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Global Warming Not Linked to Intensifying Hurricaines

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by pgabriel, Apr 11, 2008.

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  1. pgabriel

    pgabriel Educated Negro

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    maybe, maybe no: Hurricane expert reconsiders global warming's impact

    One of the most influential scientists behind the theory that global warming has intensified recent hurricane activity says he will reconsider his stand.

    The hurricane expert, Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this week unveiled a novel technique for predicting hurricane activity. The new work suggests that, even in a dramatically warming world, hurricane frequency and intensity may not substantially rise during the next two centuries.

    The research, appearing in the March issue of Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, is all the more remarkable coming from Emanuel, a highly visible leader in his field and long an ardent proponent of a link between global warming and much stronger hurricanes.

    His changing views could influence other scientists.

    "The results surprised me," Emanuel said of his work, adding that global warming may still play a role in raising the intensity of hurricanes but what that role is remains far from certain.

    Emanuel's work uses a new method of computer modeling that did a reasonable job of simulating past hurricane fluctuations. He, therefore, believes the models may have predictive value for future activity.

    During and after the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, which were replete with mega storms and U.S. landfalls, scientists dived into the question of whether rising ocean temperatures, attributed primarily to global warming, were causing stronger storms.

    Among the first to publish was Emanuel, who, just three weeks before Hurricane Katrina's landfall, published a paper in Nature that concluded a key measurement of the power dissipated by a storm during its lifetime had risen dramatically since the mid-1970s.

    In the future, he argued, incredibly active hurricane years such as 2005 would become the norm rather than flukes.

    This view, amplified by environmentalists and others concerned about global warming, helped establish in the public's mind that "super" hurricanes were one of climate change's most critical threats. A satellite image of a hurricane emanating from a smokestack featured prominently in promotions for Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

    "Kerry (Emanuel) had the good fortune, or maybe the bad fortune, to publish when the world's attention was focused on hurricanes in 2005," said Roger Pielke Jr., who studies science and policy at the University of Colorado. "Kerry's work was seized upon in the debate."

    After the 2005 hurricane season, a series of other papers were published that appeared to show, among other things, that the most intense hurricanes were becoming more frequent.

    What has not been as broadly disseminated, say Pielke and some hurricane scientists, is that other research papers have emerged that suggest global warming has yet to leave an imprint on hurricane activity. One of them, published late last year in Nature, found that warming seas may not increase hurricane intensity.

    That paper's co-author, Gabriel Vecchi, a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said Emanuel's new work highlights the great uncertainty that remains in the field of hurricane science.

    "While his results don't rule out the possibility that global warming has contributed to the recent increase in activity in the Atlantic, they suggest that other factors — possibly in addition to global warming — are likely to have been substantial contributors to the observed increase in activity," Vecchi said.

    Scientists wrangling with the hurricane-global warming question have faced two primary difficulties. The first is that the hurricane record before 1970 is not entirely reliable, making it nearly impossible to assess with precision whether hurricane activity has increased during the last century.

    The second problem comes through the use of computer models to predict future hurricane activity. Most climate models, which simulate global atmospheric conditions for centuries to come, are not sensitive enough to detect individual tropical systems.

    Emanuel's new research attempts to get around that by inserting "seeds" of tropical systems throughout the climate models and seeing which develop into tropical storms and hurricanes. The "seeds," bits of computer code, tend to develop when simulated atmospheric conditions, such as low wind shear, are ripe for hurricane formation.

    In the new paper, Emanuel and his co-authors project activity nearly two centuries hence, finding an overall drop in the number of hurricanes around the world, while the intensity of storms in some regions does rise.

    For example, with Atlantic hurricanes, two of the seven model simulations Emanuel ran suggested that the overall intensity of storms would decline. Five models suggested a modest increase.

    "The take-home message is that we've got a lot of work to do," Emanuel said. "There's still a lot of uncertainty in this problem. The bulk of the evidence is that hurricane power will go up, but in some places it will go down."

    The issue probably will not be resolved until better computer models are developed, said Judith Curry, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, a leading hurricane and climate scholar.

    By publishing his new paper, and by the virtue of his high profile, Emanuel could be a catalyst for further agreement in the field of hurricanes and global warming, Curry said.

    The generally emerging view, she said, seems to be that global warming may cause some increase in intensity, that this increase will develop slowly over time, and that it likely will lead to a few more Category 4 and Category 5 storms. How many? When? No one yet knows.

    eric.berger@chron.com
     
    #1 pgabriel, Apr 11, 2008
  2. bucket

    bucket Member

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    Good news if true. At this point, global warming is a fact. I hope it doesn't come with more hurricanes.
     
    #2 bucket, Apr 11, 2008
  3. yuantian

    yuantian Contributing Member

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    the temperature around the world has always been changing in the past. we'll probably have another ice age "soon". as long as we are cautious about what we do, there is no need to be a tree hugger.
     
    #3 yuantian, Apr 11, 2008
  4. Lil Pun

    Lil Pun Contributing Member

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    So does this mean with global warming we could be seeing even more hurricanes?
     
    #4 Lil Pun, Apr 11, 2008
  5. Refman

    Refman Contributing Member

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    The problem is that I don't think we know this to be true. I would rather be overly cautious. Of course, there are global economic concerns too.
     
    #5 Refman, Apr 11, 2008
  6. yuantian

    yuantian Contributing Member

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    well, we don't know for sure. but studying from the past patterns, we can be sure that the climate will change dramatically in the near future. we need to find ways to deal with harsher climate rather than preserve to delay it. i mean, soon or later, we need to advance in technology for our survival. being cautious is fine, just don't over do it. we still need to advance in science.
     
