According to newly published research, climate change is responsible for two thirds of the recent increase in hurricanes.
A new analysis of Atlantic hurricanes says their numbers have doubled over the last century.
The authors say that man-made climate change, which has increased the temperature of the sea surface, is the major factor behind the increase in numbers.
"Approximately 60%, and possibly even 70% of what we are seeing in the last decade can be attributed directly to greenhouse warming," he said.
Some_Crazy_Scientistsaid:
"Approximately 60%, and possibly even 70% of what we are seeing in the last decade can be attributed directly to greenhouse warming," he said.
punk said:
I heard another view-point on this subject this morning on the radio:
Technology is getting better at detecting weather; there aren't more hurricanes, we're just getting better at finding them.
Ummmm, hurricanes aren't exactly subtle. They tend to announce themselves rather dramatically. I'm not sure where all these alleged stealth hurricanes that only stay at sea in places where there are no ships and never make landfall anywhere are supposed to be hanging out, exactly.
I don't suppose this tidbit came from some high school dropout right wing hatcase who doesn't believe in global warming, did it?
punk said:
I heard another view-point on this subject this morning on the radio:
Technology is getting better at detecting weather; there aren't more hurricanes, we're just getting better at finding them.
Ummmm, hurricanes aren't exactly subtle. They tend to announce themselves rather dramatically. I'm not sure where all these alleged stealth hurricanes that only stay at sea in places where there are no ships and never make landfall anywhere are supposed to be hanging out, exactly.
I don't suppose this tidbit came from some high school dropout right wing hatcase who doesn't believe in global warming, did it?
Well it may be in reference to how the storms are classified. The line between tropical storm and full on hurricane may have been fuzzier. Or if a hurricane formed in the ocean and never hit land it may have been reported only as a vicious storm at sea. Who knows.
Not lending any validity to that though, just idle thoughts.
Heathen_Dave said:
Well it may be in reference to how the storms are classified. The line between tropical storm and full on hurricane may have been fuzzier.
There's also the fact that storms gain intensity in warmer waters. Increases in global temperatures certainly may have pushed storms that would have been only tropical storms in the climates of past decades into full fledged hurricanes.
punk said:
I heard another view-point on this subject this morning on the radio:
Technology is getting better at detecting weather; there aren't more hurricanes, we're just getting better at finding them.
Ummmm, hurricanes aren't exactly subtle. They tend to announce themselves rather dramatically. I'm not sure where all these alleged stealth hurricanes that only stay at sea in places where there are no ships and never make landfall anywhere are supposed to be hanging out, exactly.
I don't suppose this tidbit came from some high school dropout right wing hatcase who doesn't believe in global warming, did it?
Well it may be in reference to how the storms are classified. The line between tropical storm and full on hurricane may have been fuzzier. Or if a hurricane formed in the ocean and never hit land it may have been reported only as a vicious storm at sea. Who knows.
Not lending any validity to that though, just idle thoughts.
Saffir-Simpson has only been around since the 60's. Hurricanes that hit land however are rather easy to track, as we know, pretty well, what at Cat 2 is going to do, versus a Cat 4 versus a TD. There are historical records.
That said, the whole argument that "We have better records..." is, itself the antithesis of the scientific method. If there are no, or inadequate records, no valid conclusions may be drawn. It's not as though the fact that we have better records means that there are more or less storms now, just that we have a more accurate count. If there were 20 storms or one storm in, say, 1866 that were undetected, we have no way of knowing. Saying otherwise is a basic layman's mistake hence my skepticism of the assertions origins.
punk said:
I heard another view-point on this subject this morning on the radio:
Technology is getting better at detecting weather; there aren't more hurricanes, we're just getting better at finding them.
Ummmm, hurricanes aren't exactly subtle. They tend to announce themselves rather dramatically. I'm not sure where all these alleged stealth hurricanes that only stay at sea in places where there are no ships and never make landfall anywhere are supposed to be hanging out, exactly.
I don't suppose this tidbit came from some high school dropout right wing hatcase who doesn't believe in global warming, did it?
Actually, it came from a regular morning radio show where a couple people read off some of the latest news; I don't remember who the counter-point was made by.
