PING!
Posted on 10/02/2006 9:59:20 AM PDT by GMMAC
Where's the stormy weather?
National Post
Monday, October 2, 2006
Page: A15
Section: Issues & Ideas
Byline: Lorne Gunter
Hurricane Isaac is currently churning away in the mid-Atlantic. It became a hurricane Saturday morning, but will probably lose that designation sometime today before its western edge passes over Newfoundland tomorrow.
Unless you live in the eastern half of Newfoundland, though, it's unlikely you were even aware of Isaac. It is the fifth hurricane of the season. Yet like the other four, Isaac has come nowhere near the North American mainland. Only two of the five have even crossed land as 'canes.
Tropical storm Ernesto was briefly upgraded to Category 1 status on the morning of Aug. 27. It barely clipped the western tip of Hispaniola. Yet even that brush with the deforested Haitian half of the island sapped enough oomph from Ernesto that it was downgraded to a tropical storm.
It was a hurricane for less than 12 hours. The other storm to cross land was Florence, which reached hurricane strength on Sept. 10, only after it had turned away from the eastern seaboard. It breezed over Bermuda with winds of 130 km/h -- barely hurricane strength -- kicking up "dangerous surf," but little else. And although it would later push a family home into the sea on Newfoundland's south coast, by then, it too had reverted from hurricane to mere storm.
That's been it in 2006.
This season, which was expected to be nearly as bad as last year's brutal one, has seen hurricane numbers below the norm of the past decade and no greater than the average of the past 40 years.
Admittedly, the hurricane season has two months left to run. A killer 'cane or two could still be in the works. But that seems unlikely now since the peak of the season typically occurs in August and September and there have been very few years with active Octobers that didn't also have above-average hurricane activity during August and September.
Last year at this time there had been 17 named storms, of which nine had become full-blown hurricanes. So far this year there have been just nine storms, of which Isaac is just the fifth hurricane.
It seems unlikely that 2006 will come anywhere near to last year's records: 27 named storms and 14 hurricanes, of which seven became major ones (Category 3 or higher).
El Nino has been given as the reason this season has not been as busy as predicted. Before the season began, forecasters expected it to be nearly as bad as last year. But an unexpected El Nino formed in the Pacific, which increased the west-to-east winds blowing out off North America into the Atlantic. Higher winds not only push hurricanes out to sea, away from land, they also blow the tops off of the storms, which keeps them from drawing power and moisture from the ocean and prevents them from gathering strength and momentum.
But this is only a partial explanation for the lower number of hurricanes. It explains why there have been so few mega-storms and why the ones there have been were offshore. It doesn't adequately explain why there have been so few named storms or so few of the weather phenomenon from which storms calve -- tropical depressions.
Weather conditions in and around Africa have contributed to the lack of tropical depressions -- and thus the lack of hurricanes. But so has another phenomenon that has gone almost unreported -- a rapid loss of heat in the upper ocean.
According to the global warming alarmists, this should not have happened. None of the major climate change models predicted it. But between 2003 and 2005, the upper ocean layers -- particularly the hurricane spawning Atlantic -- lost 20% of their heat. And warm water is the essential fuel of hurricanes.
It appears perhaps that the sun builds up energy in the oceans over a decade or two; energy that is then released spasmodically in one or more seasons of powerful storms.
It may well be that recent strong hurricanes have nothing to do with alleged man-made global warming. The warming that is causing them is solar -- i.e., natural. The panic that our use of SUVs and air conditioners is fanning so-called "supercanes," may be unwarranted.
For an understanding of the sun versus global warming debate on hurricanes, think of the ocean as a pot of water on your stove, the burner below it as the sun and the air around it as the atmosphere.
Scientist all agree that warmer water makes bigger and badder hurricanes. So which is more likely to heat your ocean and drive hurricane formation, turning on the burner (the sun) or turning up your thermostat to raise the atmospheric temperature around your pot (global warming)?
If solar activity is behind recent climate changes, rather than carbon dioxide emission -- as many reputable scientists believe -- then running around capping our CO2 production, banning this and taxing that, will cripple our economy without doing a thing to prevent a warming Earth.
PING!
May I?
BUSH'S FAULT!
Don't you know? It's going to get cooler and calmer first. That's the first sign of global warming and disaster. /sarc
Pretty good for such a dumb guy, huh?
pings
I wish they'd make up my mind.
Storm control, cynically manipulating gas prices, he's everywhere - LOL !!!
But why would he make me oversleep this morning? I voted for him for God's sake!
It would be erroneous to evaluate the issue of global warming solely on the basis of hurricane frequency. Hurricanes are primarily meteorological phenomena, and their occurrence and existence is determined by a multitude of factors. The primary factor that is related to global warming is sea surface temperature, but this is also influenced by other factors, especially oceanic circulation in both the Pacific and Atlantic basins.
Hurricanes attract a lot of attention, but evaluating global warming based on one or two hurricane seasons won't be very indicative. When looking at a variable that is meteorologically determined, you have to evaluate long-term trends by taking a long-term view.
Oh please...I wish you people would get it through your thick skulls that it's NOT President Bush who has control over hurricanes, earthquakes, gas prices, and skirt lengths...
...it's Karl Rove, that Magnificent Bastard. 8^)
Thanks for the ping.
Isn't the primary suppressing factor this year be the weak El Nino? The climate models must not yet model the triggering mechanisms for El Nino or they would have predicted them. My second point is that the distribution of water vapor particularly in the upper troposphere is the major projected global warming feedback. Modeling of tropical convection including tropical storms will be essential to determining the extent of warming above the 1C warming anticipated from man-made CO2.
That's been mentioned in what I read for suppressing late season hurricanes, but the main reason for the early season suppression was a high shear environment. The storms were getting ripped apart before circulation could get established.
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