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  • GW weakens hurricanes?

    If so someone please call Al Gore & demand a re-edit

    Article....

    Study: Global Warming Could Hinder Hurricanes

    Global warming might not fuel more intense hurricanes in the Atlantic after all. Despite increasing ocean temperatures that feed the monstrous storms, climate change may also be ramping up the winds that choke off a hurricane’s development, a new study claims.

    “The environmental changes here do not suggest a strong increase in tropical Atlantic hurricane activity during the 21st century,” said study team member Brian Soden of the University of Miami.


    Hurricanes form as storms shoot off the coast of Africa and pull energy from the warm, moist air over the oceans. As the hurricane intensifies, it begins to rotate. But when winds vary in speed and direction at different heights in the atmosphere, a phenomenon known as wind shear, they prevent the organization of the storm’s circulation, stopping its development or intensification.

    Other studies have found that global warming will increase ocean temperatures over the coming century, fueling more intense hurricanes, but this study is the first to suggest that wind shear may also increase and counteract the effects of ocean warming.

    “Wind shear is one of the dominant controls to hurricane activity, and the models project substantial increases in the Atlantic,” said study leader Gabriel Vecchi of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Based on historical relationships, the impact on hurricane activity of the projected shear change could be as large—and in the opposite sense—as that of the warming oceans.”

    Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research who was not affiliated with the study, pointed out that the model predictions in the new study were averaged. For a given four-year period, for instance, three years could yield suppressed hurricane development, while the fourth could turn out like 2005 (the season that generated Hurricane Katrina), he said.

    The models used in the study, detailed in the April 18 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, did show that global warming could lead to a more favorable environment for hurricanes to develop in other regions, including the western tropical Pacific.

    “This study does not, in any way, undermine the widespread consensus in the scientific community about the reality of global warming,” Soden said. “In fact, the wind shear changes are driven by global warming.”
    Last edited by Dr Mordrid; 18 April 2007, 18:29.
    Dr. Mordrid
    ----------------------------
    An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

    I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

  • #2
    So in other words neither side still has a clue. It's a constant tit-for-tat.
    “And, remember: there's no 'I' in 'irony'” ~ Merlin Mann

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    • #3
      Hurricanes are weather. So-called Global Warming is in relation to climate. Apples and bananas.
      Brian (the devil incarnate)

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      • #4
        I, ignorant in this matter, would agree with respect to hurricanes within shorter time-frames but isn't the tendency to have hurricanes and the average number of and strength of these part of what we should call 'climate'? Rain is weather but the fact that it hardly raines in the sahara is one of the defining aspects of the climate there, no?
        Join MURCs Distributed Computing effort for Rosetta@Home and help fight Alzheimers, Cancer, Mad Cow disease and rising oil prices.
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        • #5
          The point I was trying to make is that there are hundreds of factors, some of them climate-related, which can dictate weather. The questions of wind shear and sea temperature are not necessarily climate-related. If the factors that caused cyclonic events (be they called hurricanes, typhoons or cyclones, which are all names for the same phenomenon) were all climate related, the frequency and severity in each part of the world would be roughly constant from year to year, the same as the rain in the Sahara is roughly constant. The proverbial butterfly flapping its wings in Africa is barely climate-related, is it?

          A couple of years ago, the USA was hit by a bad series of hurricanes. Last year it wasn't, although the W Pacific was. This variability is too great for it to be climate-driven, as the climate hardly changes from one year to the next. On the other hand, climate changes may, over a number of years, perhaps change the pattern, but it would be foolhardy to ascribe increases or decreases of frequency or intensity to known climate change. IPCC ascribe possible increases of activity over the whole of the 21st century as "likely" (i.e.>66% probability).
          Brian (the devil incarnate)

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          • #6
            ...Basically anything that proves GW is climate and anything that disproves GW is weather....
            If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

            Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Technoid View Post
              ...Basically anything that proves GW is climate and anything that disproves GW is weather....
              Not at all. They are apples and bananas in the same fruit basket. Weather is short-term, climate is long term. Analogy (not perfect): weather is like suddenly losing air pressure in a tyre because you have run over a nail. Climate is like the slow loss of air pressure due to the porosity of the rubber. When the tyre is worn, the porosity causes the pressure to drop somewhat faster because the rubber is thinner. Also, when the rubber is thinner, the chances of picking up a penetrating nail are higher. The two are related but it is not certain that you will have a puncture, even if you're down to the tread reinforcement.

              "GW" is an observed manifestation of climate change: no proof is involved.
              Brian (the devil incarnate)

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              • #8
                You have typical weather for a particular climate, if you change the climate you can expect different typical weather.
                But still its a bit of early research that suggets a possibilty...lets not get carried away

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