    #6 yuantian, Apr 11, 2008
  7. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    A Fact?

    The Global Warming lobby with discredit him in the next few months

    Rocket River
     
    #7 Rocket River, Apr 11, 2008
  8. Refman

    Refman Contributing Member

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    I personally could use some longer winters. I just don't wanna freeze to death. :D
     
    #8 Refman, Apr 11, 2008
  9. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    Don't worry
    If there are more Hurricanes. . it will be because of Global Warming
    If there are fewer Hurricanes. . it will be because of Global Warming
    If it is too hot . . it will be because of Global Warming
    If it is too cold . . it will be because of Global Warming
    If it is too rainy . . it will be because of Global Warming
    If it is too dry . . it will be because of Global Warming


    Global Warming pretty much explains all things Weather Related

    Rocket River
     
    #9 Rocket River, Apr 11, 2008
  10. yuantian

    yuantian Contributing Member

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    gosh, it's so cold here up north. one time a friend and i walked a couple of miles to a basketball game due to horrible traffic. i almost passed out in the blizzard. i got the whole sleepy feeling and wanted to sleep. i only had a pair of pants, wet socks, a t-shirt, a coat. you don't want to be like that. :D
     
    #10 yuantian, Apr 11, 2008
  11. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    I can assure you the world has been getting warmer over the long term. There used to be ice all over the place. We've had little ice ages within the past 1000 years. What that means and our real impact on that is beyond me.

    As for hurricanes...I read something the other day that suggested warmer temperatures also work to create wind shear over water which rips hurricanes apart. So while warm waters intensify storms, the same conditions create wind shear that work to tear them apart. I think it's possible it's similar to what Rocket_River is talking about,though..."oh, we have wind shear now? well it must be global warming causing it."
     
    #11 MadMax, Apr 12, 2008
  12. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    I am wondering how old you were when science peed in your cornflakes.
    Must have been traumatic. :(
     
    #12 B-Bob, Apr 12, 2008
  13. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    I don't eat cornflakes...but I do think it's funny that virtually every weather anomaly, hot or cold, finds its genesis in global warming.
     
    #13 MadMax, Apr 12, 2008
  14. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    Yeah, I think the reporting does a very poor job, and scientists, as usual, do a piss poor job communicating science to non-scientists. There is a fundamental mismatch between a reporter wanting the "bottom-line truth" for a short article and the scientist trying to describe a process that will continue refining itself ad infinitum.

    As for global warming, that's pretty real, data wise. (I'm not even going into causes here.) And more thermal energy means greater variations in just about all weather systems. But I agree that people are quick (too quick) to apply that to every single 5-year-window new observation.

    It just makes me sad that RR is always hammering scientists. I just don't get it. Why can't people go back to lawyers and liberals? :D j/k.

    PS -- the thread title sucks. "Maybe, maybe no" is more appropriate.
     
    #14 B-Bob, Apr 12, 2008
  15. krosfyah

    krosfyah Contributing Member

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    Global Warming is pretty much a fact at this point. Whether humans are contributing or the global impact of warming might be somewhat debatable. But global warming is no longer a debatable issue.

    So you are saying there is very little room for improvement about how society conducts itself currently? hmmm. What if you are wrong? Are the consequences worth your "relaxed" opinion?
     
    #15 krosfyah, Apr 12, 2008
  16. yuantian

    yuantian Contributing Member

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    no, i am saying, don't be like crazy about it. some of the news/articles our there are just trying to scare people, in my opinion. just do what you can do. like recycle you know. i am thinking about why some companies waste so much paper when we are in electronic age now. but i don't want be like always thinking about what to save. just do some basics like switch your light bulbs to the energy efficient kind. if you can afford a hybrid car like me, go for it. if not, don't sweat it. it's going to get there soon.
     
    #16 yuantian, Apr 12, 2008
  17. Lil Pun

    Lil Pun Contributing Member

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    LOL! I never actually thought of it that way but it is pretty much true. LOL! :D
     
    #17 Lil Pun, Apr 12, 2008
  18. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    I hammer Scientist to an extent because they 'hammer' religion
    when in some things. . their 'facts' are as sketchy as religion

    Personally I see no disagreement between religion and science

    That being said
    I am tired of being told that Global Warming is the Answer to it all
    It seems to be an EXPLAIN ALL for everything . . .

    As for Global Warming being a Fact
    I have seen some of the 'data' taking measurements from 1901
    and further back . . . stating it is supremely and unmistakably accurate
    which is a nice strong amount of Faith
    considering the times back then . . . [barely had indoor plumbing and no electricity]

    As for Global Warming . . . .
    as it is happening. . I want to just see more info
    and evidence and keep on studying

    recycling is always good. . Global Warming or not. . .so let's do more of it
    reducing gas usage. . . .
    Seeking alternative energy . . THESE ARE GOOD THINGS no matter what
    PLEASE
    QUIT TRYING TO TERRORIZE AND SCARE ME IN TO DOING THEM!!

    Rocket River
    . . .any one remember when the summer of the SHARKS was the scare tactic
    but
    I forget was that before or after the AFRICANIZE KILLER BEES summer scare tactic
     
    #18 Rocket River, Apr 12, 2008
  19. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    we agree strongly on this point, which is something.
     
    #19 B-Bob, Apr 12, 2008
  20. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    it is all about perspect

    I'm of the Einsteinian thought
    Science is about understanding the thoughts and processes and mechanisms of god.

    Edison was the 1st to harness electricity . . .
    now most high schoolers can do what he did . ..
    does that diminish his accomplishment?????

    So . . knowing how god created the universe does in no way diminish the accomplishment . . .

    Rocket River
     
    #20 Rocket River, Apr 12, 2008
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