - South America
2 - North America
4 - Europe
5 - Asia
6 - New Zealand
But the really cool thing is NZ is now a continent!
Fair enough as it is the coolest country on earth. ~:cheers:
Seriously this bit:
Quote:
Scientists are interested in the mass balance of glaciers, that is, whether a particular glacier is losing mass through increased melting or gaining mass through increased snowfall. Overall, the net mass balance for a sampling of glaciers from around the world is negative (WMO, 1998),
I wonder why Africa was left out? There are retreating glaciers on Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya, and probably more. The sad thing is, Mt. Kilimanjaro has visibly lost more than 80% of it's glacier coverage in the last 100 years. Soon, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" will just be an old movie title and nothing but a memory in photographs.
And I agree about New Zealand. It's on my list of the top 5 places I want to visit before I die.
Probably, yes, although it was a (Hemingway) book title first.. ~:cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aenlic
I looked into the Kilimanjaro tragedy earlier this year because a picture of the retreating glacier, shot by Magnum's Alex Majoli, made it onto the front pages around the world. The best research to date has been done by Austrian glacier specialist Georg Kaser who led several recent expeditions on Kilimanjaro. I spke to him for a long time and read his research papers. Kaser is a supporter of man-made global warming theories, but in the case of Mount Kilimanjaro, he says, the glacier retreat is probably caused by increased solar activity more than anything else. After this paper was published, Kaser instigated (and helped finance) new research into the relationship between glacier retreat and deforestation in the wider region. It appears peasants are cutting down what forests are left, particularly in Tanzania. This causes erosion => less precipitation => less natural 'feeding' of the glacier from above. The results of that research are due next year.
I called Majoli and asked him why his picture of Kilimanjaro's glacier didn't focus on the equally dramatic deforestation that is going on, and starting right at the foot of the mountain. A slight change of angle would have resulted in a totally different 'picture'. He said it would only detract from the 'truth' that global warming is killing the mountain. I said': 'You mean man-made global warming?' He said: 'Sure, what else?'
Doesn't this point to localised warming then?
And if you do it at enough points you end up with global warming?
I know from working in Indonesia that under the canopy it is humid and hot... then hike throught the blackened burned off zones for farms and the heat shoots up and the humdity drops ever so slightly that you could feel it on your skin.
I strongly believe that is what the sun does, Sir. Day after day.Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
Yes I understand that... I was refering to the deforestation as being a possible large player when compared with CO2 emissions.
Obviously if we change the landscape we effect how much gets absorbed.
Change the landscape into a greenhouse and we get a warm location. Do it around the world and you get a global contribution.
Its amazing how the same people who admonish those dumb Christians hold on to the theory of man-made global warming almost as a religion. They are simply unable to accept other explanations or opinions.
The world is in a constant state of change. These advocates seem to believe the world was frozen in time before the industrial revolution. Apparently they missed the 1st Grade trip to the museum where we were taught about all the different climate changes of the earth.
Man-made global warming may have some elements that are true, and it may not, but it long since became a political cause akin to all the others. Certain groups saw the tremendous level of self guilt that could be tapped in the western world and now global warming has become a huge source of income for many "environmental groups". ~:rolleyes:
That's funny- not willing to let facts and common sense get in the way of their point are they? ~DQuote:
Originally Posted by AdrianII
Climate, weather, things is very complex and chaotic. ~:confused:
We know variation has been between ice ages and warmer times, before we humans made differences. :book:
Now, maybe 40 years ago, someone thought a new ice age was coming.
Now we mostly think the opposite. :dizzy2:
Does some one think human produced CO2, methane etc. is not contribution to green house effect? Science base for this seems solid. How big contribution is discussable. Many discuss this, and make valid points either way.
What if we made less green hose gases? Would we have any extreme weather? Would glaciers melt? It is hard to tell exact. Climate, weather, things is very complex and chaotic. ~:confused:
To me, case for human participation being significant contributor to changes look good. Will we want to bet it is not, or that changes will not be dramatic? What think the peoples of New Orleans, Maldives, perhaps Netherlands?
Theory of PJ that global warming is fund raising invention of environmental group is faery foil hat, I think. :dizzy2: (sorry) :embarassed:
People of Netherlands have faith in improved coastal and river defenses. Money has already been set apart for next twenty years. For people of Netherlands, anticlimatix not an issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bartix
Yes, it was a Hemingway book first. But Hemingway's wonderful novel wasn't a graphical novel with pictures. Doesn't quite make the same point, does it? ~DQuote:
Originally Posted by AdrianII
As for the assertion that the retreat of the Kilimanjaro glacier is the result of increased solar activity, would that person be claiming that solar activity has increased steadily for the last 100 years? The glacier has been retreating at an increasing rate for that period. Surely the claim isn't that solar activity has been steadily increasing for the last 100 years. That would be entirely false. ~D
And while you're explaining away the Kilimanjaro glacier, then please feel free to explain away the other 90%+ of the world's glacier retreats as solar flares or aliens or something, anything.
