Cyclones and climate change: connecting the dots

Yahoo – AFP, Marlowe HOOD, August 27, 2017

Hurricane Harvey has left a trail of destruction in its wake and scientists say global
 warming means that the worst ones are becoming ever stronger (AFP Photo/
MARK RALSTON)

Paris (AFP) - Scientists freely acknowledge they don't know everything about how global warming affects hurricanes like the one pummelling southeast Texas.

But what they do know is enough to keep them up at night.

The amplifying impact of sea level rise, warming oceans, and hotter air -- all incontrovertible consequences of climate change -- is basic physics, they say.

Likewise accelerated shifts in intensity, such as the sudden strengthening that turned Harvey from a Category 2 to a Category 4 hurricane -- on a scale of 5 -- just as it made landfall Friday.

What's missing is a detailed track record of hurricanes past, the kind of decades-long log of measurements that climate scientists need to discern the fingerprint of human influence.

Starting in the 1970s, satellite data allowed for a better tally, but even that wasn't enough.

"It is awfully difficult to see climate change in historical data so far because hurricanes are fairly rare," Kerry Emmanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT in Boston, told AFP.

Experts, in other words, do not disagree on the potential of manmade global warming to magnify the destructive power of the tropical storms known variously around the world as cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons.

Scientists fear that as the effects of climate change become ever more apparent, 

storms will rapidly gain strength just before hitting land, with ever more 

devastating consequences (AFP Photo/MARK RALSTON)

Rather, they are confounded -- for now -- by a lack of information.

"Just because the data don't allow for unambiguous detection yet, doesn't mean that the changes haven't been occurring," noted James Kossin, a scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Center for Weather and Climate in Madison, Wisconsin.

Kossin figured out that cyclones have drifted poleward in their respective hemispheres over the last three decades, a finding hailed by other hurricane gurus as the most unambiguous evidence so far that global warming has already had a direct impact.

Like a tsunami

When it comes to cyclones and climate change, there are many points of near "universal agreement," said Emanuel.

One is the consequence of rising seas.

"The most lethal aspect of hurricanes -- wherever they occur in the world -- is storm surge," he said in an interview.

"It is physically the same phenomenon as a tsunami, except that it is excited by wind rather than a sea floor shaken by an earthquake."

If Hurricane Sandy -- which caused $50 billion in damage -- had happened a century earlier, it probably would not have flooded lower Manhattan because sea level was about 30 centimetres (a foot) lower, he pointed out.

Global warming is likely to add roughly a metre (three feet) to the global watermark by century's end, according to recently revised estimates.

The most lethal aspect of a hurricane is storm surge -- which is becoming more

 devastating and more penetrating (AFP Photo/Iris ROYER DE VERICOURT, 

Jean-Michel CORNU, Alain BOMMENEL)

"The surge from these storms will be more devastating -- higher and more penetrating," said James Elsner, an atmospheric scientists and hurricane expert at Florida State University.

A second point of consensus is that hurricanes will hold more water, raising the threat of lethal and destructive flooding.

"We calculate that one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming translates into a seven percent increase in humidity in the atmosphere," said French scientist Valerie Masson-Delmotte, co-chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The US National Hurricane Center predicts that Harvey could dump more than 40 inches (100 centimetres) by the time skies clear.

Hurricane Mitch -- the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record -- left some 19,000 dead in Central America, "all from fresh-water flooding," noted Emanuel.

"The irony is that hurricanes are known for wind, yet wind is third on the list of lethal aspects," after storm surges and flooding caused by rain.

'Fewer but stronger'

Earlier this year, Emanuel published a study pointing to yet another worrying climate "signal" emerging from the noise of raw data.

Scientists have made great progress in anticipating the path a storm will follow, extending their predictive powers from a day or two to about a week.

Hurricane Harvey is the most powerful storm to hit the US mainland in more than a 

decade, destroying homes, severing power supplies and forcing tens of thousands

of residents to flee (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

At the same time they have made scant headway in forecasting hurricane strength.

"The thing that keeps forecasters up at night is the prospect that a storm will rapidly gain strength just before it hits land," Emanuel said, citing Harvey as an example.

