Did Global Warming Reduce the Impacts of Sandy?

Sorry for repost.
Glaciers have been static or melting since around 1750 according to Manley and glaciers in substantial retreat by 1850 which have been adding to sea level rise. But are things worse now than in the past?
The overwhelming impression I get from reading tens of thousand of mostly European (but primarily British) observations from the last 1000 years is that we live in a benign time and storms were often far worse in the past (which makes Sandy no less horrifying) .
Determining hybrid storms that ‘Sandy’ is said to be is a skilled job best left to those such as Anthony Watts or Judith Curry but can I refer you to the storm of 1717 which affected much of northern Europe and was centred on the north sea?
“It is clear that the ingredients of the severe storm of 24/25 December 1717 as many of the other historic storms here analysed, were a developing meditionality which injected warm very humid air from the south…at a time when very cold arctic air was advancing behind a cold front from the Iceland region.”
11 000 people were said to have died and 15000 houses destroyed at a time when the population was a fraction of today.
From the book “Historic storms of the North sea, British Isles and Northwest Europe” by Hubert Lamb which records the details of hundreds of storms. Many more reports lie undiscovered in such places as the archives of the Met Office which I regularly use for research
The storm surge of this and other storms was prodigious and seem to exceed by far the events of the modern era.
It might be very well worth reading up old books such as the one cited to see if there is any similarity with the ‘hybrid’ storm that Sandy is being called.. It may tell us that the future is like the past or quite unlike it, but it is worth doing
tonyb

For comparison, the influence of the full moon that night was about as large as the influence of anthropogenic global warming.
Actually, the influence of the full moon that night was considerably greater than the influence of anthropogenic global warming. Storm surges tend to run proportional to the prevailing tide, not on top of the prevailing tide, so that hurricanes that make landfall at high spring tide are much more damaging than ones that make landfall at low neap tide or for that matter low spring tide (which is even lower). A large storm is going to be driving water ashore across multiple parts of the tidal cycle, so that spring versus neap is a big deal.
The second thing that supports your assertion (and the coupled assertion that AGW was smaller than the influence of the full moon as far as storm surge height is concerned) is that weather systems are driven by temperature differentials, not temperature absolutes. It isn’t warm oceans per se, it is the contrast between warm oceans and low shear in the upper atmosphere where temperatures are cold that establishes the stable outflow required for a really powerful hurricane or other tropical storm. Sandy was the result of a rare confluence of warm tropical weather (producing a hurricane of indifferent strength but relatively large in size) and the contrasting cold ridge that both steered it and fed it even as the “tropical” characteristic of the storm was falling apart.
There is direct evidence that the level of peak “superstorm” violence in NA tropical storms is, if anything, decreasing across the current sustained flat peak temperatures that have held since the late 90’s. It has been seven years and counting since the last major hurricane came ashore in the United States:
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/major-hurricane-drought-us-20120814
Wilma in 2005 was the last category 3 or greater hurricane to come ashore in the US. Sandy wasn’t even a tropical storm as it came ashore; it was an extratropical nor’easter of unusual size. We are almost certainly not going to see a category three storm come ashore in 2012, as hurricane season is almost over — the north atlantic is visibly starting to cool. We are supposed to see the formation of another nor’easter this week, though — an extratropical storm still fuelled by warm water over the gulf but driven up to the level of a “storm” of substantial size by the inflow of cold air coming down from Canada. This storm may or may not end up being “super” as it dumps still more rain and storm surge on infrastructure not yet recovered from Sandy, but it illustrates very nicely that it isn’t the heat content of the ocean per se — the air and water temperatures are already well down from summer peaks — it is the juxtaposition of hot and cold reservoirs.
Historically this is equally apparent from records — many of the most violent storms are not associated with high temperatures per se, and many of the most violent storms we know of (and hurricane season itself) occur when the weather is cooling, not when it is warming — both tornadoes and hurricanes are favored when cold is juxtaposed with hot, the former when a cold front overruns warm air, the latter when low shear permits the establishment of an upflow “chimney” to the colder upper troposphere and stratosphere — the eye — so that cool air can flow in over the ocean, warming and picking up moisture, be lifted (violently) up in the eye, and then outflow in the colder UT while dropping both the heat and the water out of the air as precipitation, driven by self-organized-critical pressure differential created at the eye by the uplifting air;
rgb

