Boy, are we having some funky weather here in England. At the moment it’s quite chilly here, while in other parts of the country there are flooding problems. Meanwhile, in the European continent people have died from the heat this summer. Crazy stuff.
Global warming doubles number of hurricanes, study finds – antara.co.id: Global warming’s effect on wind patterns and sea temperatures have nearly doubled the number of hurricanes a year in the Atlantic Ocean over the past century, says a new study by US scientists.
The scientists see a strong correlation between the spike in storm activity and rising sea surface temperatures, which “feed” hurricanes.
Over the last 100 years, these temperatures have risen by about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0.7 degrees Celsius, the study asserts.
The temperatures rose approximately 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0.4 degrees Celsius, in a period leading up to 1930, which was marked by some of the deadliest storms to hit the Atlantic Coast of the United States.
Some people would make us believe that global climate change is a myth. They think that the sun is getting hotter. So’s my butt!
One website, http://www.demanddebate.com/, states that the word is still out on climate change. This is even after hundreds of PEER REVIEWED papers have stated that humans are responsible for this climate change.
I cannot remember the name of the person, but a spokesperson for this organization was on “The Young Turks” radio show about a month or so ago. This ‘spokesperson’ could not explain why there were no peer reviewed data stating his view, nor could he explain why there was no real information on their website.
A week or so later, it was found that the spokesperson was, in fact, a former lobbyist for Big Tobacco. When people like this infest the real discussion on things like climate change, there is a bigger problem.
So where were the killer hurricanes last year?
2,
Look at the pacific, NOt the atlantic…
Look at the storms being created by el-nino(?)
the ocean currents around the upper part of Mexico are being heated, even in Sat photos you can see it.
Those storms are being carried to the west and Into Japan china, and Asia…
Actually, this study merely confirms the intuitively obvious. Warm water is the fuel of hurricanes. Raise the surface temperature of the world’s water and you get more severe and more frequent hurricanes.
If anyone wants to read a really good book on climatology, written for non-technical people, though some basic science literacy will help, try this one. I’m about 2/3 of the way through it now. It’s teaching me a lot about climate science, including what is known and what is not, and what is known qualitatively but not yet quantitatively. I’d recommend it highly.
http://www.bestwebbuys.com/9780691050348
#2 – Frank IBC,
So where were the killer hurricanes last year?
(snarky answer)Climate is what we expect; weather is what we get.(/snarky answer)
More seriously though, the above statement, though snarky, is correct. Climate dictates expected weather for a given area over a given time. Weather is highly variable within those expectations. If you look at the total hurricanes over the last 10 years, they will likely be higher in number and in devastation than in the prior 10 years or the 10 years before that. We’ve even gotten some really bizarre cases, like the hurricane that hit Brazil. They don’t get hurricanes. That was the first in recorded history.
[Snarky – Rudely sarcastic or disrespectful; snide. – ed.]
Frank is about the perfect spokesman for patriotic, parochial Americans. If the politicos in charge say the sun shines out Bush’s butt – Frank buys sunglasses.
If a hurricane doesn’t roar into his backyard; well, then, there can’t be any climate change anywhere on Earth.
Google it yourself, dude. Or visit some climate science sites instead of Fox Snooze.
This isn’t an obvious conclusion. A warmer climate may also increase wind shear, and change steering current so storms would be less likely to strike land.
#6 – moss,
The sun does shine out Bush’s butt. Just follow the words to their logical conclusion … a nuclear flaming asshole. Oh, sorry, nook-yoo-lar.
Do Something About It
You don’t have to change your car to a hybrid, and eliminate 99% of meat from your diet like I did.
If everyone did a tiny 5%, it would help. One day a year, use public transit. Buy domestic built / assembled & sold more often.
Eliminating the white background on this blog to a less wattage outputting color would help.
On my multi-monitor setup in windows, and all my servers, the default color is no longer White but a soft teal. Easy on the eyes too.
Mr. Dvorak that’s RGB 236,233,216 or #ECE9D8
Help Save Wattage – Eliminate White Backgrounds
#1
I believe that the climate is changing but humans causing it the damn myth. The earth’s climate is not static and never has been. We are still coming out the last Mini Ice Age. So natural it is getting warm. Were I’m sitting right now used to be under over a mile of Ice. But man did not cause it to melt. If you know anything about the planet’s history you would know that this place use to be a fire ball be for it cooled. And then that other planet hit us and formed the moon. Of course the earth had a few Ice ages which means it cooled and then heated up and then cooled again. For some reason I don’t believe Exxon had anything to do with me not being under a mile of Ice. Global warming is the new religion. The weather is changing so instead of man has angered God is the reason. Man has hurt the planet. But is comes done to the same thing. MAN IS BAD.
