A suggestion the Great Gale of 1821 was worse than Hurricane Sandy, and Alarmists are wrong to suggest otherwise.
Guest post by Caleb Shaw
While I am often humbled, when it comes to predicting the weather, I did correctly predict the fact that, when the inevitable happened, and a hurricane did clobber the East Coast, that certain individuals would use the event to promote their Global Warming Agenda.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/21/hurricane-warning-mckibben-alert/
The chief fact used, in the Alarmist argument about Sandy, is the simple truth the tide which New York City experienced during Sandy “beat the record.” This gives Alarmists the chance to dust off their favorite word, “unprecedented.” They love that word, because by suggesting something is, “without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled,” they somehow manage to convince themselves it means something has gone haywire; something is dreadfully wrong.
There are two good ways to calm such people down. First, it is helpful to explain to them that every newborn child is “unprecedented,” and “without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled,” because each newborn has fingerprints like none ever seen before on Earth. Therefore, there is no reason to panic. In fact, a new baby, and newness in general, is actually a delightful thing. Without newness life gets pretty darn boring.
In fact, that is why it is so much fun to try to predict the weather, even though you are bound to be humbled. Weather is always producing things never seen before. Weather is forever fresh and new.
The second way to calm down Alarmists is to point out hurricanes have happened before, and have actually been worse. Alarmists will then, of course, state no storm has ever been as bad as Sandy, for none had such a surge in New York. At this point you need to pat the back of their hand, say “now-now” and “there-there,” (and a few other anxiety-reducing things,) and ask them how much they know about the 1821 storm that set the “old” record.
Most Alarmists fail to study history much. Unfortunately, most don’t want to. They have their minds made up, because they hunger for an impossible thing called “closure,” which has a side effect of creating a closed mind. However if you coddle them, and ask them to “listen just to humor you,” you might get them to look at the history of the Great Gale of 1821.
Unlike Sandy, that hurricane didn’t dawdle. It came ripping up the coast, and was in and out of New York in a matter of hours. The people of the time reported a tide 13 feet above the ordinary high tide, but the best studies put the peak tide at 11.2 feet. Sandy reached 13.88 feet.
(You cannot fail to notice how much more scientific we have become. Back in 1821 they only measured a surge in tenths-of-a-foot. Now we measure in hundredths.)
Simple arithmetic suggests the 1821 storm’s high water was 2.68 feet lower than Sandy’s. However the interesting thing about the 1821 storm is that it came barreling through at dead low tide. Tides in New York vary roughly 6 feet between low and high tides.
Therefore, to be fair, it seems you should add six feet to the 1821 storm, if you want to compare that storm with Sandy’s surge at high tide. This would increase the 1821 high water to 17.2 feet.
On top of that, you have to factor in the influence of the full moon during Sandy. That adds an extra foot to the high tide. Add an extra foot to the 1821 score and you have 18.2 feet.
Joe D’Aleo at WeatherBELL brought up yet another fascinating factor: 1821 was at the end of the Little Ice Age, when a great chill had cooled the oceans. Because water contracts when it cools, the seas were roughly a foot lower back then. Therefore, to be fair, we need to add yet another foot to the 1821 storm, which gives us a total of 19.2 feet.
Joe Bastardi, also over at WeatherBELL, can do better than that. All you need to do is shift the track of the 1938 “Long Island Express” hurricane, with it’s last minute jog to the northwest, eighty miles to the West-by-West-southwest, and you have a storm surge of well over twenty feet surging up the Hudson River. That is practically a tsunami, and likely would reach Albany.
In other words, Sandy wasn’t so tough. In some ways, Sandy was a Wuss, and an imperfect storm, compared to 1821, which had wind gusts toppling chimneys in Philadelphia, entire houses in New York City, and flattening forests up through New England.
In conclusion, things could get a lot worse for New York City, even if storms are not a bit “unprecedented.” Things could be worse even if they are ordinary!!!!!
It helps a lot if you get a bit wild-eyed, as you say this. Alarmists are better able to listen to wild-eyed types, than they are able to listen to dull, factual sanity.
