posted on June 7, 2007 11:15:26 AM new
Big increase in hurricanes is not caused by global heating, say scientists
Hurricanes in the Atlantic are increasing because of natural weather patterns rather than global warming, a study has concluded.
Growing numbers of hurricanes battering the United States and the Caribbean have made their presence felt in the past decade and are forecast to worsen. Global warming has been cited as a possible cause but researchers looking at sediment and coral deposits have now identified natural variations in their frequency.
Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, was “unexceptional” when historic patterns of such stormy weather are analyzed, they suggested.
Global warming may even have been responsible for unusually low levels of hurricanes in the 25 years before 1995 when the number began rising, according to the scientists, led by the Geological Survey of Sweden.
Using deposits trapped in sediment to indicate when hurricanes had taken place, the researchers built up a record detailing their number and frequency going back 270 years.
They found that the decline in hurricanes during the 1970s and 1980s was matched by similar declines in the past, indicating natural variations in the weather patterns.
“The record indicates that the average frequency of major hurricanes decreased gradually from the 1760s until the early 1960s, reaching anomalously low values during the 1970s and 1980s,” they reported in the journal Nature. “Furthermore, the phase of enhanced hurricane activity since 1995 is not unusual compared to other periods of high hurricane activity and appears to represent a recovery to normal hurricane activity.”
The findings are at variance with the conclusions in February of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations organization addressing global warming. The UN panel stopped short of blaming increased frequency of hurricanes on man-made temperature rises, but said it was “more likely than not” that greenhouse gas emissions had contributed to the greater intensity of cyclonic storms.
The Swedish-led research team suggested that hurricane levels were normal, though they accepted “a future possibility” of higher sea temperatures contributing to more intense hurricanes.The researchers were unable to identify any direct link between increased hurricanes and rising sea level temperatures, beyond the requirement for a minimum temperature of 27C (81F) to be reached before a hurricane developed.
From 1730-2005 there were on average 3-3.5 major hurricanes each year.
The researchers from Sweden, the US and Puerto Rico said that being able to calculate vertical wind shear – the differences in wind speeds at different heights – was crucial in determining the frequency of hurricanes.
Higher wind-shear levels disrupt developing hurricanes; low wind-shear levels fail to batter the storms sufficiently to prevent them developing.
The researchers suggested that higher air temperatures caused by global warming may have led to stronger vertical wind shear, which has destroyed developing hurricanes in the Atlantic before 1995, explaining the dearth.
Deposits of sediments accumulated from increased run-off from rainfall and plankton remains associated with increased levels of nutrients and provided clues to the scientists to historic vertical wind shear and hurricanes.
They were able to check their readings of the data by comparing their findings with documentation of hurricanes.
In the wind
–– From 1995 to 2005 there were an average of 4.1 major hurricanes (categories 3-5) in the Atlantic compared with an average of 1.5 from 1971-94
–– Five periods in the past 270 years were found to have had the same lack of hurricanes, combined with high wind shear, as 1971-94: 1730-36, 1793-99, 1827-30, 1852-66 and 1915-26
–– Six periods were identified as having the same high levels witnessed since 1995: 1756-74, 1780-85, 1801-12, 1840-50, 1873-90 and 1928-33
Source: Geological Survey of Sweden
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on June 7, 2007 11:21:07 AM new
Something strange is going on with the weather, you have to admit that. We saw days close to 90 in May! It's 93 here today. Normally, we don't get those until July and some years we don't get a 90 degree day at all! We've also had very little in the way of rainfall. I don't know whether global warming is causing more hurricanes or not, I'm not a scientist, but I do know there is definitely something changing with the weather. I do remember some discussion in the 70's about the climate reversing - i.e., the south will become cooler and the north warmer.
posted on June 7, 2007 12:14:37 PM new
This issue was also pointed out during the last hurricane season. When that same global warming fu fu didn't happen AT ALL. lol lol
posted on June 7, 2007 06:56:37 PM new
It is good to see Linda and Bear admitting "global heatin" does exist.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on June 7, 2007 07:14:03 PM new
On the June 6 edition of Fox News' Special Report, Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume reported that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin "said it is NASA's job to provide scientific evidence about global warming, and leave the discussions about what to do with it up to policymakers." Hume did not report, however, that the Bush administration has scaled back NASA's efforts to provide this evidence, as the Associated Press reported just two days earlier.
