Hurricanes and Global Warming

[back2vinyl]

Is Global Warming contributing to increased hurricane intensity and frequency? Dr. William Gray thinks not. Below is a link to his interview. dialog

link (http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-05/departments/discover-dialogue/)


A few years ago, you almost called it quits because you'd lost so much funding. What made you continue?

G: I don't have the budget that I had, so I have cut my project way back. I am in retirement. I'm still working every day, but I don't teach and I don't have as many graduate students and as much financial need. I’ve got a little money from Lexington Insurance out of Boston, and I have some National Science Foundation money. For years I haven’t had any NOAA, NASA, or Navy money. But I’m having more fun. Right now I’m trying to work on this human-induced global-warming thing that I think is grossly exaggerated.


You don’t believe global warming is causing climate change?

G: No. If it is, it is causing such a small part that it is negligible. I’m not disputing that there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and ’40s, and then there was a slight global cooling from the middle ’40s to the early ’70s. And there has been warming since the middle ’70s, especially in the last 10 years. But this is natural, due to ocean circulation changes and other factors. It is not human induced.


That must be a controversial position among hurricane researchers.

G: Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this whole global-warming thing. But no one asks us. If you don’t know anything about how the atmosphere functions, you will of course say, “Look, greenhouse gases are going up, the globe is warming, they must be related.” Well, just because there are two associations, changing with the same sign, doesn’t mean that one is causing the other.


With last year’s hurricane season so active, and this year’s looking like it will be, won’t people say it’s evidence of global warming?

G: The Atlantic has had more of these storms in the least 10 years or so, but in other ocean basins, activity is slightly down. Why would that be so if this is climate change? The Atlantic is a special basin? The number of major storms in the Atlantic also went way down from the middle 1960s to the middle ’90s, when greenhouse gases were going up.


Why is there scientific support for the idea?

G: So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing—all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more. Now that the cold war is over, we have to generate a common enemy to support science, and what better common enemy for the globe than greenhouse gases?


Are your funding problems due in part to your views?

G: I can’t be sure, but I think that’s a lot of the reason. I have been around 50 years, so my views on this are well known. I had NOAA money for 30 some years, and then when the Clinton administration came in and Gore started directing some of the environmental stuff, I was cut off. I couldn’t get any NOAA money. They turned down 13 straight proposals from me.

[akip]

there are those who've been around just as long who would beg to differ.

here is a good, nonpolitical fact site:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

[Orville Wrong]

there are those who've been around just as long who would beg to differ.

here is a good, nonpolitical fact site:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
Using this disaster this soon to tout your cause du jour is a rotten and cynical tactic, whether it's poverty or either side of the global warming debate. Could we bury the bodies first?

[ianalex10]

Europeans expressing disdain for Americans?

Yawn...Now isn't that special! What else is new....

We send BILLIONS everytime some turd world country gets a splinter. Who's sending US relief during our crisis? They call us cheap for ONLY sending BILLIONS..

The global warming THEORY is a joke. ONE volcanic eruption spews more greenhouse gasses than the US can produce in years. Our environment is cyclical... it gets hot, then it gets cold... it's been happening for millions of years.

It's easy for the lazy europeans to blame everything on us.

[akip]

Using this disaster this soon to tout your cause du jour is a rotten and cynical tactic, whether it's poverty or either side of the global warming debate. Could we bury the bodies first?

i'm not touting anything, wrong. are you?

[Orville Wrong]

i'm not touting anything, wrong. are you?
I'm talking about the sources in the warming flap, not you, akip. Sorry if that was unclear. You know I love you.

[markalot]

He's right, but of course telling people about solar cycles, ocean currents, and decade long wind patterns just ain't exciting stuff. If you're interested another meteoroligist, Joseph D'Aleo, over at intellicast had some really good articles on the problems with forcasting climate change.

http://intellicast.com/DrDewpoint/

This hurricane rubbish is just that. We don't have accurate records of hurricanes in the distant past. The coasts weren't built up and accurate readings weren't possible.