It might help even more if you grab them by the lapels and repetitively hoist them up and slam them down, launching into a rave. You’ll have to make up your own rave, (and it helps a lot if you practice the wild-eyes in a mirror beforehand,) but my own rave would be something like this:
“You stupid, ignorant, son-of-a-Susquash! We have known for decades New York‘s subways would flood in a perfect storm. It was a real threat. Why didn‘t we build flood-gates, to close up the subways in the face of storm surges or even earthquake tsunamis? Why did we waste billions on windmills and Solyndra?…”
You can move on from there, but in some cases all your efforts will be in vain.
Never stop trying, for you never know when an idiot might be redeemed, but don’t be discouraged if you fail, for in some cases explaining Truth to Alarmists is preaching to the mire.
We speak ‘murican over here, and logic has been banned in many schools (in public schools it is considered not PC. Religious schools – except Catholic – regard it as a – ah, fundamental – threat.
Monty says:
November 2, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Wishful thinking. Dream on.
No one mentions the jet stream, which played Irene one way and Sandy the other. The jet stream has natural variability.
Matt G. You think that’s how hurricanes work? You and WUWT are made for each other!
Monty says:
November 2, 2012 at 1:17 pm
“However, whether a storm is as big or bigger than one in the past is utterly irrelevant. It’s the recurrence interval that is important.”
Monty, you are digging yourself in a deeper hole, hurricanes that have hit the USA have been weaker and the interval less frequent over recent decades than virtually all the time since the 1850’s.
Calling us not skeptics is also a joke, you ignore all the data and questions presented to you.
Monty says:
November 2, 2012 at 1:35 pm
No I don’t think that’s how they work, it is a lot more complicated than that. I am waiting for my question to be answered.
“Describe the basic laws of physics that determine the difference between a natural hurricane and a AGW one.”
Keith AB says:
November 2, 2012 at 3:00 am
Unfortunately the MSM has got hold of the AGW meme and are thrashing it to death now.
How right, just watched CNN’s Amanpour and guest, former NY Governor Elliot Spitzer tell me Sandy is the future. She did mention afterwards that “although global warming didn’t cause Sandy, it made the effects worse.” Huh?? Of course the governor thinks things like cap and trade and Obama standing atop the statue of liberty with his back pocket full of tax dollars facing down the tempest, shouting “be still – though shall not pass” will avert any such future event. I actually used to like her, now, sadly if they tell me the time, I check my watch for myself.
Monty answer it,
“Describe the basic laws of physics that determine the difference between a natural hurricane and a AGW one.”
I’ll give you the basic physics, so answer the above question.
Factors
Waves in the trade winds in the Atlantic Ocean—areas of converging winds that move along the same track as the prevailing wind—create instabilities in the atmosphere that may lead to the formation of hurricanes.
The formation of tropical cyclones is the topic of extensive ongoing research and is still not fully understood.[39] While six factors appear to be generally necessary, tropical cyclones may occasionally form without meeting all of the following conditions. In most situations, water temperatures of at least 26.5 °C (79.7 °F) are needed down to a depth of at least 50 m (160 ft);[40] waters of this temperature cause the overlying atmosphere to be unstable enough to sustain convection and thunderstorms.[41] Another factor is rapid cooling with height, which allows the release of the heat of condensation that powers a tropical cyclone.[40] High humidity is needed, especially in the lower-to-mid troposphere; when there is a great deal of moisture in the atmosphere, conditions are more favorable for disturbances to develop.[40] Low amounts of wind shear are needed, as high shear is disruptive to the storm’s circulation.[40] Tropical cyclones generally need to form more than 555 km (345 mi) or 5 degrees of latitude away from the equator, allowing the Coriolis effect to deflect winds blowing towards the low pressure center and creating a circulation.[40] Lastly, a formative tropical cyclone needs a pre-existing system of disturbed weather, although without a circulation no cyclonic development will take place.[40] Low-latitude and low-level westerly wind bursts associated with the Madden-Julian oscillation can create favorable conditions for tropical cyclogenesis by initiating tropical disturbances.[42]
Monty says:
November 2, 2012 at 12:56 pm
I’m afraid you guys are on the wrong side of history. You will argue that this is all natural or climate sensitivity is low for ever. That’s why you aren’t ‘skeptics’. You are trying to argue against fairly basic laws of physics and you lost the scientific argument in about 1896. Now, with Sandy, you are losing the political argument too and Sandy may just have cost the Republicans the White House.
The Germans have a great word for this. It’s schadenfreude.
Monty, Monty, Monty. Whatever shall we do with you?