There are facts, and then there is conjecture.
The fact is that hurricanes and post-tropical storms have been impacting the east coast for all of recorded time, and for a long time before Europeans discovered America. Because of this fact, it is logical (and prudent) to assume that hurricanes and post-tropical storms will continue to impact the east coast from time to time, at various locations, and with varying degrees of chaos and damage.
For that reason, it is imprudent to assume that just because a major storm has not impacted a certain area for a long time, that area is safe to build on or inhabit. Perhaps imprudent is not strong enough; it is actually irresponsible, perhaps even foolish.
It follows that, if you are going to build anything in an area known to be occasionally and randomly impacted by powerful and dangerous storms, such construction should be capable of surviving such a storm. Things such as roadways, railroad tracks, drainage, industrial and residential buildings all need to be designed with the foresight required to prevent tragedy when such a storm impacts them. On the west coast, especially in California, there are laws and rules about building construction that are designed to minimize damage in the event of earthquakes.
It is my understanding that in areas farther south, including Florida and Texas, which are more often impacted by even more severe storms, there is typically less damage because of decades of foresight and planning designed to reduce the human impact of such storms.
It should be obvious where I’m going with this. The areas impacted by post-tropical storm Sandy were not prepared for such a storm, but they should have been. While there wasn’t much that most individuals could do to reduce their personal losses, it is the responsibility of city, county and state planners to devise appropriate building codes, land usage rules, and other bylaws to reduce the impact of a natural disaster, and it appears to me that we are witnessing yet another failure of these local governments to fulfill their respective mandates.
Neither Katrina nor Sandy were excessively extreme storms to occur in their regions, however both impacted areas that had grown lax in their preparedness. It’s very fashionable to blame the vague, misty notions of human impact on the weather (er, climate), doing so is mere conjecture. The FACT is that these areas failed to do enough to prepare for the inevitable storms.
More storms, and even more powerful storms, will impact the east coast, with varying degrees of damage and chaos, no matter what we do to reduce CO2 emissions. Since altering our entire civilization and way of life will not reduce future storms, the logical course of action continues to involve preparedness and survivable design and construction in areas prone to such storms. Whether Sandy had a “measurable” or meaningful connection to any sort of human activity is absolutely meaningless. The fact is that it happened.
If AGW believers truly believed that Sandy represents “the new normal”, they would be vocal proponents of better preparedness and more intelligent design and construction of buildings and neighborhoods. Since their sole urging seems to be more about profit making and increased taxation to force others to use less petroleum, I have to assume that most don’t actually believe what they are so loudly claiming.

I just read of New Jersey’s small earthquake, which struck today in the wee hours. T’was but a tiny one, 2.0, the size said to be triggered by minor things like drilling a well.
But it will be scientifically established by chronically repeated conjecture that the earthquake was triggered by Sandy, from the massive influx into the water table, from the extraordinarily low pressure moving over the land, from whatever sounds passably plausible.
And it is already established fact among the denizens of the alarmist blogs that Sandy was caused by global warming.
Thus this will be a proven example of climate change causing earthquakes!

