Blog site ‘real climate’ has an interesting review of the relationship between hurricanes (frequency and intensity) and global warming with particular reference to Katrina.
By way of introduction:
The key connection is that between sea surface temperatures (we abbreviate this as SST) and the power of hurricanes. Without going into technical details about the dynamics and thermodynamics involved in tropical storms and hurricanes … the basic connection between the two is actually fairly simple: warm water, and the instability in the lower atmosphere that is created by it, is the energy source of hurricanes. This is why they only arise in the tropics and during the season when SSTs are highest (June to November in the tropical North Atlantic).
I particularly noted the paragraph:
It has been asserted (for example, by the NOAA National Hurricane Center) that the recent upturn in hurricane activity is due to a natural cycle, e.g. the so-called Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (“AMO”). The new results by Emanuel (Fig. 2) argue against this hypothesis being the sole explanation: the recent increase in SST (at least for September as shown in the Figure) is well outside the range of any past oscillations. Emanuel therefore concludes in his paper that “the large upswing in the last decade is unprecedented, and probably reflects the effect of global warming.” However, caution is always warranted with very new scientific results until they have been thoroughly discussed by the community and either supported or challenged by further analyses. Previous analysis of the AMO and natural oscillation modes in the Atlantic (Delworth and Mann, 2000; Kerr, 2000) suggest that the amplitude of natural SST variations averaged over the tropics is about 0.1-0.2 C, so a swing from the coldest to warmest phase could explain up to ~0.4 C warming.
I wonder what Chris Landsea, the hurricane expert who resigned from the IPCC because of politics and ‘climate change campaigning’, thinks about recent hurricanes Katrina and Denis … and also about Emanuel?
Link to the post at real climate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=181 .
Link to Chris Landsea’s letter of resignation from the IPCC:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jennifer – again no-one here is saying that Katrina was caused by global warming. As Tropical Revolving Storms are powered by warm water there is the chance that if the SST rise then this will spawn more TRSs or more powerful slower moving TRS. They talk about a destructive index that includes wind strength.
Ender, I thought it was a neat review with some food for thought.
I am glad that Ender has spoken out and made it abundently clear that he did not say that Katrina may have been caused by GW…..or did he?
Such a tease.
To add an added factor, if hurricanes are actually electric plasma effects, as suggested by me on my last Henry Thornton musing, then the above Real Climate conclusions might somewhat off beam.
Jennifer – I agree that it was a very good review however I just wanted to make it very clear to all that have the misfortune to listen to me that Katrina was not caused by Global Warming.
I do not want another Hockey Stick type misleading argument diverting attention from the very real problem of Global Warming.
Well ….
Maybe Katrina was caused by GW – but maybe it wasn’t …
The best interpretation is that there may have been a global warming in Katrina – or not, there may have have been a decadal effect or not, it may have been chance or not. With one event you can’t say. But if you have a lot of events you can say something …. something as you have to untangle various effects…
Also see http://www.hurricaneville.com/global_warming.html
for some more numbers and arguments …
But if 5% more intensity is caused eventually GW it may enough to lift fast storms to that next roof ripping level… and longer storm lifetimes …
And gee we’ve had hurricanes for probably millions of years – but if you live in the 21st century with 6.3B persons on Earth – it’s highly likely that many may get hurt.
Ender – read it quick – Louis is citing an article on Henry Thornton where the author actually states that there IS a greenhouse effect.
Has Louis changed his mind?
After a quick Google on Landsea – the well known Stoat climate blog says …
http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/01/landsea-contrasts.html
Interesting link Phildo, whilst nominally agreeing with the substance the writer then embarks on a criticism of the tone, attitude or nuance of an article…
Jim Kanuth appears to be a straight thinker.
From the Roger A. Pielke Sr. Research Group (ref Katrina & GW);
“Thus the answer to the question posed in this blog, is that we cannot attribute this disaster to global warming, or even climate change. It is a human-caused disaster resulting from decisions made as to where to locate our population and commerce, without enough protection to avoid inevitable catastrophic consequences.
http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/?p=44
But to be fair given the level of knowledge I’m saying we can’t rule out some GW involvement. Can’t prove it – but as an hypothesis there is no good reason to rule out some component.
see for fuller version of below quote…
http://mustelid.blogspot.com/
Hurricanes and Global Warming post
“But I do want to make a comment about the attribution question. As far as I can tell, while its premature to say: “an increase in hurricanes can be attributed to global warming”, its equally wrong to say “global warming has had no effect on hurricanes”.
