From Live Science
An extremely dangerous storm is slicing toward northwestern Alaska and is expected to bring blizzard conditions and hurricane-strength winds to the state’s west coast. The storm, which formed from a mix of air masses over an area of ocean prone to spinning up strong storms, could be bigger than anything ever seen in the 49th state, the National Weather Service warned.
…
The storm is the product of warm air in the Pacific Ocean tapping into the cold air off Siberia, picking up speed in a jet stream near there and then intensifying as it moved into the Bering Sea – “a place where storms typically intensify,” Brader told OurAmazingPlanet.
The weird storm has an unusually long fetch length, which is the length of the wind blowing in a single direction over water. In this case it’s maybe 1,000 miles (1,600 km), Brader said.
To envision what a long fetch length will do, think about blowing wind with your mouth over a bowl of water; the water piles up at the opposite end. The same thing happens over the ocean. The stronger and longer the fetch length, the bigger the waves it will create.
The winds from the current storm will push high waves ashore and create widespread coastal flooding and severe erosion of the coastline, the NWS warns. Sea levels could rise as much as 10 feet (3 meters) above normal in the Norton Sound and along the Bering Strait coast.
We all know that everything is attributable to global climate warming change disruption, so two points to the first commentor who can post a source attributing the storm or resulting flooding to our old friend…
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I know this isn’t close to the first but thought I’d pass it along because it is available.
Dr. Master’s is indirectly attributing this to Al Gore’s Warming by identifying the climate has changed the amount of sea ice available to slow down the waves.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html
RE: Pamela Gray “….These molecules sink to the bottom of the ocean, loaded with heat (which is what makes them heavier)…..”
Great humor! Sometimes, when debate is futile, it really helps to reduce things to absurdity.
This is the strongest storm in that Alaskan area since November, 1974.
The US outbreak this year of F3-F5 tornadoes was the worst since 1974.
The flooding in eastern Australia this year was the worst since 1974.
The common thread is a strong La Nina in both years.
Closest I could come is from our friend Dr. Serreze:
“Arctic sea ice this year reached the second-lowest coverage since satellite records began in 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
“”Forty years ago, a big storm like this would come through and the sea ice would act as sort of a buffer,” said Mark Serreze, director of the Snow and Ice Data Center.”
http://news.yahoo.com/alaska-braces-epic-storm-evacuations-begin-020349170.html
Central pressure of 943mb – that’s quite some storm.
Seen one or two ‘cyclones’ in the 950s in the UK, but not 943.
.
As for the Katrina stuff, a geo-spatial analysis of those that died in New Orleans showed they were the old and sick and lived close to a failed levee and died of drowning or complications from loss of essential services.
http://www.dhh.state.la.us/offices/publications/pubs-192/KatrinaDeaths_082008.pdf
In other words, the people and city of New Orleans abandoned their sick and old people to die. A few dozen men in boats and a concerned neighborhood could have saved most of them.
Just curious, does Alaskan sea ice behave differently than Great Lakes ice or Chesapeake Bay ice when driven by wind and tide? I know on Lake Superior and in the Chesapeake the combination of high wind and above normal water level (water is piled up by the wind and/or tide) causes the ice to start moving. And believe me, what a sheet of ice miles wide and several inches or more deep does when it piles up on the shoreline is impressive! Ice mounds 10 to 30 feet high where we would drag our aluminum canoes to the top and sled down into the water (or onto the ice if any remained). When the ice finally disappeared, the shoreline would be altered. Bottom line, in my limited experience, shore ice does not protect anything when driven by wind and water. So when I read about ice protecting the shore when a storm like this hits, especially when high water accompanies the high winds, I am skeptical about the knowlege and experience level of the writer.
It’s elementary. These storms were frozen in the Arctic ice and unleashed by man’s use of fossil fuels. Do I get bonus points for using the movie plot line, too?
Strange. I didn’t get any invites to an Al Gore speech in Nome…
PaulC says:
November 9, 2011 at 3:13 am
Looks more like the start of an Ice Age. Warm water. Cold air. Heaps of snow
And snow fall on mountain tops that does not melt over the summer, with winter snow storms that begin earlier, as in October……
“Pamela Gray says:
November 9, 2011 at 5:56 am
Let us work, hope, and pray that we escape its grip on the more feeble and gullible minded folk.”
Unfotunately, there are more of them and they get to vote.
This kind of thing will reverse the shrinking glaciers perhaps. BTW, I haven’t heard a word about shrinking glaciers for about 2 years, or palm trees marching up Kilimanjaro, or Lake Chad shrinking to a kiddie pool, or the drying up of the Amazon basin…. I think its time for someone like Willis to take on this update.
Don B says:
November 9, 2011 at 8:21 am
“”This is the strongest storm in that Alaskan area since November, 1974.
The US outbreak this year of F3-F5 tornadoes was the worst since 1974.
The flooding in eastern Australia this year was the worst since 1974.
The common thread is a strong La Nina in both years.””
1974 is one of my analog years for 2011 in my forecast method, on the 13th of November, 2011 the lunar declinational position is at maximum North extent, which IMHO is driving the crest of the storm as the result of production of the lunar tidal bulge in the atmosphere.
I have data tabled for the Alaska forecast but development of the mapping process is still not finished to add Alaska to my forecast coverage area.(The developer is wondering why I am getting frustrated!)