[akip]

i deliberately posted a very fact-based, non-propagandistic climate site. i did not post green peace's take. from wrong's impassioned reaction, i doubt he read it.

the only reason i posted it was i thought the facts should follow the opinion piece b2v posted. and it was that---opinion. and there are opinions by scientists across the board. i am not flogging the environmental left's pov at this particular time.

look, i'm not going to waste my time defending myself for trying to bring these arguments back to reality. i never said, bring in the national guard---it's bush's fault. conversely, i never said, as some did, those stupid people (whether officials or citizens) should've known better.

what i'm "touting" is we have an unprecedented national disaster that is going to have serious ripple effects across this nation.

now i have to go return to my little world and take care of a lot of business today.

[Studebaker289]

Europeans expressing disdain for Americans?

Yawn...Now isn't that special! What else is new....

We send BILLIONS everytime some turd world country gets a splinter. Who's sending US relief during our crisis? They call us cheap for ONLY sending BILLIONS..

The global warming THEORY is a joke. ONE volcanic eruption spews more greenhouse gasses than the US can produce in years. Our environment is cyclical... it gets hot, then it gets cold... it's been happening for millions of years.

It's easy for the lazy europeans to blame everything on us.

I'm not fully clear what the europeans have to do with this thread
However....The truth hurts so bad .... As far as I know not one nation on the whole fucking plant is going to come and help in our hour of need but as soon as some other nation has a awful mess to deal with we better be right there bent over and well lubed to take it right in the ass or so help me god the USA is the worst nation ever for not helping or not helping enough

[markalot]

I'm not fully clear what the europeans have to do with this thread
However....The truth hurts so bad .... As far as I know not one nation on the whole fucking plant is going to come and help in our hour of need but as soon as some other nation has a awful mess to deal with we better be right there bent over and well lubed to take it right in the ass or so help me god the USA is the worst nation ever for not helping or not helping enough


Hi there.

It is against accepted board rules to quote you-know-who. I'm sure a moderator will be contacting you shortly. ;)

[Studebaker289]

Hi there.

It is against accepted board rules to quote you-know-who. I'm sure a moderator will be contacting you shortly. ;)



I was unaware of the black ball on "you-know-who"
it has been noted

[back2vinyl]

Using this disaster this soon to tout your cause du jour is a rotten and cynical tactic, whether it's poverty or either side of the global warming debate. Could we bury the bodies first?

Maybe I should have waited. I just wanted a place to post about climate issues outside the New Orleans thread.

[miami2112]

i thought the lack of pirates was causing global warming.

[george]

We are still the wealthiest nation on the planet, so I don't think anyone needs to give us aid.

Even so, the governor of Louisiana was on CNN last night and said she had received offers of help from many international organizations.

[markalot]

i thought the lack of pirates was causing global warming.

Vikings, not pirates. Vikings were from the north, it's cold up north. So obvious, really.

[miami2112]

Vikings, not pirates. Vikings were from the north, it's cold up north. So obvious, really.


you havent visited the flying spaghetti monster page have you? its quite funny. but yes, vikings makes a better argument. perhaps we could form a new splinter of fsmism??

[yoshomon]

A lot of this disaster comes from both skimping on spending on infrastructure and also from global warming generating larger, more deadly storms (the gulf didn't used to have ten hurricains a year, as I remember).

So this isn't *that* natural a disaster.

[yoshomon]

Using this disaster this soon to tout your cause du jour is a rotten and cynical tactic, whether it's poverty or either side of the global warming debate. Could we bury the bodies first?

I'm confused by this logic. How is it rotten and cynical to discuss or debate the origins/causes/etc of a tragedy? None of us here in Ohio are going to be burying bodies, but even if we were, talking and discussing global warming isn't mutually exclusive from burying bodies or offerng aid.

[george]

A lot of this disaster comes from both skimping on spending on infrastructure and also from global warming generating larger, more deadly storms (the gulf didn't used to have ten hurricains a year, as I remember).

So this isn't *that* natural a disaster.