Great and sophisticated insight. But what about the 2 most basic reasons for weaker storms under rising temperatures ?
1. Historical evidence shows, that storms have been (much) stronger during the little ice age
2. Basic physics: Temperatures increase much faster around the poles, reducing temperature and thus energy potentials along longitudes.
And Pierce Corbin suggests that a new little ice age is imminent and therefore there is more to come…

About Sandy & the presidential race on Real Science I commented:
Look, everybody, someone should have spearheaded a major advertising campaign to change public opinion about climate change. It would have worked because 1) the arguments are on are side and most of the public doesn’t know these arguments, and 2) conservatives are fired up about the agw issue and would have donated huge $ to promote the self-financing anti-AGW ad campaign.
Changing opinion on climate change could have made a big difference in this campaign, not just in the presidential race, but in the senate and house races also. A huge number of Dem candidates, including O, would have been hurt if public opinion was moved a notch or two against climate change. And look at Sandy, O appears to have gotten a bump not just because he appeared presidential to some, but also because on the margins it reinforced his climate change message. PACS have spent a $billion or whatever on these campaigns. Why didn’t we spend just a fraction of that to change the foundation of public opinion with regard to climate change? Do it in 2013! I’ll try, but I won’t have the time etc to do it. Someone else do it. Again, just get started with an effective message, and donations will roll in. It will be self-financing!

Jeff says:
November 5, 2012 at 9:43 am
Okay, agreed then: anthropogenic global warming is a reality.
And so Jeff demonstrates perfectly the alarmists’ misunderstanding of the sceptical position.
Jeff: If one does accept AGW, there is still the debate over the magnitude, and whether AGW is “catastrophic” and also whether it is the dominant force given the myriad other forcings and feedbacks. Given the IPCC’s gross overestimates of temperature rise I would say those points are worth debating. It’s also worth noting that there has been no significant warming for well over a decade. Clearly other forces are at play. Alternatively you can believe (without evidence other than twisted models) that CO2 is dominant over H2O and the world and all its species are going to Hell.

Thanks for writing this. The alarmists allow for no positive impacts of global warming, it’s all bad all of the time. I’m not buying it.

No government funding for you! Signed the Climate Soup Bully. Good question and great info.

Is a little sanity creeping in?

David Appell.
“Even though many of them no doubt think we should be getting hysterical, blaming everything on climate change is as misleading as ignoring or denying it completely. More importantly, it’s ineffective, not least because it ruins your credibility. But clearly some activists have calculated that their PR message is worth the risk to their trustworthiness.”
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2012/11/fashionable-apocalypses.html

When there is a hurricane drought they stay silent. When ONE hits then it’s a sure sign of global warming. Never mind the data, THIS hurricane was caused by global warming. Yaaaawwwwn.

from the article:
” there exists a body of evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion—that anthropogenic global warming may have actually acted to mitigate the intensity of Sandy”
so far as i can tell, nobody has substantiated the belief in anthropogenic global warming in the first place.
you’ve heard of a ‘loaded question’? meet the ‘loaded answer’.
the technique of smuggling a hidden premise is a well known tool of the propagandist.
the effects of the belief in something unwarranted are well known.

@Chip
Well written and easily understood.
@rgb
Also very well argued and complete. A nice piece of writing.
Of all the hollow things claimed as proof of AGW the “super-storm” Sandy has to gong the loudest. What a boatload of crap.
I am sorry for all those who continue to suffer from the after-effects of the storm. For such an unprepared city as NYC it could easily have been far worse if the storm was more compact and had a well-developed eye.

Jimbo says:
November 5, 2012 at 1:22 pm

“”Is a little sanity creeping in?
David Appell.
“Even though many of them no doubt think we should be getting hysterical, blaming everything on climate change is as misleading as ignoring or denying it completely. ”
“

That’s only temporary. That other science journalist who became temporarily famous by pieing Lomborg also uttered something like that at one point. Don’t know his name anymore, too many of them throw stuff at people with a different opinion. Appell is still convinced we’re about to kill the Polar Bear.

Using simplistic Boolean logic, [A] the large cold-front was certainly Not caused by Global Warming and appears to be the result of the onset of an early winter being experienced across the Northern Hemisphere.
[A] :=False.
[B] the tropical cyclone ‘Sandy’ with hurricane force winds recorded offshore (it was not a hurricane at landfall) and it appeared during a normal hurricane season during a mild El Nino at the height of solar activity, It also had the component of a high tide. By it’s self, would ‘Sandy’ be considered unusual? certainly Not.
[B]:=False
[C] Is there a component to this ‘post-tropical cyclone’ caused by global warming? A+B=C
[C] = False.
This storm was simply two natural and separate systems forming under different circumstances and (opposites attract) they began interacting to form a larger cyclone formation which grew weaker and dissipated after land fall.
IMHO at the time, as I was watching the formation of these two systems I did wonder if the cold front would attract sandy westward.

