Posted on 09/26/2005 12:38:01 PM PDT by AFPhys
...Hurricanes are...bigger...meaner...more numerous than many people have seen...[not]global warming,experts warn.
...Mayfield,director,National Hurricane Center...period of heightened hurricane activity"...since'95...natural fluctuations...cycles...driven by the Atlantic Ocean itself...not enhanced substantially by global warming"...recent studies about global warming and hurricanes raise more questions than they answer...indicate global warming could increase hurricane wind speeds...5%---100 years from now.
...Union of Concerned scientist...[said]making them more intense...recent studies...carbon dioxide is raising ocean temperatures."...converting low-grade storms into powerful hurricanes..."
...not all hurricane experts...link...global warming and hurricanes...saying,past two seasons signal a return to normal.
"From 1970-95...weren't...many hurricanes,[except]nice,well-mannered,housebroken hurricanes that stayed out to sea and didn't make a mess,"Willoughby,hurricane researcher...
"This year...nature is averaging out its climatology,"...famed hurricane predictor,William Gray.
Katrina and Rita..."Bahama busters,"...explode after feeding on the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.Even Katrina's and Rita...has a precedent...1915...New Orleans and Houston...hit by Cat.4 storms six weeks apart.
"You can't blame that on global warming,"...By 1997,Gray's annual forecasts warned of "a new era" of hurricanes...driven by cycles of rising water temperature and salinity...technical name for the engine driving the hurricane cycles is the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation..."...has been repeating back to the Ice Age," Willoughby said."It's related to changes in the ocean currents that move heat northward. If it's fast, we get a lot of hurricanes."...AMO was cool--and the currents slower--from 1900-25,warm from 1926-69,cool from 1970-94,warm since 1995...to a generation of Americans with little experience with hurricanes,it seems like these monsters are coming out of nowhere.
"...just entering a busy time here,"...Lauer[NHC]meteorologist...Willoughby...open mind about the role of global warming but believes it won't be a factor for at least another 100 years..."The answer I give everybody, because it has all been so politicized, is I don't know," he said.
Gray was more direct. "There are all these medicine men out there who want to capitalize on general ignorance on this subject," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Sort of blows the global warming debate out of the water, so to speak......
bttt
Thanks for headsup. Great article!
There is no refutation in what you just posted
Gray's hypothesis involves Atlantic Ocean temps, only, not general ocean temps.
Global warming won't be an issue until the upcoming Ice Age is over.
< SLAP! > That was a knee-jerk response (mine) to the opening sentence:
"...Hurricanes are...bigger...meaner...more numerous than many people have seen...[not]global warming,experts warn."
I "ASS"umed what the rest of the article was about - in fact, the charts SUPPORT Gray's predictions.
I was going to bitch about your excerpts til I saw your apology. Hate to go to CNN but here goes my weather nose...
Number of hurricanes by Saffir-Simpson Category to strike the mainland U.S. each decade.
| Decade | Saffir-Simpson Category1 | All 1,2,3,4,5 |
Major 3,4,5 |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |||
| 1851-1860 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 19 | 6 |
| 1861-1870 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 1 |
| 1871-1880 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 7 |
| 1881-1890 | 8 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 22 | 5 |
| 1891-1900 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 21 | 8 |
| 1901-1910 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 4 |
| 1911-1920 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 21 | 7 |
| 1921-1930 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 13 | 5 |
| 1931-1940 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 19 | 8 |
| 1941-1950 | 8 | 6 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 24 | 10 |
| 1951-1960 | 8 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 17 | 8 |
| 1961-1970 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 6 |
| 1971-1980 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 4 |
| 1981-1990 | 9 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 15 | 5 |
| 1991-2000 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 14 | 5 |
| 2001-2004 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 3 |
| 1851-2004 | 109 | 72 | 71 | 18 | 3 | 273 | 92 |
| Average Per Decade | 7.1 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 17.7 | 6.0 |
1 Only the highest Saffir-Simpson Category to affect the U.S. has been used.
Note that the AVERAGE landfalls/decade is 17.7
Note that never, since 1950, have we even reached that average number of landfalls on the US. We seem likely to finally, after fifty years, reach AVERAGE this decade, but we're only half way there, so it's premature to make book on that.
By the way, I determined by looking at the actual individual reports for 2001-2004 that this table classifies the strikes by the strength of the hurricane AT LANDFALL, not the max strength the hurricane achieved. That's the only good way to do it I suppose, since before the 60s or so, there is no way to have any idea what a hurricane had been doing until it actually hit.
Just cherry pick a few events to back up a theory and claim it be proof. (e.g. Bad Weather due to Global Warming)
My turn now...
The number of Tornadoes is down almost 40% this year in the US. The weather must be getting calmer.
I can't stand it sometimes, but I know that many people are not going to go to look at the article, so I try to get as much in as possible.
The "300 word excerpt" I do at least attempts to make the information somewhat available for historical purposes, and it is usually pretty difficult to weed it down to that from 1500 words or so... I do the best I can, and it takes a long time, and figure that people can go to the actual article for at least a week or so ... but probably not after that.
Thanks for understanding - reluctantly ...
By the way (I'm pretty sure):
Landfall Katrina - Cat.4
Landfall Rita - Cat.2
Good one... I have to run now... carry on.
Problem with hurricanes is that building and populating continues to increase in the hurricane prone areas
We are all LUCKY the storm turned further east and diminished to 120 mph. But being from Louisiana also, those folks still got hammered - or worse as in Cameron, now obliterated. But at least those folks there, fewer in number, were able to evacuate more quickly than the Houston area, and there has been so far no loss of life directly in the storm...
I read another article earlier today that cited air-conditioning as a contributor to more apparent "destructiveness" of hurricanes. Seems that before AC was prevalent in homes, you just didn't have that many people moving and wanting to live in South Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, etc. Now that nearly anybody can buy an AC unit, those tropical temps and humidity are more bearable.
Rita was a cat 3 NOT a cat 2. NHC confirmed this.
This is not a "new" era in hurricans. It is a repeat of a cycle that comes every so many years. Get a life.
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