Global Warming advocates will use this season

[Downdraft]

How can anyone think hurricanes are the result of global warming or that global warming increases sea surface temperatures? That flies in the face of logic. First off, IF global warming was occuring the temperatures would be rising at the poles. This would result in a melting of the ice packs causing a decrease in salinity and sea surface temperatures. Fact is sst's would go DOWN not UP! There is absolutely no logical link between cyclogenisis and polar events as it stands now.
Sorry my eco friends you can't make a link here.

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

It would make more rain which falls over Africa + More Plants=Much less SAL...

[caribepr]

Interesting sides to a coin but in fact, using the phrase *global warming advocates* is simply too general to have much use in a discussion. It's been pointed out here, and very calmly and intelligently for the most part, that there can be those who believe in the reality of global warming without connecting it to what could be a cyclical time of more violent weather in the tropics. Very few of us are all or nothing on most subjects...I think those people are called Fanatics...laboring under the disease called Ignorance (more terrifying than global warming OR lots of hurricanes).

[x-y-no]

as proof that global warming is causing the world's climate to shift and the record number of named storms is a consequence of humanity's mismanagement of the environment. So, how will they explain 1933?....MGC

Well, since everything I've seen recently published by "global warming advocates" (what is that, anyway, people who are in favor of global warming?) has said that there is no indication as of yet that global warming plays a part in increased frequency of stoms, but only in increased average intensity of storms, I'd say you're setting up a straw-man here.

Jan

[Roxy]

But the point is, (as some have already stated here..) the earth has been changing for MANY, MANY years. Long before we were here to study it. How will anyone ever prove that it is mankind causing the changes?

I don't think they can, but if they do I will give props.

[Lebowsky]

Why are people talking politics? If people want to start slinging political barbs around I'm game, but I think it would be better to keep it off the hurricane boards.

And don't try to pretend this isn't political.

[gtalum]

There are two undeniable facts in the global warming debate:

1) The average surface temperatures of the earth are currently rising.

2) We only have really accurate data for the past 40 years or so, and reasonably accurate data for a much smaller area for the past few hundred years. Both time samples are but the briefest fractions of the blink of an eye in geological terms.

With those facts in hand, it is impossible for us to know what effect global warming may or may not have on storm development.

[x-y-no]

But the point is, (as some have already stated here..) the earth has been changing for MANY, MANY years. Long before we were here to study it. How will anyone ever prove that it is mankind causing the changes?

I don't think they can, but if they do I will give props.

I've never been able to understand the logic of the "the climate changes all the time" argument. As an analogy: landslides happen naturally all the time. Does this mean that man cannot cause landslides? Or that there's no reason to consider whether it's a good idea to be causing lots of landslides indisciminately?

Sure, climate has varied enormously in the past without any contribution by man. That does not in any way imply that man is incapable of altering climate, or that if we are altering climate that it's nothing to be concerned about. Go back far enough in time, and you have episodes where the sea level was on the order of a hundred meters higher than today, and also episodes where the entire surface of the Earth was frozen. I'm not suggesting we're going to induce anything quite that extreme, but I would point out that just because any variation we might induce is smaller than some historical variation does not mean that it makes sense to do it.

Jan

[x-y-no]

Why are people talking politics? If people want to start slinging political barbs around I'm game, but I think it would be better to keep it off the hurricane boards.

And don't try to pretend this isn't political.

Ask MGC. He started it. I'm just trying to keep things balanced.

Jan

[gtalum]

I've never been able to understand the logic of the "the climate changes all the time" argument. As an analogy: landslides happen naturally all the time. Does this mean that man cannot cause landslides? Or that there's no reason to consider whether it's a good idea to be causing lots of landslides indisciminately?

it does make sense to examine what effects we may have on climate. However, it's good to be absolutely certain about it before we take measures that will severely damage the world economy (ie the Kyoto treaty). What makes more sense in the mean time is to do what it takes to ready ourselves for teh effects that warmer temperatures will bring.

[x-y-no]

I've never been able to understand the logic of the "the climate changes all the time" argument. As an analogy: landslides happen naturally all the time. Does this mean that man cannot cause landslides? Or that there's no reason to consider whether it's a good idea to be causing lots of landslides indisciminately?

it does make sense to examine what effects we may have on climate. However, it's good to be absolutely certain about it before we take measures that will severely damage the world economy (ie the Kyoto treaty). What makes more sense in the mean time is to do what it takes to ready ourselves for teh effects that warmer temperatures will bring.

My insurance payments do me significant economic harm - but I'd be a fool not to carry insurance. This is despite the fact that I am not "absolutely certain" that I will have a major accident or fall seriously ill.

