Hurricane scientists divided on global warming issue
Greetings from Monterey, California, where the 27th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society's conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology is taking place. It's been a feast of information for the 500-plus hurricane buffs here this week! I'm having trouble choosing between attending any of four simultaneous scientific talks offered--or catching up with old friends outside the sessions. Fortunately, the weather has been rather dreary, so I feel no guilt about being a troglodyte and hiding in dark rooms watching slides of awesome hurricanes of years gone by. There have been some fantastic talks, and I've learned an enormous amount of new information that I will share with you in blogs over the coming weeks.
There have been a number of sharp debates on the hurricane/global warming issue, and this controversy has really been difficult for the hurricane science community. There were some rather uncomfortable arguments between some of the scientists at talks on Monday, but a more civilized debate last night during a panel discussion featuring four of the experts who've published papers on the subject. The discussion lasted nearly three hours, and could have lasted much longer, as only about 20 of the 60 questions posed by the audience of over 300 were answered. I'll have a detailed look at what was said in a blog next week. Contrary to what one might expect from the headline of yesterday's CNN story from Reuters (Experts: Global warming behind 2005 hurricanes), hurricane experts at this conference are very divided about this issue. There is a lot of very confusing and conflicting information to consider, and the science is a long way from being settled.
My next blog from Monterey will be Friday morning, when I plan to discuss a radical hurricane modification proposal presented at the meeting. Is it feasible to tame the next Katrina with modern technology?
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Yes they failed but they should have learned from there mistakes. They where underfunded to start off with. I bleave it could be saved.
The area near the east coast is getting bigger.
While you're paying record gas prices at the pump, the world's largest oil company is making a huge profit. Exxon-Mobil reported first quarter earnings Thursday. The company says profits went up seven percent from last year. That translates to an income of $8.4 billion for the first quarter.
It's fun to complain about Exxon, but it would be just as easy to buy a few shares to hedge your gas tank and worry about bigger issues.
Zap
Here is a link to that story.
I was thinking the same thing until I checked this:
Look at all of that easterly shear!
From the time I was introduced to video gaming at age 5, I've been rather compulsive about it. For ten years now [roughly 2/3 of my life], I've averaged 4-5 hours of play a day, and for the last four years, more like 8+. I realized tonight that despite that (and this is not blowing my own horn), I am still smarter than 98% of the American population, scored a 2030 on my SAT - while sick, and without studying, as a sophmore, and can generally find any piece of information I need. I've spent probably an average of 15-20 active minutes a day on learning for the last four years, and before that I may have paid attention in school, but I didn't do a whole lot else. So tonight, I realized something - what if those 15-20 minutes were 8 hours? I took a long walk to solidify the thought in my mind, set up some mental anchors, returned home, snapped every game disk I own and wiped half my hard drive. I hold no illusions - I was addicted, as much as any alchoholic or druggie might be. Tonight, that ended, and will not return. So in essence, Scott, I realized that the uncurable disease I've had for a decade is curable, and cured it.
That's the algorithm being stupid and missing the eye completely. Shear is almost zero.
P.S. I just realized that I have no idea where to find a shear map for that part of the world, and am feeling a little stupid once again.
The aformentioned problem was solved with rather little effort but took activism to get it done. Now, the human race is faced with yet another situation which possibly could have results even more dire than killing the Ozone.
We as a people have raised the concentration of C02 in the atmosphere over many decades and as far back as the 1940s-1950s identified the releasing of c02 to have effects on the weather and climate in general. The fact that we were lucky enough to identify the problem as soon as we did is a miracle in itself.
Now, if we raised the c02 concentration in the atsmosphere which has tilted the original balance that was in place, than the resulting lowering of the c02 concentration in the atmosphere would help to stabalize that original balance.
The fact that we as a people were able to identify a problem such as the Coral Floral Carbons which tore a hole much bigger than we had originally thought in the Ozone, and were able to reverse the problem almost entirely shows that we as humans can now alter something as expansive as our atmosphere which affects every action we make.
I was not aware that this supposed problem had been resolved. I would like to where you are getting that information from?
I am also not convinced that humans are responsible for the ozone "hole". I would expect that if CFC's were the sole cause of ozone thinning, that the thinning would take place over a larger area, especially over the countries who were producing CFC's, and not in an area that is uninhabited.
The so called hole was discovered in the 70's. That does not mean it did not exist before that time, and I think it is possible that it has existed for centuries.
Just because a researcher discovered an inverse relationship between O3 and chlorine oxide concentrations in the antarctic stratosphere, doesn't establish a cause-and-effect relationship. A more likely explanation is darkness.
:) That way you can reward yourself for breaking your addiction.
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