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Why the Wind Blows
As Hurricane Gustav putters out of steam over the Great Plains and Hurricane Hanna sets her sights on raking of the eastern seaboard, thoughts turn once again to the connection between fiercer hurricanes and global warming.
Although, despite what Alaska Gov . Sarah Palin thinks, the (scientific) jury is NOT still out on whether centuries of pumping carbon into the atmosphere is helping to drive climate change, scientific opinion on whether or not that change is driving worse hurricanes is much less unanimous.
While it seems intuitive that a natural phenomena whose engine is heat might become stronger if we're generating more heat, science isn't based on intuition, but on provable facts.
And up until now (and perhaps beyond), those provable facts as they relate to the connection between hurricanes and global warming have been debated.
New fuel for that debate was issued with the Thursday release of a scientific paper which analyzes satellite data on hurricane wind speeds and ocean temperatures over the past twenty years.
According to the scientists who wrote it, they see a correlation between higher ocean temperatures and a corresponding increase in the winds of the strongest storms.
If you were looking for evidence that the atmosphere is a complicated place and using science to figure it out can give you a mother of a headache, however, consider that the study found that weaker, more typical storms, were not getting any stronger, only the super storms, like Katrina.
More complications arise in the form of "wind shear," fast winds moving at different directions at different altitudes, which can shred a storm before it can begin to coalesce into the deadly turbine we see so frequently on The Weather Channel.
Wind shear also can be affected by climate change.
So, it seems, the variables are many and the complications more variable still.
Still, the study's authors conclude that the coming years will see more category 4 and 5 hurricanes, the most powerful, as outlined in this article in The New York Times.
Unlike previous studies, this one is not being attacked on the basis of its methodology, which Christopher Landsea, science and operations manager at the National Hurricane Center, praised.
Landsea (can you believe that is the name of a hurricane scientist!?) is a skeptic of the connection, but praised the study's method, basing his skepticism primarily on the fact that the period of time the ocean temperatures were studied coincided with a particularly active storm period.
I'm no scientist, but I must point out that an increase in storm activity level seems like no basis to dismiss a study that says there is going to be an increase in storm activity level. But I must be missing the nuances of the data or something.
Another skeptic, Thomas R. Knutson of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton, said the period of time studied is too short to be definitive.
He told the Times, “One is left with a very suggestive result and a very interesting result, but it’s not a definitive smoking gun for a greenhouse warming signal on hurricanes.”
While that may be true, I hope we can exercise the precautionary principle on this and nevertheless site this study as more evidence in favor of reversing global warming.
Because while science may want a "smoking gun" before it is willing to declare a conclusion, there are people in places like Florida and the gulf coast who have that gun pointed at them, and I suspect they would just as soon not wait until its smoking.
Although, despite what Alaska Gov . Sarah Palin thinks, the (scientific) jury is NOT still out on whether centuries of pumping carbon into the atmosphere is helping to drive climate change, scientific opinion on whether or not that change is driving worse hurricanes is much less unanimous.
While it seems intuitive that a natural phenomena whose engine is heat might become stronger if we're generating more heat, science isn't based on intuition, but on provable facts.
And up until now (and perhaps beyond), those provable facts as they relate to the connection between hurricanes and global warming have been debated.
New fuel for that debate was issued with the Thursday release of a scientific paper which analyzes satellite data on hurricane wind speeds and ocean temperatures over the past twenty years.
According to the scientists who wrote it, they see a correlation between higher ocean temperatures and a corresponding increase in the winds of the strongest storms.
If you were looking for evidence that the atmosphere is a complicated place and using science to figure it out can give you a mother of a headache, however, consider that the study found that weaker, more typical storms, were not getting any stronger, only the super storms, like Katrina.
More complications arise in the form of "wind shear," fast winds moving at different directions at different altitudes, which can shred a storm before it can begin to coalesce into the deadly turbine we see so frequently on The Weather Channel.
Wind shear also can be affected by climate change.
So, it seems, the variables are many and the complications more variable still.
Still, the study's authors conclude that the coming years will see more category 4 and 5 hurricanes, the most powerful, as outlined in this article in The New York Times.
Unlike previous studies, this one is not being attacked on the basis of its methodology, which Christopher Landsea, science and operations manager at the National Hurricane Center, praised.
Landsea (can you believe that is the name of a hurricane scientist!?) is a skeptic of the connection, but praised the study's method, basing his skepticism primarily on the fact that the period of time the ocean temperatures were studied coincided with a particularly active storm period.
I'm no scientist, but I must point out that an increase in storm activity level seems like no basis to dismiss a study that says there is going to be an increase in storm activity level. But I must be missing the nuances of the data or something.
Another skeptic, Thomas R. Knutson of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton, said the period of time studied is too short to be definitive.
He told the Times, “One is left with a very suggestive result and a very interesting result, but it’s not a definitive smoking gun for a greenhouse warming signal on hurricanes.”
While that may be true, I hope we can exercise the precautionary principle on this and nevertheless site this study as more evidence in favor of reversing global warming.
Because while science may want a "smoking gun" before it is willing to declare a conclusion, there are people in places like Florida and the gulf coast who have that gun pointed at them, and I suspect they would just as soon not wait until its smoking.
Labels: Gustav, Hanna, hurricanes, New York Times
posted by Evan Brandt at
10:53 AM
2 Comments:
I watched a show called "Tougher in Alaska" over the weekend. That show portrayed a town that was concerned that a nearby glacier was advancing, and would cut off a river that was important to that town's survival. That town relied on fishing on that river. Not all all glaciers are retreating.
Good article Evan. Here's a word that is often left out of the debate...SYSTEM.
Seas, weather, clouds, icecaps etc. are all part of a dynamic SYSTEM.
For every acre of lost ice-cover we are adding energy to the SYSTEM. With ice-cover in place solar energy is reflected away from the earth...with the relfective ice gone much of that energy is absorbed.
This sudden (relativly speaking) increase in energy is upsetting the SYSTEM.
Imagine you are pushing a swing gently...you push (put in energy) every minute or so. It swings and settles out unless you push again.
No imagine suddenly start pushing it more strongly and more often...the swing (SYSTEM) does not get to settle out. It will cease to move in the predicatable back and forth motion known as "swinging".
This is why "Climate Change" is such a better term than "Global Warming"...our SYSTEM is being upset...your climatic results may vary.
H
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