This decade doesn't look much different than average:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

[Orville Wrong]

I'm confused by this logic. How is it rotten and cynical to discuss or debate the origins/causes/etc of a tragedy? None of us here in Ohio are going to be burying bodies, but even if we were, talking and discussing global warming isn't mutually exclusive from burying bodies or offerng aid.
You go right ahead. It was not an appeal to logic.

[lawdog]

Silly environmentalists, global warming didn't cause the destruction of New Orleans. It was the queers (http://www.repentamerica.com/pr_hurricanekatrina.html). It's all so simple.

[back2vinyl]

Silly environmentalists, global warming didn't cause the destruction of New Orleans. It was the queers (http://www.repentamerica.com/pr_hurricanekatrina.html). It's all so simple.

Wow. 34th annual celebration too. God must be really backed up.

[back2vinyl]

A lot of this disaster comes from both skimping on spending on infrastructure and also from global warming generating larger, more deadly storms (the gulf didn't used to have ten hurricains a year, as I remember).

So this isn't *that* natural a disaster.

The best I could find was through 1995, but here are some graphs that I stole from here (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/downward/):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v353/back2vinyl/fig2.gif

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v353/back2vinyl/fig1.gif

As you can see, the trends on both frequency and intensity are downward. I wish I had data from the last 10 years, I believe the last two were very active but global warming has been occurring for longer than that.

I believe the real problem is our excessive development along the coast as shown by this graph:

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/USdmg/florida.gif

[clonE]

Most of what I've read/heard has said that the storms of the past few years have been both more devastating and more frequent than in the past. It may well be a cyclical thing (glimpsing at those graphs,) but I'm sure our tendency to live & build on the coast is a large part of the problem. If NO wasn't below sea level, it wouldn't have needed levees, which let the flood waters in.

Interesting bit on Nova last week; the moon stabilizes the earth on our tilted axis. Without the moon, our weather would be wicked strong and much more unpredictable. However, the moon is getting about 1.5 inches further away every year. they didn't state this as a conclusion, but how far away does it need to get before the stabilizing effect is diminished?

[Jumpman]

Most of what I've read/heard has said that the storms of the past few years have been both more devastating and more frequent than in the past. It may well be a cyclical thing (glimpsing at those graphs,) but I'm sure our tendency to live & build on the coast is a large part of the problem. If NO wasn't below sea level, it wouldn't have needed levees, which let the flood waters in.

Interesting bit on Nova last week; the moon stabilizes the earth on our tilted axis. Without the moon, our weather would be wicked strong and much more unpredictable. However, the moon is getting about 1.5 inches further away every year. they didn't state this as a conclusion, but how far away does it need to get before the stabilizing effect is diminished?


About 1.5 more inches. ;)

My take on all of this is that the time scale of our human lives make it somewhat difficult to gauge global warming. Geologic time and human time just don't jive. But having said that, scientists do have a fairly good bit of data to go on throught the use of ice cores, tree cores and sedimentary cores. The data supports that in fact the overall temperature is getting slightly warmer on average.

The bigger question is whether or not humans are involved in the increase and to what extent if they are. We do have very good evidence that global CO2 levels have increased dramatically in the last fifty years. The Keeling curve is one bit of data that proves this. Knowing that humans have become enormous producers of CO2 through automobile use and industrialization adds credence to the thesis that humans are invoved in the global warming. Because the greenhouse effect (which is a natural and necessary process to keep the earth warm enough for human habitation) relies on gases such as CO2, CH4 (Methane), and NO2 we have a pretty good idea that the added levels are locking in some of that heat.

So are these recent episodes of strong hurricane seasons evidence of global warming? I'm not so sure, it's just such a short time scale to know. We'll know alot better in about 50 years. However, knowing that hurricanes are basically fueled by warm water, might lend to theories that hurricanes are getting slightly more powerful on average.

