2017 Hurricane Season

[HockeyIlliterate]

Originally Posted by Leeman4Gilmour

This is the first hurricane to hit Texas since 1964.

Uh, no.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Firebot

In the old days people would say God is angry when a weather disaster occurs since they didn't know any better. Nowadays its latte sipping hipster crying climate change on Facebook at the sign of extreme weather while behind their iPhone because it justifies a viewpoint.

Back in 1883, people were more likely to blaming god, than use a fairly recent terminology. These major weather events have happened since the dawn of the planet. Mankind does have an impact to the atmosphere, I'm not questioning that (sorry to burst your bubble).

But does every fricking event have to be linked to climate change? How is any different than preaching that God is angry? They are both empty of any research. Linking every single event to climate change cheapens the message, especially when the whole concept of climate change is very abstract and hard to quantify as it is.

A hurricane is nothing new. A hurricane hitting the US is nothing new. There are no more hurricanes today then there were a hundred years ago. A hurricane staying stationary on top of large population is a fluke and one that can happen once in a thousand years based on probability. That does not make it a climate change related event.

This is factually incorrect. I'm not sure what else to say, since you're arguing from a position not backed up by any facts.

[CASe333]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

Actually they happen less. That's not to say they're not worse though.

Reference?

Full disclosure I am not a climate scientist but was bothered by this statement so did my own (quick google) research. If any of this is wrong please correct me.

My understanding is that the frequency of hurricanes is hypothesized to decrease with global warming. Although I initially found this counter intuitive the hypothesis makes a lot of sense and is based on:

"Global warming could affect storm formation by decreasing the temperature difference between the poles and the equator. That temperature difference fuels the mid-latitude storms affect the Earth’s most populated regions."

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Fe...sing_cost5.php

However, historical data has not shown a decrease in hurricane storms (yet):
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-war...nd-hurricanes/

However there is already evidence that generally hurricanes strengthen significantly faster, are wetter and there are more frequent intense storms.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Fe...orms/page2.php

Anyways just had time to catch up with the thread and I would like to point out again that a decrease in hurricane storms is modeled to decrease so to say:

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

I'm not denying climate change. But facts are facts. There have been fewer hurricanes. That was just a response to someone who said there are going to be more because of climate change. I have no doubt changing conditions especially in oceans made Harvey way worse.

There. Ya feel better.

I think my point is that understanding hurricanes and how they relate to climate change is fairly convoluted. I think there is more than enough evidence that climate change is having an effect on the strength of storms. That said models certainly are not facts and this kind of black and white discussion isn't really helpful in my opinion.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Leeman4Gilmour

Are you talking specifically Houston or 3 different American cities? This is the first hurricane to hit Texas since 1964. Not arguing with your general point as warmer oceans means bigger hurricanes.....Just getting clarity.

Wiki says Harvey is the 11th Hurricane to make landfall in Texas since 1980. Not sure what my point is other than to say there have been quite a few since 1964.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...%80%93present)

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

This is factually incorrect. I'm not sure what else to say, since you're arguing from a position not backed up by any facts.

Hurricane formation in the Atlantic has cyclical behavior. The number of hurricanes is not unusually high compared to other periods of the past, even though CO2 emissions are magnitudes higher and monitoring capabilities have gotten much better.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_hurricane_season#Number_of_tropical_storm s_and_hurricanes_per_season

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Hurricane formation in the Atlantic has cyclical behavior. The number of hurricanes is not unusually high compared to other periods of the past, even though CO2 emissions are magnitudes higher and monitoring capabilities have gotten much better.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_hurricane_season#Number_of_tropical_storm s_and_hurricanes_per_season

Did you even look at that graph? If you can't see that the numbers are rising as you enter the 2000s and beyond I'm not sure what to say.

[Leeman4Gilmour]

Originally Posted by HockeyIlliterate

Uh, no.

Whoops...missed a key descriptor there..."category 4 hurricane".

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

This is factually incorrect. I'm not sure what else to say, since you're arguing from a position not backed up by any facts.

I linked a page from the NOAA Hurricane Research Division:.Those aren't facts?

It's quite explicitly explained why we are recording more hurricanes.

You have some here who took courses stating that hurricanes are actually decreasing but increasing in severity. Yet here you are claiming the total opposite, that hurricanes are increasing. So now we have conflicting info. Which is it? Let me answer that.

https://www.wunderground.com/education/webster.asp

A new policy statement regarding the unproven link between stronger hurricanes and climate change was adopted by the World Meteorological Organization in December 2006, in response to the recommendations of a meeting of 125 hurricane researchers that attended a meeting in Costa Rica. The summary statement is posted at the World Meteorological Organization web site, and the ten main points are presented below. There is also a detailed statement with references to the scientific literature available at the WMO web site.