Arrhenius predicted a 1.6C warming effect from a doubling of C02. It was his fervent hope that this would stave off another ice age, as well as create a climate that was a bit warmer, and more life-friendly. All things being equal, he was correct, and noone here disputes the basic physics. The trouble is that with climate, not all things are equal. If you were actually the climate scientist you claim to be, you would know this. You need to aquaint yourself with the negative feedbacks. Climate just isn’t following along with the climate models, and it’s a travesty for the true Believers such as yourself.
Whether or not Sandy costs Romney the election is highly questionable, and a moot point anyway. All of the palaver and hype about it by the MSM is just as likely to galvanize Republicans as well as cause Independents to vote for him.
I’m OK with the thousands of climate changers and progressers who lost their homes and everything they had in Sandy, not having the right to rebuild on the land they own, and having to give it all back to mother earth without compensation.
Matt G: isn’t Google wonderful! Warm waters are required aren’t they. I wonder why ocean surface waters are warming?
Bruce: negative feedbacks? Which ones are these then? Forget about cloud iris effects….they probably don’t exist. If the feedbacks were negative then we couldn’t get into an ice age, nor out of one. No serious scientist disputes that feedbacks to C02 warming are essentially positive. You can’t explain the paleo record with low S or negative feedbacks. You ‘skeptics’ are always arguing for a global MWP and LIA and conveniently forget that this would suggest higher rather than lower sensitivity. Talk about holding two mutually contradictory ideas in your heads! Any you accuse people like me of being unscientific!
I understand that it must be ‘inconvenient’ for you but that’s just the way it is. If you think all the feedbacks are negative then why don’t you publish your ‘research’? It’s all right…I’m not going to wait!
Anyway, your minds appear to be closed. At least Sandy looks like it will have helped scupper the climate skeptics in the Republican party.
Ask the people from North East US if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. This planet will eventually shake us all off like a bad case of flees. We all need to learn to be more self sufficient and not depend on the government to take care of us. Just ask those people who live on Staten Island NY, how well big government is working out for them this week.
SurvivalBlog.com
The Daily Web Log for Prepared Individuals Living in Uncertain Times.
George Carlin – Saving the Planet
Monty says:
November 2, 2012 at 2:57 pm
It’s saves me time then trying to remember them and typing them out, but you can’t even answer the question so your view on hurricanes that AGW caused it is completely down to ignorance. I wonder why you have not even read the basic physics that I have even presented. The reason is because hurricanes need a lot more than just warm water to occur, so again that shows your ignorance.
re Negative feedback’s, look up the water cycle. The rest of this is nonsense, if feedback’s were negative we couldn’t get into an ice age or out of one? Please do explain that one. So if feedback’s are positive we couldn’t get into a hot house or out of one? The feedback to CO2 requires water vapor and you can’t have water vapor in the cycle without some negative feedback. Unless you think low clouds don’t cool the planet when blocking the sun?
Billy Liar says:
You appear not to know that the tidal datum is an arbitrary thing and that the lowest astronomical tide is not necessarily 0 feet with reference to the tidal datum. In the case of The Battery in NYC, the tidal range is 7.5 feet, from 1.3 feet below the tidal datum to 6.2 feet above the tidal datum so the statement that Tides in New York vary roughly 6 feet between low and high tides is patently false.”
While all this is true, I don’t think it has much affect on my statements about the tides.
Specifically, the top post said “On top of that, you have to factor in the influence of the full moon during Sandy. That adds an extra foot to the high tide.”
The predicted tide at the Battery on the evening of Oct 29 was only 4.7 feet , not 6 feet + 1 more foot.
And since the 1821 hurricane hit at low tide AWAY from a spring tide , then the low tide was probably somewhere near 1 foot, which would subtract a foot from the top post’s estimate.
Certainly the 1821 had an impressive and dangerous storm surge, but there is no reason to be an “alarmist” about that hurricane and overplaying the severity by 2 ft or more in comparison with Sandy this year.
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And yes, I have dialed back the “two hurricanes in one year” from “unprecedented” to merely “very unusual”.
Matt G: warmer ocean waters impact hurricanes. Other things are also clearly important (ENSO, wind shear etc) but warm waters are too. Why are the oceans warming?