Of course Man can be stupid. Like lets burn our food source to make fuel for a net loss but lets not Drill for Oil in Alaska or off shore.
I believe that humans are exacerbating the natural cycle, to the negative of our own species.
Earth on the other hand would probably do better without us, so to say we’re harming the planet is a bit of a stretch: We’re only harming ourselves.
Of course, just as many believe the odd weather in Europe is God cleansing the planet of non-believers, and many of that group belong to the same political party as myself.
Surf’s up.
#9, that thing about eliminating white backgrounds only makes sense if people are using Cathode ray tube displays. With an LCD display this makes absolutely no difference, the backlight is always on at the brightness level you have set. Once LED backlit LCD displays come around there should be even greater power savings.
My recommendation is for you to change you CRT display for an LCD. Smaller footprint and less power consumption.
El Niño has not been proven to be caused by global warming, ECA.
#6 –
Couldn’t you have just said, “no, there were no killer hurricanes in 2006”?
12,
Dammit, you beat me to it. However, an RGB LED-driven LCD (not a white LED-driven screen unless it was addressable) would gain from a black background.
#15, Feels good to have the backing of an expert!
#4, Scott, The author has good credentials, but I disagree with him on a few topics. As I’ve said in the past, the Sun is a variable star, and I’ve the documents (and colleagues) to back that up.
This darned global warming debate will be endless, as long as there is all the money to be made, the political aspects and the FUD involved.
Just wait about 30 years when [as some new theories predict] the new Maunder minimum hits, and the next “Little Ice Age” begins.
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011207iceage.html
http://www.spaceweather.com/
I enjoy the debate about global warming. Its “pure science” in that we stumble along the path of discovery with competing theories, only the future allowing the explanation in hindsight.
So what we believe “beforehand” is a real insight into how you think and what you base your ideas on.
Studies “all over the place” allowing anyone to quote authorities.
What with recent study showing solar flare activity should be cooling the earth, yes, it looks like human based carbon pollution may be in fact causing global warming. We could easily “not care” except that sea level rise will basically wipe out our established infrasturcture and population distributions. It will all be reestablished, but what misery during the transition.
Right now, it would take a miracle to reach consensus even to reduce the rathe of gloabal warming. I think I’ll get to see the first “disaster” from warming==how about a Level 5Hurricane hitting New York City? We might even get to net reductions in atmospheric carbon, but the trend will still sink us.
I have studies to prove this.
#14 – Frank IBC,
The point to be made, however, is that you are looking at far too few data points. For an example of the problems of insufficient sample size, check this.
http://tinyurl.com/39ohkv
#10 – Jetfire & #11 – James Hill,
If you’re going to make claims about climate change, I really would strongly suggest the same book I recommended above. It’s fairly small, much smaller than a normal text book, and written for a general audience. Once you understand the science behind climatology, you will have a far better understanding of what is and what is not known. Same link from post 4.
http://www.bestwebbuys.com/9780691050348
Of course, for people that want a true full size science text, I’m sure there are dozens from which to choose. I am only advocating this one as something that we non-climate scientists are capable of reading without a lot of pre-requisites.
17—Little Ice Age huh? Good to see you have studies to back up your claim. And I did forget to thank Scott for his weather quote at Post #5, makes me want to find that book.
When you can believe whatever you want to believe, what do you believe?
17—Hey Bubba===you lied!!!!! ((Sorry, just getting your attention.))
I read your links. The first one at the last sentence says the opposite of what you posted–human caused global warming is afoot? What in that article says different?
Your second link had nothing on Global Warming. How deep was I supposed to dig?
As posted, I see this as fun exercise in epistemology. We all should pick any subject of interest and really take a few days to research it until bored with it. Then observe how our own conclusions/hypotheticals are reached. I would hope, in most cases, we would learn to be less conclusionary and more “fact” oriented?
When fact oriented, should a preliminary idea change “just because” the available facts have changed? When is the last time you changed your mind? I’ve changed my mind 3 times, just reading this thread. What a Great Monday!!!
#17 – BubbaRay,
If we have 30 years, that’ll be enough for me to live to my life expectancy. I’m just not sure we have so long.
The real problem with the wait and see attitude is that while we wait and do nothing, it gets hotter. I’ve seen a bunch of papers already suggesting that we are bucking the Milankovitch cycles and maintained constant temperature when we were supposed to cool and are now warming very fast.
Certainly the sun is a variable star. That is a given. The point is though that it is not causing the climate change we are experiencing. I’ve only found a small number (4) papers suggesting that the sun is having an impact on our temperature. 3 of these agreed that it could account for between 5 and 15% of global warming, the fourth said between 5 and 30%. If we take the high end of the mainstream on the subject as 15%, then at least 85% of climate change is still human caused. (BTW, all of the papers I found were more recent than 2001, they were between 2003 and 2005.)
