Climate change is almost certainly responsible for storms like Sandy.

[Direckshun]

Starting a new thread on this, because this story has nothing to do with Al Gore. There's nothing more deniers of the true effects of climate change love to do more than reference Al Gore.

Don't give a shit about Gore. This is real science, and more and more experts in science and fields related to climate change are coming to the conclusion that the factors that produce storms are being amped up thanks to climate change.

Climate change is making storms like Sandy as big as they are, and as bizarre as they are. Climate change is making storms worse.

In addition to that, this is science that gigantic insurance corporations are starting to adjust to. It's so reliable that huge insurers are adjusting their bottom lines to account for it.

If global corporations are even starting to make radical adjustments to account for it, and you're still not buying it, ask yourself: how far from the reservation have you strayed?

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...rricane-sandy/

Did Climate Change Cause Hurricane Sandy?
By Mark Fischetti
October 30, 2012

If you’ve followed the U.S. news and weather in the past 24 hours you have no doubt run across a journalist or blogger explaining why it’s difficult to say that climate change could be causing big storms like Sandy. Well, no doubt here: it is.

The hedge expressed by journalists is that many variables go into creating a big storm, so the size of Hurricane Sandy, or any specific storm, cannot be attributed to climate change. That’s true, and it’s based on good science. However, that statement does not mean that we cannot say that climate change is making storms bigger. It is doing just that—a statement also based on good science, and one that the insurance industry is embracing, by the way. (Huh? More on that in a moment.)

Scientists have long taken a similarly cautious stance, but more are starting to drop the caveat and link climate change directly to intense storms and other extreme weather events, such as the warm 2012 winter in the eastern U.S. and the frigid one in Europe at the same time. They are emboldened because researchers have gotten very good in the past decade at determining what affects the variables that create big storms. Hurricane Sandy got large because it wandered north along the U.S. coast, where ocean water is still warm this time of year, pumping energy into the swirling system. But it got even larger when a cold Jet Stream made a sharp dip southward from Canada down into the eastern U.S. The cold air, positioned against warm Atlantic air, added energy to the atmosphere and therefore to Sandy, just as it moved into that region, expanding the storm even further.

Here’s where climate change comes in. The atmospheric pattern that sent the Jet Stream south is colloquially known as a “blocking high”—a big pressure center stuck over the very northern Atlantic Ocean and southern Arctic Ocean. And what led to that? A climate phenomenon called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)—essentially, the state of atmospheric pressure in that region. This state can be positive or negative, and it had changed from positive to negative two weeks before Sandy arrived. The climate kicker? Recent research by Charles Greene at Cornell University and other climate scientists has shown that as more Arctic sea ice melts in the summer—because of global warming—the NAO is more likely to be negative during the autumn and winter. A negative NAO makes the Jet Stream more likely to move in a big, wavy pattern across the U.S., Canada and the Atlantic, causing the kind of big southward dip that occurred during Sandy.

Climate change amps up other basic factors that contribute to big storms. For example, the oceans have warmed, providing more energy for storms. And the Earth’s atmosphere has warmed, so it retains more moisture, which is drawn into storms and is then dumped on us.

These changes contribute to all sorts of extreme weather. In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, James Hansen at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York blamed climate change for excessive drought, based on six decades of measurements, not computer models: “Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.”

He went on to write that the Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 could each be attributed to climate change, concluding that “The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.”

Hanson also argued a year ago that Earth is entering a period of rapid climate change, so radical weather will be upon us sooner than we’d like. Scientific American just published a big feature article detailing the same point.

Indeed, if you’re a regular Scientific American reader, you might recall that another well-regarded scientist predicted behemoths such as Sandy in 2007. The article, by Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, was presciently titled, “Warmer Oceans, Stronger Hurricanes.” Trenberth’s extensive analysis concluded that although the number of Atlantic hurricanes each year might not rise, the strength of them would.

Hurricane Sandy has emboldened more scientists to directly link climate change and storms, without the hedge. On Monday, as Sandy came ashore in New Jersey, Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, tweeted: “Would this kind of storm happen without climate change? Yes. Fueled by many factors. Is [the] storm stronger because of climate change? Yes.”

Raymond Bradley, director of the Climate Systems Research Center at the University of Massachusetts, was quoted in the Vancouver Sun saying: “When storms develop, when they do hit the coast, they are going to be bigger and I think that’s a fair statement that most people could sign onto.”

A recent, peer-reviewed study published by several authors in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science concludes: “The largest cyclones are most affected by warmer conditions and we detect a statistically significant trend in the frequency of large surge events (roughly corresponding to tropical storm size) since 1923.”

Greg Laden, an anthropologist who blogs about culture and science, wrote this week in an online piece: “There is always going to be variation in temperature or some other weather related factor, but global warming raises the baseline. That’s true. But the corollary to that is NOT that you can’t link climate change to a given storm. All storms are weather, all weather is the immediate manifestation of climate, climate change is about climate.”

