Posted on 04/05/2008 7:25:04 AM PDT by devane617
Global warming is not the cause of increased hurricane activity, researchers said, but many more busy -- and costly -- seasons are ahead.
ORLANDO -- We're in a busy period of hurricane activity that will inflict unimaginable damage, but global warming is not the cause, leading researchers told the nation's foremost forecasters and other experts Friday.
Chris Landsea, a respected researcher and the National Hurricane Center's science officer, told those at the National Hurricane Conference that there is no conclusive evidence that global warming has significantly enhanced or otherwise affected the number or intensity of hurricanes.
''Any trend we see due to global warming has very little impact, has caused very tiny changes, and might actually be slightly reducing the activity we see in the Atlantic,'' Landsea told the group, which numbered 2,100 earlier in the week, although some left before the global warming session began.
But overall, hurricane seasons will remain relatively active and they will become increasingly costly, researchers said.
Insurance experts warned Friday that the nation soon will absorb a hurricane that causes more than $100 billion in damage, and Landsea has estimated that a Category 5 hurricane could produce at least $140 billion in damage to South Florida.
But that, he and others said, has virtually nothing to do with global warming.
`INACCURACIES'
Landsea noted that former Vice President Al Gore's award-winning An Inconvenient Truth, which has galvanized attention to global warming, is promoted by a book cover and movie poster that show a hurricane emerging from a smokestack -- and spinning in the wrong direction, at least for residents of the Northern Hemisphere.
''So you might conclude that the hurricane science depicted in Mr. Gore's book just might have some inaccuracies,'' Landsea said.
William Gray of Colorado State University, another leading hurricane researcher, called any link between global warming and hurricanes ``an absolutely phony thing.''
The issue has divided much of the hurricane research community, with one group of scientists reporting strong relationships between global warming and recent storm activity.
That contingent asserts that hurricanes have been forming twice as often as they did a century ago and are growing stronger, mostly because of global warming caused, at least partially, by humans.
''When you look at the numbers and the strong relationship to sea surface temperatures and the reality of global warming, you end up with a causal link that can't be denied,'' Greg Holland, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said last year.
FAULTY DATA?
Another group -- largely led by Landsea -- refutes those assertions, saying they are based on faulty data. Like Census takers who work only one side of the street, these critics say, Holland and his colleagues simply missed many storms of the past.
Many far-from-land storms escaped detection before hurricane hunter flights began in the 1940s and satellite observations began in the 1970s, this contingent says, so historical comparisons cannot be trusted.
''Our ability to monitor the Atlantic was much more limited than it is now,'' Thomas Knutson, a research meteorologist at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration laboratory in Princeton, N.J., told the group Friday.
The dispute has become so noteworthy and occasionally toxic that some are making fun of it.
Earlier this week, Jeff Masters, a former federal hurricane researcher who now serves as chief meteorologist of the Weather Underground, published a blog item that began:
``A stunning new breakthrough in hurricane research has conclusively settled the matter: global warming is making Atlantic hurricanes and tropical storms more frequent.''
He said the research was accepted for publication ''later this millennium in The Journal of Irreproducible Results.'' Masters' lengthy satire was published Tuesday -- April Fools' Day.
On Friday, Landsea said he was omitting from his presentation ``all the four-letter words for those with sensitive ears and eyes.''
It is important to note, however, that almost everyone involved in this debate agrees that the planet's seas and atmosphere have been warming.
WARMING TREND
''What we are seeing is consistent with what the global warming models are predicting,'' Knutson said.
In fact, a study published Friday concludes that climate models showing a warming trend of up to seven degrees during the next 100 years seem to be accurate. The research by University of Utah scientists appears in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Virtually all experts also agree that we are in the middle of an active hurricane period, even as more people flock to the coast.
The argument among hurricane researchers focuses narrowly on the effect, if any, global warming has had and will have on hurricane development and intensity.
''Global warming is real and hurricanes are a heat engine,'' Landsea said. ``The question is how much is global warming going to influence hurricanes?''
The answer, Landsea and other skeptics say, is not much. They attribute the upswing in hurricane activity during the past 13 years primarily to natural cycles that tend to ebb and flow over the decades.
Those cycles reach back long before a warming atmosphere became an issue, will continue in the future, and have left us in the middle of a natural upswing in activity, Landsea said.
