So Who Is Right in Debate on Role of Global Warming?

NY Times ^ | 9/24/05 | Andrew C. Revkin

[Crackingham]

With an American city swamped by one great hurricane and then by another one less than a month later, with federal forecasters ticking down the annual list of 21 names for tropical storms at a record clip, it is no surprise that debate has flared over the role of global warming.

After all, one of the clearest signals that human actions have pushed recent warming beyond natural cycles is a measured buildup of heat in the world's oceans, and oceanic heat is the fuel that powers hurricanes.

The issue has been addressed from starkly different vantage points. For example, former Vice President Al Gore has conducted a continuing speaking tour on the need to cut heat-trapping pollution, while Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, has accused environmental campaigners of fomenting unfounded fears about human-driven warming.

So what is the state of the science behind the arguments over the message sent by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina?

What is clear is that an array of leading experts on oceans and climate agree that the tropical oceans have warmed in a way that is hard to attribute to anything other than overall warming of the climate from the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions.

It is also clear to many climate scientists and oceanographers that warmer oceans will eventually increase the intensity and rainfall of hurricanes, but not necessarily their frequency.

In fact, two recent studies of hurricanes, by different scientists using different methods, claimed to detect a big rise in hurricane intensity around the world over the last several decades.

But the authors of both analyses acknowledged that more data would be needed to confirm a link to human-caused warming.

[Jeff Chandler]

What is clear is that an array of leading experts on oceans and climate agree that the tropical oceans have warmed in a way that is hard to attribute to anything other than overall warming of the climate from the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions.

"An array of leading experts"?

[doug from upland]

Wacky Richard C. Hoagland was on with George Noory tonight. All the planets, including Pluto, are getting warmer. Even he had to admit that SUVs were not causing that.

[King Prout]

After all, one of the clearest signals that human actions have pushed recent warming beyond natural cycles is a measured buildup of heat in the world's oceans, and oceanic heat is the fuel that powers hurricanes.

one of these days, I'd really appreciate it if one of these Kyotoid Greenies would explain the mechanism by which human activity has strongly contributed to the last 30 year significant global warming trend...

...on MARS.

[King Prout]

YOU BEAT ME TO IT

I only have JPL temperature data on Mars' warming trend. do you have links to data on the other bodies?

[doug from upland]

I don't have the links, but maybe Noory or Hoagland put it on their websites.

[calrighty]

"What is clear is that an array of leading experts "

Uh, no I don't think so..........they want to keep their
phony junk science do nothing jobs.

[calrighty]

Junk science 101.

[A message]

Just yesterday there was an article here from the BBC about Mars warming up.

1 + 1 still equals 2 in my reality.

Do any of these chicken littles know the hurricane frequency and strength of those storms in AD 1000, how about 6th century BC.

Huh? I don't think so.

NYT -- your paper is a disgrace... A DISGRACE to journalism.

[ProfSci]

So are we saying that Greenland might become green again like it was before the industrial revolution?

[Smokin' Joe]

"An array of leading experts"?

Sure. The guys who write the studies funded by the people who want to hear how eeeeevil humanity has caused the woes of our planet...

It is the last gasp of our species' egomania, just the natural devolution from thinking the Earth was the center of the Universe, then the center of the Solar System, and now, in the ineffectual rant against the forces of nature, that somehow we can not only DO something, but that we are the cause of any problem.

To admit that we are at the mercy of nature, and yes, of God Himself, is a leap of faith they can or will not make, for it would put their egocentricities, and indeed, the foundation of their being at peril.

It used to be that the penitents just wandered the countryside engaging in self flagellation, now they feel compelled to share the experience.

[John Lenin]

Cyclical pattern

The new data shows a cyclical pattern of hurricane activity that repeats every few decades.