Now, as promised: If you still don’t believe scientists, then believe insurance giant Munich Re. In her October 29 post at the The New Yorker, writer Elizabeth Kolbert notes:

Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance firms, issued a study titled “Severe Weather in North America.” According to the press release that accompanied the report, “Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.” … While many factors have contributed to this trend, including an increase in the number of people living in flood-prone areas, the report identified global warming as one of the major culprits: “Climate change particularly affects formation of heat-waves, droughts, intense precipitation events, and in the long run most probably also tropical cyclone intensity.”

Insurers, scientists and journalist are beginning to drop the caveats and simply say that climate change is causing big storms. As scientists collect more and more data over time, more of them will be willing to make the same data-based statements.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by jjjayb

I did include the October quote in my original post, thank you. But keep deflecting.

The link still applies. The data only goes back to 1865, but according to that link there were 5 landfall hurricanes in New England between 1865 and 1900. In all of the 1900's there were 8 landfall hurricanes in New England.

So, they are not common to begin with. And how many were in the last week of October?

[Donger]

Originally Posted by tiptap

Do you know what latent heat refers to in discussions of phases?

Yes. So you think that we will see large increases in temperatures if there is no ice at the North Pole?

[tiptap]

Originally Posted by Donger

Yes. So you think that we will see large increases in temperatures if there is no ice at the North Pole?

You think it will be colder?

[Donger]

Originally Posted by tiptap

You think it will be colder?

No, I think it will be slightly warmer. Why do you think it would be the feared "tipping point"?

[tiptap]

How much reflection, what is the albedo of ice during the most direct time the sun is shining on that area as opposed to ocean blue? It doesn't matter in winter no sunshine.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by Donger

I think you are missing my point. Our atmosphere already has filled with CO2, up ~40% since the 1800s. And I don't see what, if anything, that has caused.

You don't fill the evidence is sufficient to prove a temperature change in the oceans?

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by Donger

I think you are missing my point. Our atmosphere already has filled with CO2, up ~40% since the 1800s. And I don't see what, if anything, that has caused.

You don't fill the evidence is sufficient to prove a temperature change in the oceans?

[jjjayb]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

So, they are not common to begin with. And how many were in the last week of October?

In the 1800's they occured 5 times in 35 years. That averages to once every 7 years. Not too uncommon. At least a couple were in October. Early october though. Point is, hurricanes in the northeast happen. They happened before the industrial age too. To act like this storm was because of man made global warming is silly. If it was because of man made global warming, it wouldn't have happened before "man made global warming".

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by jjjayb

At least a couple were in October. Early october though. Point is, hurricanes in the northeast happen. They happened before the industrial age too. To act like this storm was because of man made global warming is silly. If it was because of man made global warming, it wouldn't have happened before "man made global warming".

Not necessarily true. Just because something increases the likelihood doesn't mean that it had a 0% chance of occuring in the first place.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by tiptap

How much reflection, what is the albedo of ice during the most direct time the sun is shining on that area as opposed to ocean blue? It doesn't matter in winter no sunshine.

Like I said, the temperature would obviously increase. You made the claim that that would be the "tipping point." I'm asking you why (quantified) you think that?

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by Donger

Like I said, the temperature would obviously increase. You made the claim that that would be the "tipping point." I'm asking you why (quantified) you think that?

I know for one that increase in water temp can really **** up the whole ecosystem, bleaching of the reefs, etc.

[jjjayb]

Originally Posted by J Diddy

Not necessarily true. Just because something increases the likelihood doesn't mean that it had a 0% chance of occuring in the first place.

Are we seing the increased likelihood? We've actually had pretty mild hurricane seasons the last few years.

In perspective, Sandy was a category 1 hurricane. There have been much stronger hurricanes in the northeast that predate "man made global warming". Here's one good example from 1938. A category 3 at landfall that killed between 600 and 800 people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Eng...ricane_of_1938

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by jjjayb

In the 1800's they occured 5 times in 35 years. That averages to once every 7 years. Not too uncommon. At least a couple were in October. Early october though.

Thank you.

Originally Posted by jjjayb

Point is, hurricanes in the northeast happen.

No, you did not make a point, as no one ever asserted otherwise. At least not me.

I said:
This far north - not usual
This late in year - not usual
Both together - very, very unusual

[tiptap]

Originally Posted by Donger

Like I said, the temperature would obviously increase. You made the claim that that would be the "tipping point." I'm asking you why (quantified) you think that?

You introduced the wording tipping point. What do you think tipping point is since you used it? Please quantify

[Donger]

Originally Posted by tiptap

You introduced the wording tipping point. What do you think tipping point is since you used it? Please quantify

The actual words, yes, but you are the one who made the dam analogy. I presume that you did so based on that analogous dam breaking at some point, no? If not, why did you use the dam analogy?