During an interview that aired May 31, Griffin told a National Public Radio reporter that he wasn't sure that global warming was a problem: "I have no doubt that ... a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with." Griffin continued: "To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change." Hume reported that "Griffin said earlier this week in a closed-door meeting at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena that he was sorry for airing his personal views," and quoted Griffin as stating, "Unfortunately, this is an issue which has become far more political than technical, and it would have been well for me to have stayed out of it."
Hume did not note that a December 11 report to the White House by scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned against proposed cutbacks to funding for the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), a program designed to monitor the effects of global warming. According to the report, "[T]he recent loss of climate sensors ... places the overall climate program in serious jeopardy." The report was provided by Climate Science Watch, a watchdog program of the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, to the AP, which reported it in a June 4 article. According to June 8, 2006, testimony of NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr. before the House Committee on Science, the Department of Defense (DOD) originally planned to launch six satellites under NPOESS to gather weather and climate data, replacing older satellites. Instead, due to cost overruns, DOD revised the program on June 5, 2006, to include only four new satellites, which will focus on weather forecasting, with most of the climate instruments needed to measure global warming eliminated. In its June 4 article, the AP reported that this reduction demonstrates that "[t]he Bush administration is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space." The AP also noted that "White House science adviser Jack Marburger, for whom the report was intended, acknowledged that climate scientists had been depending greatly on the planned satellites."
From the June 6 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:
HUME: NASA Administrator Michael Griffin is apologizing for comments he made last week that global warming may not be a problem that requires human intervention, but he's not saying he was wrong. Griffin was soundly ripped by many scientists who believe human activity causes climate change and that it is very dangerous. Griffin said earlier this week in a closed-door meeting at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena that he was sorry for airing his personal views, "Unfortunately, this is an issue which has become far more political than technical and it would have been well for me to have stayed out of it." Griffin said it is NASA's job to provide scientific evidence about global warming, and leave the discussions about what to do with it up to policymakers.
From the June 4 Associated Press article:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space, just as the president tries to convince the world the U.S. is ready to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases.
A confidential report to the White House, obtained by The Associated Press, warns that U.S. scientists will soon lose much of their ability to monitor warming from space using a costly and problem-plagued satellite initiative begun more than a decade ago.
Because of technology glitches and a near-doubling in the original $6.5 billion cost, the Defense Department has decided to downsize and launch four satellites paired into two orbits, instead of six satellites and three orbits.
The satellites were intended to gather weather and climate data, replacing existing satellites as they come to the end of their useful lifetimes beginning in the next couple of years.
The reduced system of four satellites will now focus on weather forecasting. Most of the climate instruments needed to collect more precise data over long periods are being eliminated.
Instead, the Pentagon and two partners - the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA - will rely on European satellites for most of the climate data.
"Unfortunately, the recent loss of climate sensors ... places the overall climate program in serious jeopardy," NOAA and NASA scientists told the White House in the Dec. 11 report obtained by the AP.
[...]
White House science adviser Jack Marburger, for whom the report was intended, acknowledged that climate scientists had been depending greatly on the planned satellites.
''We're obviously very concerned about this,'' he told the AP. ''It got in trouble and we couldn't fit all those instruments on it ... leaving us with a number of problems and questions: How do we maintain our momentum in this very important area of science?''
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on June 7, 2007 07:40:56 PM new
Uh, their godbush believes in it (or says he does, he probably hasn't a clue what it is, DUH).....wonder how they feel about their great "leader" disagreeing with them
