Posted on 09/29/2004 9:33:51 PM PDT by neverdem
Global warming is likely to produce a significant increase in the intensity and rainfall of hurricanes in coming decades, according to the most comprehensive computer analysis done so far.
By the 2080's, seas warmed by rising atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases could cause a typical hurricane to intensify about an extra half step on the five-step scale of destructive power, says the study, done on supercomputers at the Commerce Department's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J. And rainfall up to 60 miles from the core would be nearly 20 percent more intense.
Other computer modeling efforts have also predicted that hurricanes will grow stronger and wetter as a result of global warming. But this study is particularly significant, independent experts said, because it used half a dozen computer simulations of global climate, devised by separate groups at institutions around the world. The long-term trends it identifies are independent of the normal lulls and surges in hurricane activity that have been on display in recent decades.
The study was published online on Tuesday by The Journal of Climate and can be found at www.gfdl.noaa.gov/reference/bibliography/2004/tk0401.pdf.
The new study of hurricanes and warming "is by far and away the most comprehensive effort" to assess the question using powerful computer simulations, said Dr. Kerry A. Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has seen the paper but did not work on it. About the link between the warming of tropical oceans and storm intensity, he said, "This clinches the issue."
Dr. Emanuel and the study's authors cautioned that it was too soon to know whether hurricanes would form more or less frequently in a warmer world. Even as seas warm, for example, accelerating high-level winds can shred the towering cloud formations of a tropical storm.
But the authors said that even if the number of storms simply stayed the same, the increased intensity would substantially increase their potential for destruction.
Experts also said that rising sea levels caused by global warming would lead to more flooding from hurricanes - a point underlined at the United Nations this week by leaders of several small island nations, who pleaded for more attention to the potential for devastation from tidal surges.
The new study used four climate centers' mathematical approximations of the physics by which ocean heat fuels tropical storms.
With almost every combination of greenhouse-warmed oceans and atmosphere and formulas for storm dynamics, the results were the same: more powerful storms and more rainfall, said Robert Tuleya, one of the paper's two authors. He is a hurricane expert who recently retired after 31 years at the fluid dynamics laboratory and teaches at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. The other author was Dr. Thomas R. Knutson of the Princeton laboratory.
Altogether, the researchers spawned around 1,300 virtual hurricanes using a more powerful version of the same supercomputer simulations that generates Commerce Department forecasts of the tracks and behavior of real hurricanes.
Dr. James B. Elsner, a hurricane expert at Florida State University who was among the first to predict the recent surge in Atlantic storm activity, said the new study was a significant step in examining the impacts of a warmer future.
But like Dr. Emanuel, he also emphasized that the extraordinary complexity of the oceans and atmosphere made any scientific progress "baby steps toward a final answer."
Yep. We finally got some summer the last two weeks!
Well the Democrats now can blame even bad weather on Bush. 3 years agon I was in Florida and they were going througha serious drought. It seemed odd to me because it rained every day for about 15 minutes. One local I met said that they were praying for a hurricane of some sort to replentish the water table. I doubt this was what they had in mind.
It's not greenhouse gas these people are focusing on but Government greenback dollars.
This article is garbage. This hurricane season follows an exceptionally cool summer across most of the eastern United States. Furthermore, hurricanes and tornadoes are cyclonic storms and cyclonic storms ultimately derive their energy from temperature differences between the termperate & polar regions and the equatorial regions. The more global warming (such as it exists), the smaller these differences are, the less energy is available for tornadoes and hurricanes and the fewer and weaker are the hurricanes and tornadoes that do occur.
This, btw, is consistent with the historical record throughout the 20th Century. The climatic models that say otherwise, aren't.
Then, whether warming or cooling, wouldn't the intensity diminish as the two temperatures began to equilibrate?
Wasn't this summer pretty cold by historical standards? Why wouldn't that fairly abrupt change in atmospheric temperature be a more likely candidate for a more active hurricane season?
Just wondering....
Bullseye. I would have beaten you if my computer hadn't frozen just as I hit the POST button.
It's really the fault of Bush.
No wait a minute ... it hot air from the Kerry team!
This is soooo predictable. This summer was the coolest in more than 20 years. So the environmentalists claim it's cool because of global warming.
We have hot weather... it's global warming.
We have cool weather... it's global warming.
We have hurricanes... it's global warming.
We have droughts... it's global warming.
We have a heavy snowfall... it's global warming.
We have light snow... it's global warming.
I'm waiting for someone to blame Mt St Helens on global warming.
See below...