No, it isn't. Everything I've heard so far is that glacial mass is declining throughout the Northern hemisphere (and other places as well.) Polar bears have less range because of a shrinking range. The caveman in the alps was uncovered by the melt. There have been a lot of thaws in Siberia revealing long frozen beasts. The Southern hemisphere isn't getting noticeable glacial growth from what I understand. And in Africa, Kilimanjaro's glacier is disappearing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
And sea levels are rising--both due to glacial melt, and to increased water temperature.
No, it shows that many believe what is convenient for them. We don't know how much of the change is due to humans, yet. We do know that we are shifting the carbon balance pretty noticeably, and the carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and by itself will increase temperature.Quote:
Admiting that, overall, the temp has incresed a couple degrees in the past hundred years- it is not the fault of humans. Temp changes have occured before and will occur again (See: Ice Ages, and Little Ice Age with a frozen Thames in England). Also, the temp, worldwide, remained steady 1940-70 while greehouse gases were still increasing. Kinda shoots down the 'greenhouse gas' theory, huh?
Time to blow this intellectually dishonest (or convenient simplistic) approach out of the water: The convenient notion is to blame any warming on natural processes that are not yet understood. However, since these are not yet understood, it is as probable, and in fact MORE probable that the natural cycle would have little noticeable impact during the same time frame, or that it would cause a temperature reduction. In other words, if you were to assign probabilities the LEAST likely explanation is that the current change is all natural.
More importantly, if the natural process should actually be driving temps down about now, and human changes have had the opposite effect, what happens if the natural trend gets "in-phase" with us? You see, since we can't understand the whole thing at this time, this latter option is just as likely as the "it's all natural warming." In engineering I must attempt to consider *all* of the possibilities and weigh them, not just the ones I want to occur, otherwise equipment and processes can fail (and as a direct result people can get killed.) It's part of risk analysis and taking reasonable precautions to reduce risks.
I've already said the study doesn't look credible, but not for the reason you state. A couple of degrees *could* do that, it all depends on the interactions of different things.Quote:
So a increase of a couple degrees increases wind power by 50%? :dizzy2:
First, the air temperature is rising too, that's where the term "global warming" came from! When both rise together, there is an increase in available potential energy. Second, the circulation patterns/speeds/flows at various levels in both the atmosphere and ocean are shifting too. Predicting where this will all come out? It depends on the interactions and lots of hurricane thermo/hydrodynamic theory that I have not studied. Still, a reasonable supposition is that higher temps will be able to carry more energy (water vapor) and therefore increase the strength of a storm. Water condensing/evaporating represents a volume change of several orders of magnitude.Quote:
If the temp of the water was increasing, wouldn't it become closer to the air temp, thus lowering the difference and potential power of the storm?
Crazed Rabbit
'That person' is a top-notch glacier expert who has led various expeditions to Kilimanjaro and published about them in respected, peer-reviewed scientific magazines. You are not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aenlic
Would you awfully mind if we stick with Kaser until the day you, Aenlic, can actually match his expertise? Good. I gave the link to that article by Kaser e.a. so nothing stands in the way of answering your own questions.
Since the scientific exploration of Kilimanjaro began in 1887, when Hans Meyer first ascended the mountain (not to the top this time, but to the crater rim), a central theme of published research has been the drastic recession of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers (e.g. Meyer, 1891, 1900; Klute, 1920; Gillman, 1923; J¨ager, 1931; Geilinger, 1936; Hunt, 1947; Spink, 1949; Humphries, 1959; Downie and Wilkinson, 1972; Hastenrath, 1984; Osmaston, 1989; Hastenrath and Greischar, 1997). Early reports describe the formation of notches, splitting up and disconnection of ice bodies, and measurements of glacier snout retreat on single glaciers, whereas later books and papers advance to reconstructing glacier surface areas.See? Towards the end, the article summarises the theory about increased ablation of vertical glacier walls due to 'intensified dry deasons':
A synopsis of (i) proxy data indicating changes in East African climate since ca 1850, (ii) 20th century instrumental data (air temperature and precipitation), and (iii) the observations and interpretations made during two periods of fieldwork (June 2001 and July 2002) strongly support the following scenario. Retreat from a maximum extent of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers started shortly before Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller visited the summit for the first time in 1889, caused by an abrupt climate change to markedly drier conditions around 1880. Intensified dry seasons accelerated ablation on the illuminated vertical walls left in the hole within Reusch Crater, probably a result of volcanic activity. The development of vertical features may also have started on the outer margins of the plateau glaciers before 1900, primarily as the formation of notches, as explicitly reported following field research in 1898 and 1912 (Meyer, 1900; Klute, 1920). A current example of such a notch development is the hole in the Northern Icefield (see Figure 2). Once started, the lateral retreat was unstoppable, maintained by solar radiation despite less negative mass balance conditions on horizontal glacier surfaces, and will come to an end only when the glaciers on the summit plateau have disappeared.