If it turns out that the thousands of peer reviewed papers are correct and the few you have found that state that the current variation is not human caused are incorrect, we will be in very big trouble. Are you sure you want to bet on your long shot?
BTW, This seems to be the peer reviewed version of the article you posted, which sounds from the abstract like it is very different than the older non-peer-reviewed version on the nasa website. I haven’t purchased the article, personally, and don’t intend to. I think the author is claiming about equal effects from humans and the sun, from the sound of it to me.
http://tinyurl.com/26s84m
I didn’t notice anything on space weather indicating that they believe solar variability to be responsible for current climate change.
I regret to inform you that it’s perfectly naive — and quite silly frankly — to believe that centuries of constant CO2 production on a global scale, coupled with wholesale destruction of forests would have a zero affect on the global climate.
Perfectly and purposely naive, for if you were to admit that climate change is real and is caused by human actions you know that you would be morally obligated take action to protect your family and if you disbelieve climate change or that is caused by humans, then you must admit that in your heart-of-hearts you simply don’t want to be inconvenienced, or risk whatever money you may have
Where are the true Americans that want to lead the world by example, not by decree?
I like global warming. Here in South Carolina the weather has been wonderful. It is like a storybook Southern summer. Highs in the low 90s with an occasional cool three day stretch. Rain every so often. Much better than the Crazy heat we had when I first moved here 10 years ago.
Funny how it’s ok to teach mankind is a large factor in climate change but it’s not ok to teach Intelligent Design. Sounds like religious favoritism to me.
It’s fun to watch the GW crowd get more and more frantic as former proponents are jumping ship and counter information is gradually making through the filters, cooling the hype. Their window to take over is closing.
1.) we take action to reduce carbon emissions, but global warming proves not to be caused by humans — the hurricanes are bad, but at least we’re less dependent on oil, a more self-sufficient nation, and the air is cleaner, we can say to our children “we loved you so much we were willing to suffer to try to make yours a better world.”
2.) we don’t take action to reduce carbon emission, and global warming proves be true and caused by human actions — hurricanes are bad, we’re still forced to be involved in middle-east politics and wars, air in our cities even more choked with smog, we have to say to our children “we weren’t willing to suffer to make yours a better world, oops our bad, now put on your respirator before you go outside”
3.) we take action, but global warming turns out to be a short-term phenomenon, not caused by human actions — we’re less dependent on oil, a more self-sufficient nation, and the air is cleaner, we can say to our children “we loved you so much we were willing to suffer to make yours a better world.”
3.) we take no action, but global warming turns to be a short-term phenomenon, not caused by human action — we’re still forced to be involved in middle-east politics and wars, air in our cities even more choked with smog, children can’t play outside have to say to our children “we weren’t willing to suffer to make yours a cleaner world, now put on your respirator before you go outside”
TAKE YOUR PICK
#24 what you call “intelligent design” is the Christian bible’s version of how the universe was created.
If you want to spend your life making everything you see fit into the descriptions provided by men who did not even know atoms existed, then by all means suit yourself.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will use the brains God gave us to explore the beautiful world God made for us and tease out it’s wondrous mysteries and and do our best to take care of it.
And how big is YOUR sample size, MA Scott? Just how many years of detailed data on hurricanes do we have, anyway?
#23 – Todd Anderson, III & #25 – grog,
Incredibly well said on both your parts. grog, we’ll let you slide for having two option number 3’s.
I’d love to pick the first 3. I’d settle for option 1. Options 2 and 4 are horrifically unconscionable but far more likely than either 1 or 3.
#24 – iGlobalDamner,
Please please please just read the book so that at least you know what you’re talking about. It may not change your opinion. But, at least you’ll know what climate science is so that you can stop just making the same ridiculous statement again and again and again and again and again and again that climate science alone among sciences has a religious component in your completely and utterly uninformed opinion.
Why not reject any other science? Why not quantum mechanics? Maybe the semi-conductors in your computer really don’t work and you should just turn it off.
Seriously though, do you really think that climate scientists have so much money and such a strong propaganda machine that they can just steamroll over the Oil, Gas, and Coal industries around the world? How about the auto manufacturers?
All of these people attempted to squash the information about climate change. And, they put their money where their mouth was. They did their best. And yet, the scientists got their message out. How was that supposed to happen? Especially if the data was not there. Think.
Al Gore couldn’t even keep the presidency when he was duly elected, but managed to out propagandize the entire republican machine??!!? How’d he do that? With one documentary?
28–Climate Science is not science like quantum mechanics is. No one really disputes the “science” part, its the predictions of the future where people disagree?
The earth could cool or heat depending on what variables you assign to which model. Thats what makes it fun. You can be an idiot like IGW, open minded like Bubba, or convinced by the majority of the evidence, like the IPCC and other rational people.
A study for any position desired.