1. Though there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date, no firm conclusion can be made on this point.

2. No individual tropical cyclone can be directly attributed to climate change.

3. The recent increase in societal impact from tropical cyclones has largely been caused by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions.

6. It is likely that some increase in tropical cyclone peak wind-speed and rainfall will occur if the climate continues to warm. Model studies and theory project a 3-5% increase in wind-speed per degree Celsius increase of tropical sea surface temperatures.

The actual statement can be found here.

https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/..._statement.pdf

Actual info from hurricane researchers, and statement (at a time period when hurricanes did seem to increase significantly). The main conclusion being that while should water temperature continue to rise it will undoubtedly create a higher frequency and severity of storms, there is no agreement that this is actually happening right now, and no conclusive evidence one way or another.

But yeah let link this particular storm to climate change. Let's claim that hurricanes are happening a lot more. This is why climate change gets such a bad rap, because every non-informed preacher is using it for everything. Hey it rained a lot yesterday, climate change! It was cold Monday, climate change!

I'm not a climate change denier, far from it. I call out those who continuously use it as a political agenda and attribute everything they can to it. Big difference. The reality is many of those preaching climate change on forums don't understand it themselves and just preach it vapidly. Everything and anything could be attributed to climate change if you use it with a lack of understanding. People did it with God after all.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Did you even look at that graph? If you can't see that the numbers are rising as you enter the 2000s and beyond I'm not sure what to say.

And if you can't see how many more hurricanes there were in the 1950s than the 2010s then I'm not sure what to say.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by accord1999

And if you can't see how many more hurricanes there were in the 1950s than the 2010s then I'm not sure what to say.

Well, you did pick the one decade in the last 150 years that's close, but the 2000s still had 74 and the 50s had 68. The 2010s aren't over yet, so I'm not sure why you're comparing a full decade with 3/4s of one... And every other decade beside the 50s isn't close.

[troutman]

One blog I read today showed that the problem in Houston was how rapidly they developed without thought of covering over wetlands. These wetlands in the past would normally capture some of the flood water.

https://qz.com/1064364/hurricane-har...d-destruction/

http://www.businessinsider.com/hurri...flooded-2017-8

The Bayou City is "flat as a pancake."

Developers have failed to follow the federal wetlands mandate.

[La Flames Fan]

I can't wait for the day that Climate Change isn't politicized.

It's real.

It's happening.

Don't be frightened...your world under renewables won't change.

Exxon knew it decades ago.

It's going to take a catastrophic event to get it into the brains of some knuckleheads who just want to watch the world burn.

You're on the wrong side of history.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Well, you did pick the one decade in the last 150 years that's close, but the 2000s still had 74 and the 50s had 68. The 2010s aren't over yet, so I'm not sure why you're comparing a full decade with 3/4s of one... And every other decade beside the 50s isn't close.

So why was the local peak of hurricane formation in the 1950s, a period of time when global CO2 emissions was less than 10 GT (or less than what China emits today) normal while the modestly higher period of the 2000s are all because of climate change?

Or for that matter, the 10 year period between1878-1887 which also had a high number of hurricanes (even with far inferior monitoring capabilities) when CO2 emission were even smaller?

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by La Flames Fan

Don't be frightened...your world under renewables won't change.

Because it'll still be overwhelmingly powered by oil, coal, natural gas, hydro, nuclear and biomass.

[Tinordi]

Meanwhile BC is currently experiencing its largest forest fire ever. But I'm sure there were some fires back in the 1950s that show that this is unrelated to climate change.

[troutman]

Houston Freeway Shark is a hoax:


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...houston-or-an/

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Meanwhile BC is currently experiencing its largest forest fire ever. But I'm sure there were some fires back in the 1950s that show that this is unrelated to climate change.

http://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/ha/nfdb

The most recent situation report has ~3 million hectares burned in 2017.

http://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/report

[ResAlien]

Sounds like the honourable televangelist Joel Osteen has finally succumbed to public pressure and shaming by opening his 16,000 seat megachurch to help those affected by the flooding. How he feels about climate change was not reported.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Meanwhile BC is currently experiencing its largest forest fire ever. But I'm sure there were some fires back in the 1950s that show that this is unrelated to climate change.

You're just as bad as people who link everything to vaccines

[Raekwon]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

You're just as bad as people who link everything to vaccines

Well I guess in a way vaccines cause climate change.