….failing to attribute to GW doesn’t do the reverse, ie it doesn’t demonstrate a lack of connection. Is it perhaps the “unexcluded middle” fallacy?….”
Anyway – all yadayada …high school debating champions we are …. more importantly do we think there’s a future risk worth examining or is everyone happy to go back to watching Home Renovation TV ?
I think that hurricane katrina, its impact, and the failure to prepare for it, demonstrate quite well that the market can and does fail when it comes to preparing for disasters that do not come often, but when they do come, cause a great deal of damage.
One of the difficulties for the market when it comes to preparing for a disaster is how to put an economic value on human life, and human culture.
Hypothetical: if it costs $10billion in today’s dollars to effectively prepare New Orleans for a hurricane, or it costs $10billion in today’s dollars to do nothing about the hurricane and then pay for a clean up, which do you do? Even if nobody died? How do you put a cost on the social/cultural/pyschological impact of having an entire city with an internationally renowned character destroyed? Even if it would only cost $10billion to rebuild it just the way it was, would you? Do the old bricks and mortar and buildings that have been replaced mean the same thing to people as the replacements?
Global warming and nuclear accidents fall into this category of stuff that markets cannot deal with by themselves I think.
Phil Done,
sorry, there is no such thing as a greenhouse gas – a greenhouse is a shell constructed of glass, and the greenhouse effect is so caused by the ability of this glass shell to stop thermal convection and to stop the infrared energy to escape from the entrapped air.
So no I have not changed my mind but will if the facts change.
I tend to agree with Steve that markets will externalise these costs and leave it to other people, usually governments, to sort out.
Phil – I will have a look at the link.
Ender,
government was and is the problem – just another instance of the left’s abnegation of self responsibility for personal actions.
mmmm… Vizard, Rivkin, et al …
Murdoch ….
All mates of Bob Hawke and his mates Phil, not little Johnny.
But hardly lefties eh ?
I see you’re learning your style from Fox News – comment not reporting !
Meanwhile John is helping George terra-form the Middle East and making us “safer”. Don’t you think we’ve made the world a better place ? Feeling all relaxed and comfortable …
Lord let them keep interest rates low, let our housing stocks raise in value, lead them not into socialist temptation, let us not rock the boat (except with refugess on board), protect my levels of cognitive dissonance, and keep that balm of civilisation – the backyard renovation shows – going on without end.
BTW I see you misrepresented the quoted science article on Henry Thornton …. sigh … what do we expect …
anyway took that troll bait and ran with it …
what was this thread about ?
Oh yea – Katrina …
You forgot globalisation Phil, and the diminution of our fragile culture….
Lefties were very quick to blame Bush for Katrina especially New Orleans Mayor, State Governor and Lieutenant Governor and Senator – all Democrats. To date that is their only achievement – shifting the blame – no stomach for work and unable to accept responsibility or even tell the truth. Like Clinton.
Anyway, back to Katrina.
Just how does a nation protect its citizens against all forms of natural disasters? Take Australia, Cyclone territory from coast to coast, earthquakes, wind storms, floods – how would you reduce the risk without relying on insurance?
There is a significant literature – links and references to which I haven’t been able to quickly find on my new or old computer – that gives an idea of the cost of mitigation versus cleanup. From memory, some of this work has been done in the context of how developed capitalist economies generally cope much better with natural disasters because they generally have better infrastructure and response capabitilities.
I have just flicked through a hard copy of ‘Climate Change and Sustainable Development’ from the International Policy Network and there appears to be some information here – the booklet might be on the net – but no time to check this morning. … real work to do!
I invite a guest post on the issue of how to protect against natural disasters – which are the best prepared countries?
And John Elliot …
Tell the truth – giggle – WMD … kids overboard… but we all don’t care if interest rates are low do we? Truth is costly.
George sat there like the bunny in the spotlight like he did in 9/11… gee look at that ! Wow…
Anyway back to Katrina ….
How – complete protection is probably impossible… but you need some decent plans for possible and improbable risks. You need to be able to harness much resources from society and the private sector. You need to be able to stop bickering for a littel while and collaborate. You need strategic reserves. Building below sea level might be a tad silly – so some local govt planning. AND we could plan for climate change and climate variability NOW in engineering designs, storm water and extreme events. We could reign in rampant development in north Qld where it should not be (storm surge on low lying areas). But all that would cost money wouldn’t it.