My concern with all of this is that saying that these hurricanes are definitely caused by global warming does a diservice to all of us who do believe that human impacts upon the environment are very real, even within the global climate change debate. It's like saying that because the summers are hotter than you ever remember, you believe in global warming. Unfortunately our memories of weather in the past make for bad science and simply give people who fight the global climate change theories tooth and nail more ammunition.

[despondent]

Most of what I've read/heard has said that the storms of the past few years have been both more devastating and more frequent than in the past. It may well be a cyclical thing (glimpsing at those graphs,) but I'm sure our tendency to live & build on the coast is a large part of the problem. If NO wasn't below sea level, it wouldn't have needed levees, which let the flood waters in.

Interesting bit on Nova last week; the moon stabilizes the earth on our tilted axis. Without the moon, our weather would be wicked strong and much more unpredictable. However, the moon is getting about 1.5 inches further away every year. they didn't state this as a conclusion, but how far away does it need to get before the stabilizing effect is diminished?
I also saw that Nova episode. Our climate modeling and predicting is only as accurate as the data that is being input into the models. The variables are overwhelmingly numerous. Do we know if the increasing moon distance is being figured into the current models?

[Motti]

However....The truth hurts so bad .... As far as I know not one nation on the whole fucking plant is going to come and help in our hour of need but as soon as some other nation has a awful mess to deal with we better be right there bent over and well lubed to take it right in the ass or so help me god the USA is the worst nation ever for not helping or not helping enough

I really cannot agree with this. Most nations, specially third world nations, have an awful mess to deal with right now. Everyday and no light at the end of the tunnel.

[clonE]

I really cannot agree with this. Most nations, specially third world nations, have an awful mess to deal with right now. Everyday and no light at the end of the tunnel.


one of my co-workers was telling me that her conservative friend said everything will be alright here in the states; a little reccession and then a depression and then things will be great.

a US depression would suck major ass, and would certainly afflict the world economies, but I got to thinking, that we have it so good in this country while so many other people don't. having to do without is something most americans rarely, if ever, seem to have to deal with.

I should've quoted the original post. What was it, say 4 years ago, that nearly the WHOLE FREAKIN' WORLD loved us, and felt so bad for us when the towers were hit. then mr. monkey face said he was gonna take out hussein and iraq, on made up and exaggerated intelligence, and the world has gotten good and sick of us. can you blame them for not stepping up to offer help when we've loudly told the rest of the world to fuck off for the last few years?

[george]

The Governor of New Orleans and the State Department have publicly stated that they have received offers of assistance from both international organizations and "dozens" of individual nations (according to Brian Williams on Dateline this evening). Everyone should drop this "nobody is offering to help us" idea. It's simply untrue.

India refused international aid after the tsunami because they had the resources to handle their problems themselves. It's the same situation with us. Does anyone really expect to see Spanish soldiers patrolling in Mississippi? Or the Royal Navy ferrying people from New Orleans to Houston? Or the Russians giving us a few million? We don't need it and are better off without it. It's hard enough to coordinate the effort among agencies from the same country. Adding a bunch of groups from other nations would compound the problems more than relieving them.

[yoshomon]

'Nobody Can Say They Didn't See It Coming' - http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,372455,00.html

[despondent]

I too am sick of the blame game. I'm sick of the smugness expressed in the sentiment that if we throw enough resources behind a cause that we can accomplish anything that our selfish ego desires (i.e. build and sustain a major city on sedimentary earth) and when the way of natural things does what the way of natural things does and destroys the way that WE (as humans) wanted it to be, that it comes down to that we didn't do enough. Who do we think we are, God? I really dislike the mentality of Western civilization.

[markalot]

I too am sick of the blame game. I'm sick of the smugness expressed in the sentiment that if we throw enough resources behind a cause that we can accomplish anything that our selfish ego desires (i.e. build and sustain a major city on sedimentary earth) and when the way of natural things does what the way of natural things does and destroys the way that WE (as humans) wanted it to be, that it comes down to that we didn't do enough. Who do we think we are, God? I really dislike the mentality of Western civilization.

