Posted on 02/24/2007 10:05:50 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
The increasing intensity of hurricanes hitting the U.S. is partly driven by global warming, and the ferocity of storms to come is likely to increase as surface temperatures of the ocean rise, says a noted scientist visiting UW-Madison.
"The effects of global warming do not only concern scientists," Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Kerry Emanuel told an audience at a public lecture Thursday. "I want to put this issue into a societal context."
Emanuel, a professor in the department of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at MIT, has published two books and over 100 scientific articles. One article published in the journal "Nature" in 2005, addressed the increasing destructiveness of hurricanes in recent years.
Weeks within its publication, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and the article gained Emanuel widespread attention. Time magazine named him one of the "100 Most Influential People" of 2006 for his findings on hurricane intensity.
"Hurricanes account for the bulk of natural catastrophe and loss economically in the U.S.," Emanuel said. "And, as with Hurricane Katrina, a shocking loss of life."
Emanuel said hurricane intensity has increased by almost 10 percent since the 1990s; over half of the hurricane damage in the U.S. comes from a mere eight powerful hurricanes. These higher hurricane intensities in the U.S. have resulted in more hurricane-related damage and a subsequent increase in recovery expenditures as well.
Emanuel looked at the natural and human-related factors that have affected change in the intensity, duration and frequency of hurricanes over the past several decades. He said a primary factor is greenhouse gases heating surface waters in the ocean. Hurricanes form by converting energy derived from evaporated ocean water, meaning that as greenhouse gases increase, sea temperatures rise and therefore so does the likelihood of hurricanes.
"Hurricanes depend for their existence on the greenhouse effect and global warming," said Emanuel. "There is no real controversy about that ... and it is impossible to believe that global warming is only due to natural causes, humans are having an effect on global climate."
However those effects are hard to discern since scientists are uncertain about the history and evolution of hurricanes, Emanuel said, due to past variations in measurements and absence of data. For this reason, he said, it is not particularly useful to look at the past for help in deciding future action when it comes to determining hurricane behavior.
"Unfortunately future projections are that global warming will just keep going up," Emanuel said. "If we are going to look at the long-term effects of that on hurricane risk we had better contend with climate change first."
Both community members and UW-Madison students came to hear Emanuel speak.
"He structured the lecture in a way that it would be meaningful to a broad range of disciplines," said Andrea Lang, a graduate student in the atmospheric and oceanic science department at UW-Madison who attended the lecture. "I think he brought up some really interesting points I never thought of before that I am interested in looking into for myself."
Emanuel's lecture, "Is Global Warming Affecting Hurricanes?" was part of the Roy F. Weston Distinguished Global Sustainability Lecture Series, named for the UW-Madison alumnus whose donation made it possible. The series aims to promote understanding of interactions between humans and natural global environment.
Cool, but what happened to all the hurricanes in 2006?
The article looks more like typing than real science.
Of course not! They concern ANYBODY that wants to get a grant or funding for whatever, or even ANYBODY currently on the dole with one.
Sorry, but it is quite possible if you are the slightest student of paleoclimatology.
This reminds me of the shout-down of skeptics of the Clovis First theory for the peopling of the Americas. Clovis First has now just about been completely discredited, but for years it was a major professional risk to even announce contradictory scientific evidence.
The evidence is in-WE ARE DOOMED!
Pure BS.
Global warming has always been in a societal context. It is peripheral to a scientific context.
It's always something. When I was a kid in the late 40's and 50's after WW2, the unusual weather was surely due to all those atom bomb tests. Then in the 60's and 70's, it was the return of the ice age, OMG! Now it's SUV's causing global warming. It's always something.
Great minds...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1790483/posts
Kinda like mould is peripheral to bread.
W knew!
Breadmold has been of great use in medicine. Global Warming is of great use to some agents of international politics as it attracts funding.
""Hurricanes depend for their existence on the greenhouse effect and global warming,""
Yeah, that's why all those 16th century Spanish galleons litter the Florida Straits.
If a "professor" said it, you can be assured it was only politically correct, and totally incorrect in actual science.
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
"Studying the past is time consuming and tedious.
It's so much easier to simply imagine what the future will be."
"You can make this stuff up."
Predicting the obvious isn't predicting, it's egotistical.
This guy should just shave his head.
says a noted scientist visiting UW-Madison.
Drive by media with no nads.
I guess that's why there were no hurricanes prior to the invention of the internal combustion engine. /sarcasm.
And this guy has the nerve to lecture global warming skeptics? He can't even string together a coherent thought.
How can these scientists be such idiots. Or are they just in it for the money?
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