Re: Hurricane Intensity: An Example of Global Warming Alarmism

In a quote from Rich Blinne's post:

> Other factors such as tropospheric vertical wind shear, surface pressure,
> low level vorticity, mid-level moisture, etc. play more dominant roles in
> explaining hurricane variability than do surface temperatures. Although there
> has been a general global warming over the last 30 years and particularly over
> the last 10 years, the SST increases in the individual tropical cyclone
> basins have been smaller (about half) and, according to the observations, have
> not brought about any significant increases in global major tropical cyclones
> except for the Atlantic which as has been discussed, has multi-decadal
> oscillations driven primarily by changes in Atlantic salinity.

As I recall, the general concept is that warm air rises around
the equator and falls approximately near the 30th latitude

As the air sinks, it has traveled in a northern (or southern)
direction and is therefore subject to the Coriolis force.
The Coriolis force can be understood as the effect you would see if
you tried to roll a marble toward the center of a rotating merry-go-round:
the marble will appear to move in a curved trajectory. So place on the
context of the earth, a large air vent rising from the equator and moving
northward will appear to take on a trajectory toward the east.
I believe that is called a westerly wind because it would appear
to be coming from the west, but the vector component should not
be confused whichever convention is used.)

So this rising vent of air cools and begins to sink, and that
appears, in the most over simplified models around the 30th
latitude. So I wouldn't expect off hand that this would
occur necessarily in the tropics. The main issue is where a
powerful plum of hot air (low density/higher pressure)
collides with cooler air (high density/low pressure) and
mixing occurs. Humidity also would add some driving heat.

But anyway, I would say it is too early to say for sure that
the large number of huricanes and typhoons is definitely
the consequence of global warming. If this continues next
summer and the summer after that, then I would have little
doubt. But who would like to be the guinea pig here?

I think we should reflect that the disaster from Katrina was
only a matter of time. This issue with the dikes was known
for ages and nothing was done. So whether global warming
hurried things up or not is of little difference anymore for the
victims.

It seems to be the human condition to wait until the spam hits the fan.
We should make educated decisions on what to do, but I see a similar
disease as creationism in people who refuse to admit that there _might_
be a real problem. What was that about Christ coming like a thief in the
night?

by Grace we proceed,
Wayne
Received on Thu Apr 27 09:58:15 2006