Global Warning/Climate Change

[Robert]

In terms of climate, the Gulf of Mexico is currently running about 3 degrees hotter than normal which suggests this summer and fall may be an especially bad season for hurricanes and tornadoes in the Southeast.

From what I have learned, it is the temperature difference between the equator and the poles that drives hurricanes. Higher pole temperatures may actually reduce hurricane severity since most the raise in world temperature is in the poles.

[Ken]

In terms of climate, the Gulf of Mexico is currently running about 3 degrees hotter than normal which suggests this summer and fall may be an especially bad season for hurricanes and tornadoes in the Southeast.

From what I have learned, it is the temperature difference between the equator and the poles that drives hurricanes. Higher pole temperatures may actually reduce hurricane severity since most the raise in world temperature is in the poles.

I used to teach hurricane science and oceanography.

There are two separate issues: (1) the conditions that create hurricanes in the tropical Atlantic, and (2) the conditions that fuel hurricanes once they are created.

The science is REALLY complicated. But you generally need light winds in the tropical Atlantic off the coast of Africa or closer Gulf or Caribbean for hurricanes to actually form. If the prevailing winds and sea breezes are too strong then the cyclone will get blown apart before it can actually form. The El Nino/La Nina cycle tends to affect this. However, once a tropical cyclone is fully formed, the fuel that turns it from just a tropical depression to full blown Cat 4 or Cat 5 hurricane is the surface water temperature.

Global warming has simultaneously made the world a windier place and a warmer place. Average wind-speeds and wave heights in the oceans have been rising as well as tropical surface water temperatures. So it is really difficult to predict the effects on monster hurricanes. Bottom line? In a warming world the best guess seems to be that we may not see MORE hurricanes, and may even see less if the conditions are less conducive to their formation. But those that do form up and approach the coast are likely to be more powerful. And we are seeing a new phenomenon which is ultra-rapid escalation of hurricane strength as they approach land across a warming Gulf. That is what happened with the recent Hurricane Michael that struck the Florida Panhandle in 2018. It came out of almost nowhere in the Caribbean and rapidly escalated to Cat 5 just before making landfall in the Florida Panhandle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Michael It was Cat 2 when it clipped Cuba and rose to Cat 5 in about 10 hours as it approached the Gulf Coast.

BTW, Hurricanes are storms that form in the Atlantic, Typhoons are storms that form in the western Pacific, and Cyclones are those that form in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific. They are all considered Tropical Cyclones. Interestingly, hurricanes cannot cross the equator because of the coriolis effect. They spin counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere and will spin down to nothing at the equator. So the safest places to be are beaches and islands directly on the equator or close to it. Here are all the tropical cyclone tracks over the past 50 years. They always go east to west due to the earth's rotation in the tropics and then follow the trade winds north or south as they approach the continents, depending on the hemisphere. And they never approach the equator.

[barnhart]

So we humans have managed to engineer the largest populations of people in direct path of the most frequent and most intense storms.

[Josh]

So we humans have managed to engineer the largest populations of people in direct path of the most frequent and most intense storms.

Of course. It makes no sense for New Orleans to be where it is, but there it is.

Where I live in Ohio is basically impervious to natural disasters. But we get made fun of a lot by coastal elites for being in “flyover country”.

[ohio jones]

Where I live in Ohio is basically impervious to natural disasters.

No floods, tornadoes, blizzards, or droughts? Must be nice.

[Ken]

So we humans have managed to engineer the largest populations of people in direct path of the most frequent and most intense storms.

Of course. It makes no sense for New Orleans to be where it is, but there it is.

Where I live in Ohio is basically impervious to natural disasters. But we get made fun of a lot by coastal elites for being in “flyover country”.

Historically it makes perfect sense for New Orleans to be where it is. About 1/2 of the country (and more than 1/2 of the productive farmland) is drained by the Mississippi River watershed. New Orleans is the gateway port to the Mississippi where deep draft ocean-going ships meet the shallow-draft barges bringing cargo down the Mississippi. These days with railroads, highways, and air transport it is perhaps less important than it was in the 19th Century. But an enormous amount of American agricultural products are shipped out via New Orleans.

Unfortunately New Orleans is also gradually subsiding at an alarming rate and the hundreds of square miles of wetlands that used to protect it from storm surges are being washed away due to sea level rise and all the canal building that oil companies and the Corps of Engineers have been doing for the past century. So it's pretty much doomed now. But if New Orleans washes away we will still need to create some new port at the mouth of the Mississippi at perhaps a more secure location.

[barnhart]

Unfortunately New Orleans is also gradually subsiding at an alarming rate and the hundreds of square miles of wetlands that used to protect it from storm surges are being washed away due to sea level rise and all the canal building that oil companies and the Corps of Engineers have been doing for the past century. So it's pretty much doomed now. But if New Orleans washes away we will still need to create some new port at the mouth of the Mississippi at perhaps a more secure location.

Flood control is also a part of that equation. The delta was formed from silt through flooding. Once the river is kept to its channel, there is no silt replentishment. I suppose the entire delta will eventually be go away.

[Ken]

Unfortunately New Orleans is also gradually subsiding at an alarming rate and the hundreds of square miles of wetlands that used to protect it from storm surges are being washed away due to sea level rise and all the canal building that oil companies and the Corps of Engineers have been doing for the past century. So it's pretty much doomed now. But if New Orleans washes away we will still need to create some new port at the mouth of the Mississippi at perhaps a more secure location.

Flood control is also a part of that equation. The delta was formed from silt through flooding. Once the river is kept to its channel, there is no silt replentishment. I suppose the entire delta will eventually be go away.

Yes that. Also, all the flood control measures and levies upstream have actually made flooding worse downstream as well. We had a certain arrogance that we could tame nature in the 19th and 20th centuries. We are learning in the 21st that some of it was wishful thinking.

[Josh]

I wish we would work with the earth instead of against it.

[Robert]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... the-arctic

Low temperatures in the northern polar regions led to an unusual stable polar vortex, and the presence of ozone-destroying chemicals such as chlorine and bromine in the atmosphere – from human activities – caused the hole to form.

New sources of ozone-depleting chemicals were not a factor in the hole observed in the Arctic, said Peuch. “However, this is a reminder that one should not take the Montreal Protocol measures for granted, and that observations from the ground and from satellites are pivotal to avoid a situation where the chlorine and bromine levels in the stratosphere could increase again.”

This is just poor reporting. The hole formed from colder than usual temperature. Trying to attach it to pollution then saying it is not because of pollution at the very end of the article makes the author seem really suspect. This is what happens when you try to force everything into climate change.