Bangladesh used to be devastated by cyclone storm surges. e.g. Estimates of up to 500,000 people lost their lives due to the 1970 Bhola cyclone storm surge.
Construction of elevated cyclone shelters have strongly reduced the death rate. See: Windbreakers: Bangladesh Cyclone Shelter Architecture
Ah thanks all for the landslide info, probably what I was thinking of. I vaguely remember some saying about memory going…
The range of knowledge in the comments here never ceases to amaze me!
The PDO was also at a relative low in 1974 when another dangerous storm hit in Alaska. I do wish there were more discussion of the ocean cycles at this site.
I was in Alaska in the 1960’s. I was very interested in the fact that ships with cargo for Nome would anchor 10 to 15 miles off the coast and transfer the cargo to low draft barges to be brought to land. There was a very shallow shelf which extended offshore. The celestial tide was only about two feet peak to peak, but ships which could have reach wharves at normal conditions did not try since it took only a mild offshore breeze to cause a wind tide of several feet. I was told that wind tides of +- five feet were very common.
I did not spend much time in Nome, but in Teller (about 70 miles up the coast from Nome), I saw a drop of over three feet in a few hours in what I thought was a moderate wind. I suspect that a prediction of a ten foot change from a major storm may be very conservative.
Sorry if someone has already covered this, but could this Alaksan super storm have any connection with the recent “tilt” and rift in the IMF (not the International Monetary Fund) from a couple of days ago? The one that allowed all that solar wind in that created a lot of auroas?
To Crispin and Pamela,
I believe ggm was being facetious.
What is particularly funny – at least in my opinion – is that the arguments he lists are pretty much those given by all of the people who say we are going to see more severe weather events. That is about the extent of their science.
here you go
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/1109/Bering-Sea-storm-Has-global-warming-made-the-coast-more-vulnerable
I had seen in the Weather.com’s article yesterday about the “superstorm” a reference that went much like this. “Sea ice levels are much less than they were in the last major storm in 1974… so that [adds to the danger] here.” It’s not a direct quote, but I caught on right away and commented : (you may have to hunt for it and try to backtrack to the article)
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/superstorm-historic-alaska_2011-11-08?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150911767595533_27211642_10150911827205533&ref=notif¬if_t=open_graph_comment#f2800e0a2
my comment:
“Well, you know what will happen next… “human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!!”
Violent weather is attributed to a cooling planet. Cold fronts are more violent in their passage than warm fronts, at least so far as I have seen. But this storm is a big, very powerful storm.
As to the “lowered ice levels”- I don’t recall that sea ice forms as far south as Nome by November… I think it is usually way to north, north of the Bering Strait. Nome faces the northern Pacific well to the south of the Bering Strait. Anyone have the ability to check on this?
If I am right, it looks like global warming bias, that pseudo-religion of this day and age – carries the hysteria factor on this report instead of addressing the REAL problem – that a lot of people are in danger from a severe storm, and would probably need to evacuate before it arrives.
I’ll bet I am right on this and that this story was badly researched.”
———
Funny thing is I cannot find the claim to AGW / Sea ice levels in subsuquent articles today on TWC… I wonder if my little comment made a difference…
Spinifers says:
November 9, 2011 at 5:03 am
I ever-so-vaguely recall watching a video many years ago (pre internet) about a storm that caused waves to hit mountainsides 1/2 a mile high somewhere around… hm, either Valdez or Seward, I don’t remember now. I believe the storm was supposed to have happened before any settling of Alaska, it was all based on damage to the side of the mountain, trees, rocks, etc.
Meh I just don’t remember the details. Pretty sure it was a storm though and not an earthquake, such an event from an earthquake isn’t nearly as remarkable.
_____
No storm surges are ever that high, however, there are several other possibilities for the event you are referring to. One of those would be a tsunami, the largest ever recorded was in Alaska:
http://geology.com/records/biggest-tsunami.shtml
And the other potential for such a large flood of water would be a glacial dam-burst:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_lake_outburst_flood
Or a large landslide (earthquake caused or not):
http://www.geog.ufl.edu/syllabi/FALL-2011-COURSE-SYLLABUS/jm6348fallsyl.pdf
Adak island during the early cold war, must have been interesting.
Curiousgeorge
November 9, 2011 at 5:37 am
###
Adak island during the early cold war, must have been interesting.
(damn trying to move too fast 🙁 )
Blaming this storm on ongoing global warming assumes the presence of ongoing global warming. RSS monthly anomaly data updated through October was posted today at
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt The October anomaly was +0.089. I’ve listed the 12 values for 1995, and the 10 values so far for 2011. If the next 2 months (Nov+Dec) average lower than +0.139, then RSS for 2011 will be cooler than RSS for 1995. Similarly, if Hadley Oct+Nov+Dec anomalies average lower than +0.335, then Hadley 2011 will be cooler than Hadley 1997. We’re talking the other side of 1998 in both cases, which might wake some people up.
RSS anomalies
1995 2011
===== =====
0.178 0.085
0.133 0.051
0.037 -0.028
0.248 0.106
0.131 0.125
0.164 0.297
0.044 0.328
0.285 0.286
0.324 0.287
0.204 0.089
0.209
-0.053
===== =====
1.904 1.626