As Roy W. Spencer, the principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, points out, numerous hurricanes devastated America's Atlantic and Gulf coastlines from the 1930s through the 1950s. The National Hurricane Center, he notes, has "been warning for many years the U.S. coast has had a long run of relatively good luck" and that it was only a matter of time before that streak ran out.
and...
Spencer wisely observes that we tend to forget "that unusual weather is, well, usual."
Yet the punches leveled by Charley, Frances and Ivan have brought the doomsayers out of their caves, eager to blame these catastrophic events on global warming.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/9758530.htm?1c
As Stanley Goldenberg of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s hurricane-prediction office in Miami noted, “The hurricane activity that we are having right now is quite adequately explained by (normal) variability and Atlantic sea-surface temperatures.” William Gray of Colorado State University, who has long warned that a Florida with increased population and development would face some devastating blows, put it simply: “I think we should view this just as a natural statistical smoothing of the records.”
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=44703
"This isn't a global-warming sort of thing," said Hugh Willoughby, senior scientist at the International Hurricane Research Center of Florida International University. "It's a natural cycle."
and...
"The general consensus is it's unlikely," said Benjamin Preston, senior research fellow at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, which advocates reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants. "We can actually explain an active hurricane season using natural variability."
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/9739042.htm?1c
How ridiculous are the global warming advocates? Try this one...
Arctic Sea-Ice Thickness: A Harbinger of Global Warming?
http://www.co2science.org/journal/v7/v7n39c1.htm
I kind of like the conclusion of Kazakh scientist(?), Konstantin Borodinov...
I also find it offensive that modern science today has a new research direction – entertaining fantasy to please the exorbitant ambitions of people who are far away from genuine science. A real scientist works in oblivion of the general public, on meager funds, but values first of all his honour and conscience, and authenticity of the information received from the results of his research.
http://www.inform.kz/txt/showarticle.php?lang=eng&id=95153
We ought to call Global Warming the Globaloney Grant Grab.
LOL They just can't stop with the Global Warming mantra!
From the NOAA via NewsMax: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/9/28/130037.shtml
Frosty Blast of Reality for the 'Global Warming' Crowd
While searching a federal Web site for information on Hurricane Jeanne, we came across a news item sure make the "Earth in the Balance" gang break out into a cold sweat.
"NOAA REPORTS COOL SUMMER, SEVENTH COLDEST AUGUST ON RECORD ACROSS THE LOWER 48 STATES," the headline blared on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's site.
Only the Far West was "much above normal." The Northeast and Upper Great Plains states were "below normal," and most of flyover country, from Michigan to Texas, was "much below normal." The Southeast and Southwest were "near normal."
"NOAA scientists report that the average temperature for the contiguous United States for June-August (based on preliminary data) was 71.1 degrees F (21.7 degrees C), which was 1.0 degree F (0.6 degrees C) below the 1895-2003 mean, and the 16th coolest summer on record," the feds advised.
Dandy news for Al Gore, who won't have to feel so guilty next time he gets a speeding ticket in Oregon while making good use of those awful internal-combustion engines he proposed banning for other Americans.
I will - global warming is caused by solar activity not human activity.
The capacity for dims to obfuscate the obvious is infinite.
I patiently pointed this out to you on a previous thread on the subject, but you're flat out completely wrong regarding the above.
There are two types of cyclonic storms; baroclinic (cold-core) and barotropic (warm-core.) Tropical systems are barotropic. The two types of systems have a completely different structure and energy source.
Regular non-tropical frontal cyclones derive their energy from temperature differences. Barotropic (tropical) systems do not derive their energy from temperature differences at all, but simply derive energy from warm water.
Hence, if the earth's temperature WERE to increase, it would increase sea surface temperatures, and indeed, you WOULD have stronger tropical cyclones, regardless of whether the poles warmed as well. The issue is whether the earth's temperature is really increasing and if it is, what is causing it. The premise of the article itself is sound.
If there's one thing I can't stand it's the self-appointed expert that knows barely enough about the subject they're discussing to be REALLY hilariously wrong.
The observer changes the observed....
You just don't get it. As swilhelm73 pointed out, NOAA reported the seventh coldest August on record across the Lower 48 BECAUSE of global warming. The Far West was "much above normal" BECAUSE of global warming. Glaciers are receding BECAUSE of global warming. Glaciers are growing BECAUSE of global warming. It rained in New York City today BECAUSE of global warming. It will be sunny in New York City tomorrow BECAUSE of global warming.
Any unexplained weather phenomenon happens BECAUSE of global warming. You are not an enlightened liberal if you don't understand this.
Tomorrow's lesson: It's all Bush's fault!
More junk science from the newsitorial pages of the NYT.
You forgot that it's all George Bush's fault.
You have been warmed / warned - whatever.
LVM
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