In 2015, Hurricane Patricia in the Pacific Ocean intensified more rapidly -- "It just went 'Boom!'" -- than any storm on record.

"Global warming can accentuate that sudden acceleration in intensity," Emanuel said.

A finding oft cited as evidence that the jury is still out on whether climate change will boost cyclones is that scientists don't know if there will be more or fewer such storms in the future.

But even if there are fewer, which seems likely, that misses the point, the experts interviewed agreed.

Since 1971, tropical cyclones have claimed about 470,000 lives and caused some $700 billion in damages globally, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters.

But most of that death and destruction is attributable to a relative handful of storms. Just three, for example, have caused well over half of all storm-related deaths in the US since 1900.

So even if the number of mostly smaller storms diminishes, that's not what counts.

"The idea of 'fewer but stronger' seems to be the fingerprint of climate change on tropical cyclones," Elsner concluded.

Scientists acknowledge they don't know everything about how global warming affects hurricanes like the one in Texas https://t.co/Mce8WetUt4 pic.twitter.com/5m9N1xdgLo

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 27, 2017

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"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

(Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Weather

Let's talk about the weather. We retreat to exactly what we told you before in this very chair. The water cycle is a cooling cycle, not a heating cycle. You're going to have more severe winters and storms. It's going to get colder. But it gets warmer before it gets colder. That is the cycle, and it has always been the cycle. You can see it in the rings of the trees and the cores of the ice. Don't let your scientists pull the political wool over your eyes for their own purposes. Start seeing these things for what they are. It's a recurring cycle based on four Earth alignment attributes, including the wobble (the precession). You're in this cycle. Prepare.

The beginnings of it will be with you from now at least until the end of the 2012 36-year window, and you can watch it work. The first thing that happens is that the ice melts at the poles, but not completely. It's the way it has happened before. As the redistribution of weight from the poles to the oceans of the earth takes place, the weight is redistributed to the crust, and that creates earthquakes. And the earthquakes that will be the most powerful are the ones that are closest to the poles. We told you that some time ago. So it's not a mystery that suddenly you have some of the most powerful earthquakes that you've ever had. Not only that, but a cooling ocean creates larger storms.

What do the conspiracists do with all this? "See? We're doomed. Here it comes," they say. "Here it comes! The end is here!" Twenty-two years ago, we gave you the information that is happening today. We told you about the weather. We told you to get ready for it, but we still haven't told you why the water cycle is needed. We've hinted at it since it is very controversial, and we'll lose many readers right here and now. Here's the prediction: The scientists are going to laugh and biologists are going to scratch their heads and roll their eyes.

The Refreshing of the Cycle of Life

When you change the temperature of the waters of the planet, it changes the life cycle of the ocean and it eventually renews itself. The life cycle of the planet has a limit to its viability over time. There has to be a refreshing of the very cycle of life, and this is what the water cycle does. Are there any places you've seen too many fish lately? Yes. Millions of salmon in the north. Odd that it was in Alaska, isn't it? Alaska is very close to the poles where the water temperature is being felt first. Oh, again the experts will tell you that this is not the reason. It's about hatcheries and rivers. But nobody predicted this, did they? Science is fast to give you reasons, but slow to give you logic in advance. They always seem to be surprised.

We are saying things we haven't said before. Again, watch for this, an actual change in the life cycle of the planet's oceans because of the water temperature shift. Biologists are going to have to start redesigning the paradigm of how everything works, including reefs, ocean bottoms, and how plankton survive and reproduce. Listen, this is not the first time that the life cycle has been refreshed! But again, this may take generations of humanity to complete. In the process, you may again lose species. This is normal. Gaia is slow, and Humans are impatient. Your textbooks may someday tell of how naive humanity was back in 2011 when they tried to blame weather changes on everything but a natural cycle. Now you know why there is a water cycle.

So what does that tell you about Gaia? Gaia is beginning the cycle of refreshing life on over-fished oceans. It tells you that in the cracks, there is love and caring about the Humans who live on the earth. There's a reason you're here. There's a plan here, and a benevolent Universe and quantum energy with intelligent design. All is there for you, precious, sacred Human Being. …”