And when the really big bang happens – probably infringe my civil liberties and put a military guy in charge for the first two weeks. And apologise afterwards.
Actually one of the best ways to protect against natural disaster is to leave some of the natural protection in place. Wetlands and swamps are natural barriers that dissapate the storm surges. A lot of the damage that is caused is becuase we drain swamps and wetlands and build houses on them. We then find out in the worst possible way that human constructed defences are not adequate.
folly and surreality in New Orleans
New Orleans may well be Bush’s anti-9/11, the point when the glossy images and myths around the imperial war president begin to splinter and crack and the incompetence and callousness is disclosed. When the people of New Orleans needed help most that h…
You also have major issues over the extent to which an authority can act. In Australia the States are the Crown not the Coomonwealth and for the Federal Govt to be included the Premier must first call a state of emergency. If the Feds moved into a State without consent it would be an invasion. Much the same in the US, States have sole responsibility for State matters and Federal govt deals with national issues.
You cant have decentralisation and autonomy without added responsibilities.
OK Ender et al, lets play ball. What would be the costs of relocating industry (and attached workforce – dont forget the workers!) inland from established sea ports.
And who would pay those costs.
C’mon Phildo, you like to walk the walk, talk the talk, how can this be achieved without incurring additional expense to the economy?
from my calcs about $3.1412TB USD
From Chrenkoff;
I read Gov. Blanco’s (D-LA) http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16455035-2,00.html
too with some weird bemusement. Free tip – contrast the Louisiana situation with the one next door in Mississippi – Gov. Barbour (R-MS). What’s been lost in all the blather over New Orleans is that it was really Mississippi that took the big hit. The buildings in New Orleans are still standing; the Gulf Coast of Mississippi basically has been scrubbed, like God took out a pencil eraser and just erased it. (Up in the northern hemisphere, since storms spin counterclockwise, the worst part of a hurricane is the “right-front” quadrant – because the wind is going with the momentum of the storm’s movement, plus the wind pushes the storm surge along. The center hit basically at the MS/LA state line, so MS was on the bad side.)
I really don’t like to find fault at times like this, but one thing that was missing was a quick recognition that in such a situation the potential for civil collapse is nearly 100%. Once the weather settles, you need to immediately declare marshal law and send in the MPs. That’s basically what Haley Barbour did in Mississippi – there were a few early problems but very quickly the MPs were patrolling what was left of Biloxi and Gulfport and keeping a lid on things . Back on Tuesday when I put on the news and we all saw Kathleen Blanco bursting into tears, I knew that was the wrong message and would bring trouble . Louisiana and New Orleans basically have those touchy-feely, “I’m okay, you’re okay” soft-leftie types in charge. Their education took a few days and has been expensive.
So I hope you’re Watching Mississippi . Highly recommended – we may have found our next President out of this (you heard it here first).
Amidst all the hyperventilating that’s going on, it’s actually a good time for a civics lesson, particularly watching the competence of the people in Mississippi and the gross incompetence of almost all concerned in Louisiana. Who was responsible for what?
The mayor of NO has been a good hyperventilator, but one thing became obvious quickly. NO is below sea level and it was inevitable that someday The Worst was going to happen. NO didn’t even take the worse possible hit (MS did), but it was clear that no one in NO had ever planned for The Worst . Last weekend, the mayor said, “Everyone get out of town.” It’s obvious that lots of people weren’t able to just load up the car and go – folks with no transportation like that, the incapacitated, patients in hospitals, etc. There was no plan to really evacuate the city, and it’s the local officials (over decades) who were responsible for that.
Why wasn’t the National Guard called out sooner to maintain order? Responsibility with each state’s National Guard contingent in situations like this (where they operate within state boundaries) is the responsibility of each state’s governor. To put it bluntly, the responsibility for calling out the NG in LA rested with the governor . If it didn’t happen on time, that’s HER failing.
Mississippi got hammered much worse than Louisiana but is barely in the news because the leadership has been much more competent. Ms. Blanco is clearly way out of her league in this situation.
This was a good reminder that LA has for decades been our worst managed and most corrupt state. I briefly caught a bit of the News Hour last night, and David Brooks pointed that out; he also pointed out something that’s pretty obvious – for the most part, the South has been booming for the past 25 or so years. The major cities went from backwater jokes to leading cities – Atlanta, Raleigh, Dallas, all of Florida, etc . The “hole in the map” in all of this has been Louisiana – it’s like the last 25 or 30 years of southern growth have passed it right by. Get away from the gussified tourist areas and NO is a pretty awful city.