So, increased solar radiation on the slopes due to fewer clouds and drier air. I wrote 'solar activity', that was a mistake. But you could have read the paper and made up your own mind.
Meanwhile, the debate over Katrina rages on:
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Independent
It isn't global warming , it is Gods righteous vengance on the sodomites in the cess pool of sin that is New Orleans .
The "Rev" Phelps gives praise for Gods answer to his prayers on his hate sitehttp://www.godhatesfags.com/featured...r-katrina.html :help:
Damn, that website provides for some interesting reading... :dizzy2:
Convenient? As in believing that carbon emissions cause most of the global warming, even though the global temp stayed the same for 30 years while carbon emissions steadily increased? More carbon is appearing in the atmosphere, and we are much more equipped to measure tiny changes. What we are completely ignorant of is how much carbon it takes to actually influence the temperature, or if it even does (see my example).Quote:
No, it shows that many believe what is convenient for them. We don't know how much of the change is due to humans, yet. We do know that we are shifting the carbon balance pretty noticeably, and the carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and by itself will increase temperature.
Well I say glacial mass isn't declining. Can you, as the party that wants to change policy based on the results of the change in glacier mass (amoung other things), provide proof that glaciers are melting overall?Quote:
No, it isn't. Everything I've heard so far is that glacial mass is declining throughout the Northern hemisphere (and other places as well.) Polar bears have less range because of a shrinking range. The caveman in the alps was uncovered by the melt. There have been a lot of thaws in Siberia revealing long frozen beasts. The Southern hemisphere isn't getting noticeable glacial growth from what I understand. And in Africa, Kilimanjaro's glacier is disappearing.
And sea levels are rising--both due to glacial melt, and to increased water temperature.
See AdrianII's post for Kilimanjaro.
How is it more probable that the natural cycle, in which temps have changed worldwide in shorter times, not affect the temperature as much as a few extra gases put in the huge atmosphere by insignificantly tiny man (and gases whose total effect is unknown!). To believe that man is actually affecting the atmosphere, you have to 1)disregard all history of the climate changing, 2)assume that the natural cycle is not affecting the current temperature at all now (how do you get to that? Do you just think that sometimes the natural cycle takes a break, or that your devotion to man-made global warming means the natural cycle must not be happening, because of the collective wishing of enviro-wackos?) 3)assume that carbon has an affect on the atmosphere, 4)assume that man is putting enough carbon in the atmosphere (a amazingly huge place) to actually change the weather.Quote:
The convenient notion is to blame any warming on natural processes that are not yet understood. However, since these are not yet understood, it is as probable, and in fact MORE probable that the natural cycle would have little noticeable impact during the same time frame, or that it would cause a temperature reduction. In other words, if you were to assign probabilities the LEAST likely explanation is that the current change is all natural.
Compare that with, for the natural cycle of warming, assuming that, since the global temp has changed in the past, it might be doing so now.
How does not understanding the natural cycle make this more probable? Would our knowledge, ie. the neurons in our brains, of the natural cycle actually change the probability of weather? Answer: No, it wouldn't.
Oh, and if global warming caused more powerful hurricanes, then why did the decade 1941-1950 have more hurricanes, and more powerful hurricanes, than any other decade since recording of hurricanes (and the number of hurricanes declined with the rising temp)? Hmm? Remember, this is when global temp was not increasing.
Crazed Rabbit
If you think of the entire world atmosphere as a simply a large swimming pool, a hurricane would be a very small whirlpool, under 6 inches across.
Lets assume that weather events are like "bubbles" in a pool of water. Any student knowns that when you increase the temperature slightly you get more bubbles forming. Now we can accept the some parts of the world have shown increases in temperature and some not, (the data is at best variable), and this has caused problems with acceptance of the theory of global warming. If we look at the symptoms of warming water, i.e. more bubbles, and relate that to the atmosphere, where more bubbles = more weather events, we can say we do have some global warming.
We have had more significant weather events in recent years and these events include, drought, storms, floods, heat waves, etc. I would say that this is proof enough to me that we have global warming. As to the causes of this, that is another debate.