''We're liable to see some very busy years in coming decades, not due to global warming but due to natural oscillations,'' he said. ``And the populations near the coast are still going to be a big issue.''
I thought NASA said the seas were cooling ?
Yes NASA did and cooler seas, like cooler temps, are also caused by global warming ;-)
This is irrefutably true. In 2005, Katrina and Rita made landfall. This was caused by global warming. In 2006 and 2007, no major hurricanes made landfall. This too was caused by global warming.
People just don't understand! If there are more or stronger hurricanes than average, this is due to global warming. If there are fewer or weaker hurricanes than average, this is also caused by global warming. The hypothesis of Anthropogenic Global Warming is thus determined to be proven beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Global temperatures 'to decrease'
I love the "experts" who say: "...we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend - and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years." Pretty safe forcasting that....if it doesn't happen, who'll remember the prediction. If it does happen, they're geniuses! Kinda like the blind squirrel and the acorn.
In this article, all the global warmers "blame" El Nina for the cooler temps. They say, if it weren't for El Nina their models would have been right and we would have seen warming the last 5 years.
Duh. I'm not even a scientist and I can imagine that El Nina might be the earth's RESPONSE to warming, a natural cycle that balances global temperatures...and always has.
The global warming models show no effect at hurricane latitudes. The effect is farther north, up in Alaska, where the past couple summers have been kind of missing.
“Virtually all experts also agree that we are in the middle of an active hurricane period, even as more people flock to the coast.”
And the ‘length’ of that period, is just about infinity, is it not?
When, in the known history of Earth has there not been any hurricanes?
Methinks Mr. Gore needs to revise his view of the kind of person who thinks the Earth is flat.
CYA...
3 Years ago after historic hurricane season.
Global Warming Mafia: Hurricanes are caused by global warming. We’re all doomed.
Mild hurricane seasons past 2 years.
Global Warming Mafia: Hurricanes have nothing to do with global warming. Global warming is still here.
Fools.
The first deals with land use and (earth) orbital variations that may well be the drivers of climate change. If the author is correct, we may want to be increasing the pumping of CO2 (and methane) into the atmosphere, as a way of keeping us from sliding into the next ice age.
The second talks about hurricane recordkeeping, using baseball recordkeeping as an analogy, and illustrates why people who make claims like "The most hurricanes than ever before in history" are almost certainly wrong.
There could be 3 feet of snow in Miami in July and the GW cultists would still think global warming was here.
b
And that was because many of the potential storms fizzled out over cooler water -- but that's because of global warming.
And volcanoes -- don't forget those -- we'll have more now, says the BBC, since the glaciers are melting and the sea floor is rising -- or something like that, but details don't matter when you've got global warming!
The second reader comment is a hoot:
Pretty impressive! The area that was under the ice cap has been rising by 25 meters per year, presumably for the last 118 years. So now there is a mountain there nearly 10,000 ft tall where before there was a flat plain? Remarkable!
Michael Ryan, gloucester Pt., Virginia, USA
That is exactly the way the census is conducted. The country is divided into blocks. Each block is an area enclosed by a border of roads or streets. The enclosed area may have dead ended roads entering the perimeter but none completely cutting off a smaller defined area. Such areas being by definition a different "block".
The enumerator then proceeds around each block in a clockwise direction until they return to the starting point. Houses on the "other side" of the street or road are, by definition, in a different block which may or may not be canvased by the same enumerator depending on assignment from their "crew leader".
For those of you who care how the Department of Commerce spends your money every ten years. It's all done with pencil and paper, no cell phone linked GPS units allowed for gathering data. They are too complicated to learn to use. By the way, nearly the entire operation is run by temps, most of which received three days training from instructors who are themselves temps who had just finished their three days of training. Neat organizational structure, no? Preference in hiring is given to handicapped, seniors, veterans, and minorities. You can't lose if you are an American Indian woman veteran with a bad leg who is on Social Security.
Regards,
GtG
It based on the same principle as the Thermos jug. It knows when to keep something cold and when it should be kept hot. Much too complicated to explain here, but it’s definitely a rule you can depend on. </sarcasm>
re: earth’s RESPONSE to warming, a natural cycle that balances global temperatures
Well, if Earth has a mechanism for maintaining balance then it has to have some way of doing it and El Nina could well be it. Whatever it is it’s been doing a pretty good job for a long time.
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