A civilization, west or east, has no mentality. It just exists at the will of whoever is a member of it. I didn't see any smugness about N.O. All I saw was people saying it would be screwed if a hurricane hit and society thinking they would get lucky. N.O. existed because someone in 1700 started it and it just kept growing and people liked it and didn't want to move.

People follow.

[despondent]

A civilization, west or east, has no mentality. It just exists at the will of whoever is a member of it. I didn't see any smugness about N.O. All I saw was people saying it would be screwed if a hurricane hit and society thinking they would get lucky. N.O. existed because someone in 1700 started it and it just kept growing and people liked it and didn't want to move.

People follow.
I'm talking about the smugness expressed in terms of "if we would have only spent x amount of dollars on beefing up flood control measures and wetland protection". We think we are such masters of the planet whether in beneficial terms such as great engineering feats or equally in detrimental terms such as global warming. We haven't even mastered ourselves, so how can we master the planet? Suppose we find out tomorrow that our own Sun is going supernova...I'm quite sure that pundits will be playing the blame game that we could have and should have done something to prevent it. Life happens...just live it. See my sig.

[markalot]

I'm talking about the smugness expressed in terms of "if we would have only spent x amount of dollars on beefing up flood control measures and wetland protection". We think we are such masters of the planet whether in beneficial terms such as great engineering feats or equally in detrimental terms such as global warming. We haven't even mastered ourselves, so how can we master the planet?

Well, it's human nature to try the impossible and sometimes succeed. It's very messy, but here we are. If you look at the attitude in the 50's and 60's compare to today you should be delighted. Better living through sience!

We are children, all of us. We experiment just like a small child does and only when something bad happens do we really learn. I've watched kids try things I know are impossible, but they don't. You can't stop them from trying, they have to learn.

My son tried to make a pyramid of marbles. Of course whenever he tried to put a marble on top of the bottom row they would just roll out. Impossible! He was on a throw rug so he bunched up the rug so the marbles wouldn't roll away and somehow got a second row on top of the first and was working on the third when his sister scooted the rug and everything went tumbling down. Her name starts with a K too :) Of course he blamed her, not his crazy attempt at a marble pyramid, but he hasn't tried to build one again. It was part of the learning process and, fortunatley, no lives were lost during his experiment.

How can one possibly know what's impossible without trying it?

[lawdog]

Wow. 34th annual celebration too. God must be really backed up.

Hey, he's got a lot of smiting to do, you know? I can't imagine what his to-do list must look like.

[back2vinyl]

About 1.5 more inches. ;)

My take on all of this is that the time scale of our human lives make it somewhat difficult to gauge global warming. Geologic time and human time just don't jive. But having said that, scientists do have a fairly good bit of data to go on throught the use of ice cores, tree cores and sedimentary cores. The data supports that in fact the overall temperature is getting slightly warmer on average.

The bigger question is whether or not humans are involved in the increase and to what extent if they are. We do have very good evidence that global CO2 levels have increased dramatically in the last fifty years. The Keeling curve is one bit of data that proves this. Knowing that humans have become enormous producers of CO2 through automobile use and industrialization adds credence to the thesis that humans are invoved in the global warming. Because the greenhouse effect (which is a natural and necessary process to keep the earth warm enough for human habitation) relies on gases such as CO2, CH4 (Methane), and NO2 we have a pretty good idea that the added levels are locking in some of that heat.

So are these recent episodes of strong hurricane seasons evidence of global warming? I'm not so sure, it's just such a short time scale to know. We'll know alot better in about 50 years. However, knowing that hurricanes are basically fueled by warm water, might lend to theories that hurricanes are getting slightly more powerful on average.

My concern with all of this is that saying that these hurricanes are definitely caused by global warming does a diservice to all of us who do believe that human impacts upon the environment are very real, even within the global climate change debate. It's like saying that because the summers are hotter than you ever remember, you believe in global warming. Unfortunately our memories of weather in the past make for bad science and simply give people who fight the global climate change theories tooth and nail more ammunition.

Great post by the way.