The 1850s to mid-1860s were quiet, followed by an intense period from the late 1860s to 1900, with five seasons of 10 or more hurricanes. The year 1886 was the busiest season on record in the US, with seven hurricanes hitting the coast. And after a lull, the storms raged again in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

"It does confirm there are cycles of activity, rather than long-term trends towards more or stronger storms," says Landsea. That database also reveals that states such as Georgia that were largely spared during the 20th century remain at risk

[A message]

Huh?

I flew over Greenland on the way back from Europe last year.

I had a nice window seat and marvelled at the depth of the snow pack that reached nearly to the tops of the highest peaks I viewed.

Seems to me that if there appears to be evidence that Mars is warming, and Earth is warming and other planets are warming, then the cause is .... maybe the Sun.

I dont exactly know :/
But that was the intention of my post, in a most dramatic fashion.

[Binghamton_native]

"...measured buildup of heat in the world's oceans, and oceanic heat is the fuel that powers hurricanes."

Michael Crighton pointed out in his recent speech to the Commowealth Club of San Francisco that the number of tropical cyclones has decreased in oceans other than the Atlantic.

Hmmm. I guess the author of this piece simply forget to mention this.

[ElderEdda]

After all, one of the clearest signals that human actions have pushed recent warming beyond natural cycles is a measured buildup of heat in the world's oceans, and oceanic heat is the fuel that powers hurricanes.

Says WHO?? This is based on what? Could it be the numerous oceanic volcanos and hydrothermal vents heating up the oceans?

This is what is troublesome about the enviro-industrial-complex -- they conjur up "facts" to support their agenda which is not really saving the earth, but filling their coffers with plenty of dough. (Michael Crichton's book, State of Fear, tells a great tale of this)

There are legit concerns like pollution, overfishing, etc and all the focus on Global Warming assumptions doesn't really help us solve the real problems we face.

And, I don't doubt that we're in the midst of climate change, perhaps another Ice Age, but why not plan how to survive in an Ice Age rather than stop it? That's too forward thinking perhaps.

[ByDesign]

I'd say it's 90% junk science being sold to prop up a system of grants and public money supporting hack scientists without any original thoughts or motivation.

The other 10% indicates we're too puny to influence the globe on the scale they claim. We barely understand weather, and what causes it and influences it, so their claims of knowing for sure are hollow and without merit.

While I agree with anything that would help curb smog and air pollution is good (having lived in LA), the green fantatics (read babbling idiots) have pushed ther agenda so far to the extreme, in the name of furthering their grant money and socialists seeking to undermine Capitolism, that any rational discussion of the subject is impossible, and will have to wait until they retire, die off or find other things to meddle with, and a new generation of rational, clear thinking scientists can examine the issue.

I believe George Carlin (of all people) had a routine about plastic recycling, where he made the comment that thinking our waste will "destroy the earth!" is one of the most arrogant positions to take - the globe, in it's infinite majesty and granduer, regards us as fleas, and to think that we can "destroy" it is preposterous. We may soil our nest, but the planet will survive long after we're gone.

It's hysterical that people are blaming the hurricanes on Bush's failure to sign the Kyoto Treaty (gee, Clinton did'nt either...why is that?), even a VERY liberal woman in my office admitted that's just utterly ridiculous, that a few years of the changes the KT would force could even remotely turn back the centuries if not eons of global climate change. In fact, and it surprised me, she started talking about something she'd read that quoted a scientist who said that there's a lot of evidence that these hurricanes are ALSO a cycle, and that it's happened before.

It always catches me off-guard when a liberal talks sense. But, good for her.

Personally, I think the "global warming" crowd has it's roots in the "duck and cover" generation - they were raised amidst fear-mongering about nuclear war and more importantly - "nuclear winter". Remember that? How a nucear war would force the planet into an endless ice age? (Or whatever fairy tale was passed along). This influenced them, and made them prone to dealing with issues by fear-mongering, as I beleive we learn our problem solving skills unconciously at the feet of adults.