Sea level rise is important. How often do you think we will have overtopping events with 1-2m slr by 2100? Do you think they will be more or less often than now? Do you agree that rising SST will make hurricanes more or less powerful?
If you think negative feedbacks dominate then explain how glacial-interglacial transitions work.
Honestly, this is isn’t even Climate Science 101. I’m amazed at your inability to understand how the carbon cycle works during glaciations. Isn’t this supposed to be a science website?
Rhys Jaggar says:
November 2, 2012 at 5:26 am
We have a version of all this in the UK, it’s called: ‘the closer the weather happens to London, the more catastrophic it is!’
Absolutely right, but I would like a warning in the future since my nose is not well built for hot coffee. 🙂
Since Bronco Bamma promised to lower the sea level all this hot air about AGW and hurricanes could backfire on him as a broken promise.
This rush to restore power and gasoline supply is inconsistent with the warmy rhetoric. FEMA should be issuing solar panels and bicycles. Ban cars and gasoline. A perfect opportunity to move NY to a sustainable off-grid utopia is being wasted. It is irresponsible to return to emitting CO2 now that the proof is in as to what caused the damage.
As Monty says, simple physics.
/sarc
Monty says:
November 2, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Why are the ocean warming?
http://imageshack.us/scaled/landing/823/had3vlowcloudvsolar2.png
The sun heats the ocean more when there are less low level clouds globally.
“Sea level rise is important. How often do you think we will have overtopping events with 1-2m slr by 2100? Do you think they will be more or less often than now? Do you agree that rising SST will make hurricanes more or less powerful?”
Warming global SST’s have had little influence on more powerful hurricanes since 1850’s so far. The only exception seems to be with the AMO for frequency of them, but this is also sketchy at best. The jet stream has more influence on hurricanes than SST’s generally, but this is not clear either. Over the next 2 or so decades I do think hurricanes will increase, down to the general position of the jet stream changing. Also the period has been the quietest over recent decades since the 1850’s so only a matter of time until it picks up again.
“If you think negative feedbacks dominate then explain how glacial-interglacial transitions work.”
The evidence shows that neither positive or negative feedback’s dominate for too long, they tend to complement each other eventually mainly down to the sun. The negative feedback’s dominate for longer periods than positive due to the major ice ages lasting roughly 6 times longer than inter-glaciers over the recent 3-4 millions of years. The sun giving enough energy keeps the planet from becoming one constant negative feedback and wakes the planet up from ice ages roughly about every 100,000 years. Overall there are both negative and positive feedback’s, but the sun determines which one becomes more dominate over long periods.
WOW the trolls are sure getting desperate. Most of them aren’t even close to making any sense.
Just for reference, here is a link to a Project Gutenberg text, The Complete Story of the Galveston Horror from 1915, before satellite weather–they did not know this one was coming . . .
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34304/34304-h/34304-h.htm
Not recommended for the tender-hearted!
The average strength of all atlantic hurricanes and tropical storms, taken together, has not increased over the last 160 years:
Hurricane/Tropical Storm Strengths, 1851 to 2010
I’d like to thank all for their comments, even those who were less than flattering. I’ve spent the day hurrying to cut and load the back of my pick-up with firewood, due to the chance winter may start early next week, (according to Joe Bastardi.) It is really nice to sag in front of my computer and see so many have taken the time to respond.
One interesting confusion seems to involve tides and the “surge.”
Although I now live in the hills, I spent a large part of my youth on and beside the sea, in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts; Casco Bay, Maine; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Galveston, Texas (briefly;) and Santa Cruz, California. I also sailed from Boston, with big tides, to the Bahamas, with much smaller tides. So I do know a thing or two about tides.
In my experience full moons and new moons give you high high tides and low low tides, while half moons give you rather boring tides. For example, right after the half moon on November 6 Boston will have a high tide of 8.7 feet, while after the New Moon on November 13 gives Boston a high tide of 12.4 feet on November 15. That’s nearly two feet of difference, without any storm involved.
I recall, as a boy, being warned not to look at the sun during an eclipse over Cape Cod, and the amazing height of the tide after that eclipse. Also the low tide was amazingly low, and I was able to explore places usually covered by water. The weather was calm and cloudless.
Officially, the “surge” is the mathematical discrepancy between the level the water “should” be, according to your local tide charts, and the level the water actually is.
