The problem is that the Ross Gelbspan column in the link doesn't say what Reynolds implies.
As the atmosphere warms, it generates longer droughts, more-intense downpours, more-frequent heat waves, and more-severe storms.
Although Katrina began as a relatively small hurricane that glanced off south Florida, it was supercharged with extraordinary intensity by the relatively blistering sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico. (emphasis added)
Gelbspan is saying that warming will intensify storms, not make more of them. The irony is that most of the Southeast could use a hurricane. Whatever damage one might do on the coast, if a tropical depression were to dump heavy rains over Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee, it would be a blessing.
5 comments:
Point well taken. The very slow 2007 hurricane season has featured two Category 5 storms, both of which made landfall in Mexico. According to reports, the liklihood of two such storms making landfall anywhere in the same season is low.
But then there's the very slow 2006 season to explain, which if I recall correctly featured NO Category 5 storms. And then there are the reports of unusually cool Atlantic waters...heck, let's blame this year's California fires on global warming, make some more dire predictions, and see how the 2008 hurricane season turns out. After all, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I told my wife the same thing this weekend.
What we need is a hurricane. She says, "I thought there were supposed to be more, because of global warming." I laughed and said, "Exactly."
Anyway, we need a hurricane or two, if not this year, for sure next year.
Point two: Numbnutz is ignoring the Pacific cyclones, which ARE running near record numbers.
Just to show how completely ignorant right wingers like Glenn Reynolds are, if a hurricane doesn't hit America, it must have never happened.
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Hurricane Felix kills 38 people in Nicaragua
September 06 2007 at 02:45AM
By Oswaldo Rivas
Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua - Hurricane Felix killed at least 38 people on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast and more than 80 people were missing after the storm destroyed thousands of flimsy homes, the government said on Wednesday.
As soldiers combed the area around Puerto Cabezas port, the Navy tried to reach settlements on marshy spits of land or on keys to look for more casualties from Felix, which crashed into the coast on Tuesday as an extremely powerful Category 5 hurricane.
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Hurricane Dean was the first hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic Basin hurricane season, and the first Category 5 storm to make landfall since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Dean was the most intense Atlantic storm since Hurricane Wilma in 2005, and the third-most intense storm at landfall.
Dean and Hurricane Felix became the first pair of Category 5 Atlantic storms to make landfall in the same year.
Dean formed as Tropical Depression 4 in the mid-Atlantic Ocean on August 13, 2007. The system was upgraded to a tropical storm the next day and reached hurricane strength early on August 16, 2007.
Dean passed south of Jamaica on August 20, making landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico at 4 a.m. EDT on August 21. After weakening while crossing the Yucatan, Dean entered the Bay of Campeche, where it re-intensified to Category 2 strength. Dean made a second landfall on August 22 on the Caribbean coast of Mexico's mainland, near Tecolutla.
Dean was blamed for 42 deaths and caused nearly $2 billion (US) in damage.
Oxycon,
Before you call some stupid, you should have your facts straight.
People talk about hurricanes formed in the Atlantic - no matter where they hit.
Wow you named 2 - where are the rest? We were supposed to have something like 16 storms and 9 hurricanes.
But I'm glad you learned to cut and paste. Now learn to actually support your argument.
The predictions were for 2006 and 2007 that they were going to be extremely active. They were not in the Atlantic.
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