He also asked why we were so good at quick response halfway around the world in Banda Aceh while we seemed so unable to handle something right in the country. That’s actually pretty obvious to me . Indonesia was a piece of cake because there was no bureaucracy out there – “What have we got over near there?” “The USS Lincoln battlegroup.” “Send ’em in and let the Navy people on site to run the show.” Inside this country, you have multiple interlocking bureaucracies that just don’t know what to do on their own, let alone when they try to interact.
When I worked for IBM, the bureaucracy in the headquarters region in lower NY was so bad that the people “running” (sic?) the company even admitted that they couldn’t manage it. The company’s successes came from intentionally putting activities far away from there to keep the “system” from “managing” things. When IBM wanted to build its first PC, they set the project up in Florida to keep it far away from the HQ mess. The site I worked at was far enough away (eventually NOT far enough though) away to be able to get things done without interference. Those award-winning IBM laptops? That was all done in Japan, to keep it REALLY far away from HQ.
The most effective response to NO probably would have been to just turn the project over to the Navy immediately and tell everyone else to leave them alone. But of course that wouldn’t happen because then all those bureaucracies would be forced to admit that they are much worse than useless when the crunch comes…
http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2005/09/mississippi-versus-louisiana.html
rog – It is not really my problem. The people of New Orleans can build wherever they like as long as they do not mind getting flattened by the occasional hurricane. Some of the damage caused was because the natural hurricane defenses were taken out by development.
The real answer is to rebuild some of these natural barriers however this will not be done as economic factor will override it.
Again and again it comes back to assessing risk. The people of New Orleans are comfortable with the risk so I guess it will be rebuilt as before.
Thats very generous of you Ender, allowing people to assess their own risk.
Some wicked unscrupulous people were spreading fabrications and untruths about NO being placed at risk due to GWB redeploying levee funds elsewhere.
Fortunately the truth has emerged, as it does;
“In Katrina’s wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush’s administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.
Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state’s congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana’s representatives have kept bringing home the bacon….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702462.html?sub=AR
rog – yes GWB and the spin doctors he employs are doing a stirling job of blame shifting. Pretty cold comfort to the survivors.
Not sure what you are trying to say Ender, are you blaming the federal government for the failings of the state and local government?
Is it the excess of national funds that has sunk NO?
Gallup Poll: Who’s To Blame? (Results)
–No One: 38%
–State/Local Officials: 25%
–Federal Agencies: 18%
–President Bush: 13%
Rog – he can zip around the world and invade other nations pretty speedily. He is the national leader of a nation of enormous resources. If after 9/11 and the Indian Ocean tsunami they haven’t computed a range of natural disaster preparedness scenarios he’s hopeless. And if there’s a bureaucratic mess – well he should have sorted it. If can’t imagine he made the call and said “I propose to send the following emergency resources immediately” that the local officials would have said “oh gee don’t do that”.
What this mania with being an apologist for Bush. Why do you have to recycle all the spin that’s being presented to self-justify their position. What’s he done for us except made the world a lot more unsafe by completing his Daddies unfinished business !
See there you go again Phil, shifting the blame onto someone else.
Do you think that elected office holders should be made responsible to the functions of that office?
No – I think you’re just a Bush sychophant….
You have a whole society to blame. Stupid town planning to be there is first place. FEMA has been roundly criticised and heads have rolled. What ever happened to Truman’s “the buck stops here”. You can blame Nagin and Blanco. You can blame Chertoff and his boss GWB. You can blame generations democrats and republicans for pork barrelling and wasting money. You can blame the whole US power structure and way of govt. You can blame the morality of the people.
Raping, looting, criminality, lack of compassion, bodies left to rot. Who cares … what a total disgraceful mess. And George gets his share. Bush’s popularity at lowest levels ever – the US citizens know what they saw !!
Whilst you are on a roll Phil, how is it that in the state that bore the full brunt of Katrina, the State of Mississippi (in NO the buildings are still standing whereas in Biloxi and Gulfport there is nothing left) there was;
no raping,
no looting,
no criminality,
no lack of compassion and
no bodies left to rot.
Same country, same president.
See Bush in the polls.
See removed FEMA heads
See bodies still rotting.
See poor performance of all involved.
See other hurricanes buzzing around. Maria had a very interesting northwards track towards Greenland…
Jen,
I wonder what Phil Done looks like? Could he post a photograph?