Even Trenberth seems to have become remarkably constrained (perhaps recognizing that the average person can very easily read up on historical records):
http://www.livescience.com/24377-weather-climate-hurricane-sandy.html :

“In general, we estimate it increases the risk that the intensity of hurricanes can be somewhat greater and particularly the rainfall from hurricanes is about 5 to 10 percent greater than it otherwise would be,” Trenberth said.
In the case of 2005′s Hurricane Katrina, which dumped at least 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain along its track on the Gulf Coast, that means about 1 inch was attributable to climate change, Trenberth said. Sandy could dump similar levels of moisture over the Northeast.
Trenberth added that “there are signs” that storms of Category 3 and above are becoming more common, but warned that hurricanes show tremendous natural variability from year to year, driven largely by climate patterns set up by El Niño.

When Trenberth refers to climate change, he doesn’t say by what cause. He could be referring to climate change caused by GHGs, aerosols, solar variation, ocean cycles, land use changes, etc.
This is quite deliberate. Trying to equate all causes of climate change with CO2/GHG caused climate change.

“How much of this has to do with anthropogenic global warming? Maybe a third, or about 6 inches.”
This makes no sense. To claim that we are responsible for a third of the rise means that we are responsible for a third of the warming.
When we contribute only 3-5% of the CO2, which is only 3-5% of the greenhouse gases, the 33 deg C that we are supposed to have from greenhouse effect in the atmosphere overall becomes a mere 0.05 deg C contribution by man (ONLY if a greenhouse gas can warm the climate, which it cannot based on solid thermodynamic principles), only one 12th of the 0.6 deg of warming in the last 100 years. Cut this in half due to our 1950-to-now contribution and we have one 24th of the effect. One 24th of 17 inches is 7/10ths of an inch. This is negligible and can be ignored.

Jim Clarke says:
November 6, 2012 at 8:42 am
“The science is pretty clear that adding CO2 to the atmosphere, like we humans do, and all else being equal, the CO2 will cause some warming.”
CO2 does not cause warming, What CO2 does, is efficiently transport radiation at a certain wavelength in the infrared part of the spectrum, the more CO2 there is in the mix of a given volume of an atmosphere the more efficiently CO2 transports this radiation, meaning that its thermal properties will warm faster but also cool faster than the same given volume of an oxygen and nitrogen atmosphere, CO2 does not trap heat. clouds of water vapor can trap heat and block heat, CO2 does not. The thermal properties CO2 will not above a certain threshold where the more radiation to expose CO2 to after it reaches saturation it’s temperature will not rise further.
So therefore adding CO2 to an atmosphere like earths, where CO2 is already present will not raise temperatures above the typical thermal threshold that it’s known physical properties allow.
As far as agw goes, it’s a dud!

Sparks says:
November 6, 2012 at 4:14 pm
…
So therefore adding CO2 to an atmosphere like earths, where CO2 is already present will not raise temperatures above the typical thermal threshold that its known physical properties allow.

In fact, there may be other constraints which set the threshold even lower. Evidence seems to indicate so. Even very high (000s of ppm) levels have no detectable influence on the H20-cycle dominated GHEs; they are simply “swallowed” and readily and trivially counter-balanced.

Brian H says:
November 7, 2012 at 11:01 pm
Exactly Brian, well said, can I add, I have an engineering back ground, and I am not happy with the CO2 argument, that it produces warming. We after-all (engineers) design and build the process and control sensors and the software that climate scientists are using, I understand CO2 and it’s properties, and it does not produce heat. in reality CO2 is more efficient at transporting radiation than O2, mainly because of the carbon molecule. Brian, the stupidity is awe-inspiring.