If a storm hit at dead low tide in Boston, a storm surge of twelve feet would only amount to an ordinary full-moon, high tide. However if it hit at high tide you’d have a tide twelve feet above an ordinary high tide, which would be an utter disaster for waterfronts.
I think a confusion arises because most people don’t care about tide charts and mathematics. All they care about is how high the water gets. Their definition of “surge” is not the same as the truly scientific definition. They just have a stick driven into the beach, with numbers on it, or a wall on Main Street, with a line painted on it. They simply say, “This is how far the water came up in 1821, this is how far it came up in the 1938 hurricane, this is how far it rose during Hazel in 1954, and this is how far it came up a couple of days ago, during Sandy.”
While it may be true such people don’t understand the rhythms of the tide, and the mechanics of a “surge,” you have to admit they are dealing with a fundamental reality. Who really cares why or how the water gets as high as it does, and about the phase of the moon and the status of the tide? What really matters is the yacht approaching your picture window, and the fact your Toyota is floating away.
My assumption is that, when I read the surge in 1831 was 11.2 feet and Sandy’s surge was 13.88 feet, it was not a measurement of the scientific and mathematical “surge,” but rather was a line drawn on the side of an old building on Staten Island.
We could skip a lot of our bickering if we could agree that this common-tongue definition of “surge ” is the one currently in use, and not the more scientific definition.
This is a slightly off-topic sideline, but I’ve been wondering about how far the storm surge moved up the Hudson River. After all, the Hudson River is tidal past Albany to Troy. If you have a surge hit in New york, shouldn’t it continue up the river? Or is it choked by The Narrows and dispersed by the width of the river at Tappen Zee?
Caleb says:
November 2, 2012 at 7:29 pm
I’d like to thank all for their comments, even those who were less than flattering. I’ve spent the day hurrying to cut and load the back of my pick-up with firewood, due to the chance winter may start early next week, (according to Joe Bastardi.) It is really nice to sag in front of my computer and see so many have taken the time to respond.
One interesting confusion seems to involve tides and the “surge.”
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I haven’t commented on your post yet but I’ve enjoyed and respect what and how you’ve put your post and comments that I’ve seen. You have a nice way of “putting things in neutral” while still going forward.
Tides and surges. Tides are what gravity (other than the Earth’s) does to water and surges are what weather does to water. (Maybe seismic stuff also.) Most people only notice a surge when the water level is higher than high tide so lots of surges aren’t noticed or noteworthy. Is that about right?
Another thing people don’t seem to comprehend is what a “surge” actually is.
Various things cause the ocean to rise. The gravity of the moon and sun cause the tides, which slosh to and fro in the ocean basins, and are accented by funneling shorelines in certain places.
Also, if the wind blows strongly onshore for a long period, it can “pile up” the water.
However a “surge” is a quite different thing. The best way to envision it is to stick a straw into your favorite beverage, and thoughtfully suck. You mouth is creating low pressure, which causes the beverage to rise up the straw. In the same way, the eye of a hurricane is a mouth of low pressure, sucking water upwards. However, in the case of a hurricane, the “straw” is many miles wide, and the “beverage” is the mighty sea, and a hurricane sucks the liquid higher than you ever possibly could.
If you don’t believe me, just get a straw thirty feet long, and climb up a ladder thirty feet tall, and attempt to suck up a mouthful of your favorite beverage. You’ll be blue in the face before you get the liquid half way to your mouth. Yet a hurricane can lift the sea thirty feet, in the case of extreme Force Five storms.
What you then have is a big mound of ocean, traveling along under the hurricane like a big wave. One thing which has recently become apparent, due to our increased scrutiny of such storms, is that the mound of water does not shrink as swiftly as the storm weakens. Therefore, even when a storm such as Katrina weakens from Force Five to Force Three, the mound of water it brings may be a Force Five wall of water.
The people down on Staten Island need to be forgiven for not understanding what a surge would be like. It is something which defies human understanding, because it is outside our ordinary experience. The oceans simply starts rising. It keeps rising. And rising.
The next time you are lolling on a towel on a beach, just imagine the water came up thirteen feet over a short period of time. It wouldn’t just wet your towel. It would float away your car in the beach parking lot. And that is without the howling wind and pelting rain.
A “surge” is something you can’t really imagine until you learn about it first hand. Until you see it, you can’t believe it.