This AP version of the story is much less sensational and states that tropical storms have doubled not hurricanes over the past century(here)
It also has the National Hurricane center folks disputing the findings as well as pointing out that we just don't know how many storms/hurricanes developed in the late 1800's-early 1900's.
We find that long-period variations in tropical cyclone and hurricane frequency over the past century in the North Atlantic Ocean have occurred as three relatively stable regimes separated by sharp transitions.
Each regime has seen 50% more cyclones and hurricanes than the previous regime and is associated with a distinct range of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.
Overall, there appears to have been a substantial 100-year trend leading to related increases of over 0.78C in SST and over 100% in tropical cyclone and hurricane numbers.
It is concluded that the overall trend in SSTs, and tropical cyclone and hurricane numbers is substantially influenced by greenhouse warming. Superimposed on the evolving tropical cyclone and hurricane climatology is a completely independent oscillation manifested in the proportions of tropical cyclones that become major and minor hurricanes. This characteristic has no
distinguishable net trend and appears to be associated with concomitant variations in the proportion of equatorial and higher latitude hurricane developments, perhaps arising from internal oscillations of the climate system. The period of enhanced major hurricane activity during 1945%u20131964 is consistent with a peak period in major hurricane proportions.
I separated out the key sentences, so they were easy to read.
... many previous assessments of daily summer temperature change underestimated heatwaves in Western Europe by about 30%.
The heatwave experienced by Europe in 2003 had major adverse socio-economic and environmental effects.
Thousands of elderly people died. Forests were devastated by fire, water ecosystems were strained, and the total mass of Alpine glaciers shrank by 10%.
In one year.
The British Government's senior science advisor was roundly criticised in 2003 for suggesting that global warming might be a greater threat than terrorism. Looks like things are worse than he knew.
It would be nice if the BBC had more peer reviews in the articles when they report on scientific studies. The media has a tendency of jumping on studies before they have been throughly tested. It is my understanding that while global warming is happening but it is nearly impossible to attribute that to specific events like hurricanes. Since the increase has only happened for twenty years I would like to know how they ruled out natural fluctuations.
StarBelliedBoy said:
Oh no, it's something that doesn't really directly affect me and that I can't do anything about anyway!
Wait, you think an increase in tropical storm frequency and intensity doesn't directly affect someone living in Philadelphia? Does Henri or Isabel ring a bell? Maybe Floyd or Dennis? Anything?
StarBelliedBoy said:
Oh no, it's something that doesn't really directly affect me and that I can't do anything about anyway!
Wait, you think an increase in tropical storm frequency and intensity doesn't directly affect someone living in Philadelphia? Does Henri or Isabel ring a bell? Maybe Floyd or Dennis? Anything?
StarBelliedBoy said:
Oh no, it's something that doesn't really directly affect me and that I can't do anything about anyway!
Wait, you think an increase in tropical storm frequency and intensity doesn't directly affect someone living in Philadelphia? Does Henri or Isabel ring a bell? Maybe Floyd or Dennis? Anything?
Nope.
Then how exactly are you drawn to anything titled "Current Events"?
hadees said:
It would be nice if the BBC had more peer reviews in the articles when they report on scientific studies. The media has a tendency of jumping on studies before they have been throughly tested. It is my understanding that while global warming is happening but it is nearly impossible to attribute that to specific events like hurricanes. Since the increase has only happened for twenty years I would like to know how they ruled out natural fluctuations.
I linked to the original paper. Go have a look at it.
The second article is not available without login. The abstract is, and it includes the following which may help you with the statistics:
We analyzed a new data set of 54 high-quality homogenized daily maximum temperature series from western Europe (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom) to define more accurately the change in extreme warm Daily Summer Maximum Temperature (DSMT). Results from the daily temperature homogeneity analysis suggest that many instrumental measurements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were warm-biased. Correcting for these biases, over the period 1880 to 2005 the length of summer heat waves over western Europe has doubled and the frequency of hot days has almost tripled. The DSMT Probability Density Function (PDF) shows significant changes in the mean (+1.6 ± 0.4°C) and variance (+6 ± 2%). These conclusions help further the evidence that western Europe's climate has become more extreme than previously thought and that the hypothesized increase in variance of future summer temperature has indeed been a reality over the last 126 years.
SockPuppet
I'm lost
July 2006
JUL 30, 2007 05:12 PM