These people, who tend to be the neediest, most demanding, and most childish of the Boomer generation, are simply attempting to exorcise the ghosts of their childhood. "Nuclear Winter" morphed into "global cooling" (Remember when they used to say evil industry was forcing an ice age to occur?) into "global warming" (because they they grew up, became scientists, and the data did'nt support their ice age fantasy).

That's just my theory, from years of watching liberals in their own environment. They all seem to be caught in negative feedback loops with some real or imagined childhood issue, and because they have'nt matured emotionally, cannot escape the downward spiral into madness.

I heard Medea Benjamin on Laura Ingrahm today. "Daddy" issues a mile long - she's still pissed Daddy punished (or left) her, and we all get to pay for it.

[Congressman Billybob]

As usual, a reporter for the NY Times is deliberately using partial truths to tell a lie. The fly in the ointment of this bigoted article is this: Hurricane frequencies run in 20-30 year cycles. The present level of hurricanes is no more than should be expected from looking at the pattern of the last 100 years.

There is an obvious and stupid error in the opening paragraph. The number of hurricanes which have developed in the Atlantic in this season HAS NO NECESSARY RELATIONSHIP to the number which have struck the US. The Times has often and loudly complained about "ethnocentrism" on the part of the US. That we focus too much on what happens to us, and too little on what is happening elsewhere in the world.

Okay, let's apply the Times' lesson to what the Times published in this article. In EVERY hurricane season, a majority of the Atlantic hurricanes which develop do NOT make landfall in the US. It is luck of the draw, no more no less, as to which ones will hit the US. For instance, in terms of US hits, this season is half of the 2004 season. Big whoop. That's a meaningless statistic. But the writer and editor of this piece either don't know that (and are statistical dummies), or they do know that and are counting on their readers to be too dumb to catch the error.

Did I miss anything?

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "The Hart-Miller Future of New Orleans"

[A message]

Thanks for link, I always enjoy learning.

NOAA researchers are not the only ones re-analysing hurricanes. Kwok Fai Cheung of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in Honolulu, has started using newly developed hurricane-forecasting models to simulate storms that have hit the coast of New England in the past 500 years.

And I still ask the question, that say between AD 33 and AD 50, how many category 5 hurricanes struck the east and southern coast of this continent. Was it 0, 1, or 12.

No one alive at the moment can provide concrete data on that.

Assumptions can be made and models extrapolated, but the indisputable fact is we do not know how many hurricanes and of what strength came ashore during that particular time period, or any other time period before we began maintaining exact data.

To say human caused global warming is now the cause of the current hurricanes hitting us the past few years, in a frequency and strength that has never before occurred is balderdash.

[John Valentine]

Did I miss anything?

Yes, I'm afraid you falied to mention the part about how it's all Bush's fault.

[pepsionice]

History 101 must first be taken.

1900: Galveston, 6k to 12k deaths. Before global warming.

1919: Atlantic Gulf. 1k to 2k deaths. Before global warming.

1926: The Greath Miami Hurricane. 300 to 400 deaths. Before global warming.

1928: The San Felipe Hurricane. 1800 to 2000 deaths. Before global warming.

1935: The Labor Day Hurricane. 408 deaths. Before global warming.

1938: The New England Hurricane. 600 deaths. Before global warming.

1944: The Great Atlantic Hurricane. 400 deaths. Before global warming.

1954: Hurricanes Carol and Edna. 100 deaths. Before global warming.

1954: Hurriance Hazel. 95 deaths. Before global warming.

1955: Hurriances Carol and Diane. 500 to 1000 deaths. Before global warming.

1957: Hurricane Audry. 390 deaths. Before global warming.

1960: Hurriance Donna. 114 deaths. Before global warming.

1969: Hurriance Camille. 256 deaths. Before global warming.

Assuming that we pinpoint global warming back to Nixon...then the environmentalists have problems explaining the various hurricanes before 1969. I doubt if any of those guys ever took a class in history or understand the implications of history.