Jan

[gtalum]

My insurance payments do me significant economic harm - but I'd be a fool not to carry insurance. This is despite the fact that I am not "absolutely certain" that I will have a major accident or fall seriously ill.

Your insurance payments do not destabilize the world economy and throw us into a Great Depression.

[x-y-no]

My insurance payments do me significant economic harm - but I'd be a fool not to carry insurance. This is despite the fact that I am not "absolutely certain" that I will have a major accident or fall seriously ill.

Your insurance payments do not destabilize the world economy and throw us into a Great Depression.

Nor would even quite proactive action on global warming do that. There's an enormous economic upside to a shift to renewables as well. I don't buy this doom and gloom alarmism.

Jan

EDIT: And you're also ignoring what the economic consequences would be if the more severe estimates of the impact of warming are correct. What would be the economic impact of a two meter sea level rise?

[btangy]

Just because no one has bothered to do a study on it yet does not mean it's not happening.

There have been quite a few studies actually. A big one came out in 1998 by Henderson-Sellers and coauthors. It explains if there's evidence that global warming is causing an increase in tropical cyclone activity or increasing the intensity of tropical cyclones. It also outlines the limitations in our understanding of tropical cyclones, which still apply today. There's some evidence that the intensity may increase, but not beyond the normal interannual variability already seen in tropical cyclone intensity. There's no evidence that the frequency will increase (yet).

http://ams.allenpress.com/pdfserv/10.1175%2F1520-0477(1998)079%3C0019:TCAGCC%3E2.0.CO%3B2

As for the argument that increasing SSTs will lead to an increase in activity. This is not true because the atmosphere will warm also, which means the 'threshold' SST will have to increase also in order to support tropical cyclogenesis, i.e. a warmer atmosphere is more stable, so SSTs and hence boudary layer temps will have to be warmer to support convection.

Recently, there have been some studies that suggest that increasing SSTs are making hurricanes intense for a longer duration. The argument is quite compelling from what I've seen and will be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorlogical Society (BAMS) soon, so look for it.[/url]

[patsmsg]

Alaska is not "global". It is one spot, and you are experiencing it at one point in history. Do not associate what you see in one place as a planetary trend.

[NorthGaWeather]

Why are people talking politics? If people want to start slinging political barbs around I'm game, but I think it would be better to keep it off the hurricane boards.

And don't try to pretend this isn't political.

Ask MGC. He started it. I'm just trying to keep things balanced.

Jan

No matter how many facts you ignore, right.

Cause we all know facts play no role in these discussions.

[NorthGaWeather]

I've never been able to understand the logic of the "the climate changes all the time" argument.

Jan

And your in this discussion. I can't take you seriously with that statement.

[x-y-no]

No matter how many facts you ignore, right.

Cause we all know facts play no role in these discussions.

And your in this discussion. I can't take you seriously with that statement.

Got anything but personal attacks in that repertoire of yours?

[Windy]

I've never been able to understand the logic of the "the climate changes all the time" argument. As an analogy: landslides happen naturally all the time. Does this mean that man cannot cause landslides? Or that there's no reason to consider whether it's a good idea to be causing lots of landslides indisciminately?

it does make sense to examine what effects we may have on climate. However, it's good to be absolutely certain about it before we take measures that will severely damage the world economy (ie the Kyoto treaty). What makes more sense in the mean time is to do what it takes to ready ourselves for teh effects that warmer temperatures will bring.

The problem is that as far as the science is concerned, all signs point to "yes". It's not perfect certainty, but then science isn't perfectly certain about gravity, either. The confidence level is high about climate change, and the confidence level is also high that current carbon emmisions will drive a climate change. The details about what the change will be are what is uncertain, but the global weather models have thus far proven fairly reliable.

This is not an issue we will personally experience for the most part. However, our great-grandchildren and beyond will be facing something close to a mass-extinction climate event. People shrug about climate change, but inevitably the stakes are the survival of organized human society and the prevention of a mass die-off, and possibly in the long run the survival of the human species itself. This is not about "oh no, the seas are going to rise!" or "oh no, it's going to be warmer in the winter!", this is about "oh no, mass global starvation, collapse of civil order and government, and the beginning of a new Dark Age!"

The carbon we pump into the air now won't effect the climate for another fifty years, so even if we stop emitting carbon entirely right now (yeah right!) we're in for a ride. The "let's wait until science tells us EXACTLY how we're going to die before taking measures" attitude is amusing and workable now, but won't seem so funny to your great-great-great grandkids.

[abajan]

Alaska is not "global". It is one spot, and you are experiencing it at one point in history. Do not associate what you see in one place as a planetary trend.

Exactly what I was about to say. But it's human nature to assume that what's happening locally is happening worldwide.