Weather on a macro scale is fueled by the difference in temperatures between the polar regions and the tropics. So, if the poles are warming faster than the tropics (which I believe is the case), systems might actually get weaker. I am just speculating because I'm don't know where hurricanes fit in the scale of things between, say a thunderstorm (driven by local solar heating) and the jet stream (driven by global temperature differences).

I agree that the earth appears to be warming up. The problem, as you pointed out, is by the time one is relatively sure of the mechanism, it's been happening for hundreds of years, so we have to act on incomplete information.

[despondent]

Well, it's human nature to try the impossible and sometimes succeed. It's very messy, but here we are. If you look at the attitude in the 50's and 60's compare to today you should be delighted. Better living through sience!

We are children, all of us. We experiment just like a small child does and only when something bad happens do we really learn. I've watched kids try things I know are impossible, but they don't. You can't stop them from trying, they have to learn.

My son tried to make a pyramid of marbles. Of course whenever he tried to put a marble on top of the bottom row they would just roll out. Impossible! He was on a throw rug so he bunched up the rug so the marbles wouldn't roll away and somehow got a second row on top of the first and was working on the third when his sister scooted the rug and everything went tumbling down. Her name starts with a K too :) Of course he blamed her, not his crazy attempt at a marble pyramid, but he hasn't tried to build one again. It was part of the learning process and, fortunatley, no lives were lost during his experiment.

How can one possibly know what's impossible without trying it?
I hear what you are saying, and I agree with much of it. However, we tend to become to proud of what we do. Just because we CAN do some things doesn't necessarily mean we SHOULD. I have come to realize this about things in my own personal life and it also holds true on the community, national, and global level. Does our modern civilization really offer better living? While we may live longer and face less risk of disease, is the quality of our day to day living better than say 100 or 200 years ago or longer? Yeah we have automobiles and electricity and the such, but if you lived in an age or civilization that have never known such things, are you suffering compared to those that do have such things? Just an interjection of philosopy into the discussion at hand...we can argue point and counterpoint all day, but do those points and counterpoints really matter?

[markalot]

However, we tend to become to proud of what we do.

Ego, and we have big ones. Again, human nature. I prefer to embrace human nature and try to work with it rather than against it.

As far as technology, take a look at the electronic book. We tried it, nobody liked it because the paper book works so well. Technology did not improve it. Sometimes I think we look on older times through rose colored glasses. Things were certainly similar, but we weren't alive back then and don't have any concept of the hardships they had to go through. My grandfather died of hardening of the arteries before I was born. They amputated both legs before he finally died. The end of his life was miserable and little to no technology was involved to keep him alive.

Today we have people living to a much older age and suffering a lot less, but of course we still have stories of people hanging on and living un-human lives till the bitter end. But these people had a choice. They didn't have to accept treatment.

As far as other technologies ... to each his own I suppose. I could not imagine being land locked as in olden times, never traveling more then a few miles away from home, not being able to easily discover what's going on in the world.

And maybe that IS a problem. We know everything almost instantly and we let the world know what we think about it. Too much chatter ;)

[ozzy]

in this thread there is a discussion about other countries helping us
first of all, all the organizations we send to other nations in their times of need are right here on our soil and the U.S. Gov't will not allow any other nation;s army/troops on our soil, even our own army can't roam around the streets here
and i've read that int'l organizations are collecting
so ppl out there do care, but its hard to point fingers at them , when our own gov't wasn't there for those ppl

[akip]

I'm talking about the sources in the warming flap, not you, akip. Sorry if that was unclear. You know I love you.


i missed this post, and man, was i pissed.

okay, all's clear. i love you too, though god only knows why. ;) :D :p

good to see the conversation continues without me.



btw, it's the easiest thing in the world to donate to the red cross through itunes. a couple of clicks is all it takes.

[ahart2001]

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/

Just a little interesting info on hurricanes. Kinda looks like hurricane intensity and frequency pick-up every 50-60 years, according to the data.

[twentyshots]

The conversation seems to be about trends with hurricanes OR global warming when it could be the effect of both.