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.
Before I conk out for the night, I’d like to make a final comment about the feasibility of waterfronts.
Hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy make waterfronts seem like a very bad idea. All sorts of structures are built with the assumption that the sea level is what the sea level is, and then are ruined because the sea level is abruptly thirteen or thirty feet higher, for a few hours.
However the logical conclusion, which is that we should ban waterfronts, is even a worse idea. The simple fact of the matter is that our commerce and economy is hugely dependant on waterfronts. All sorts of things, from the fish we eat to the fuel in our cars, are dependant on waterfronts.
The sane response is not to ban waterfronts, but rather to make them more resilient and able to recover from the occasional superstorm. In other words, build thoughtfully.
One thing struck me, when I revisited my old stomping grounds in Myrtle Beach after Hurricane Hugo. As I headed down the Grand Strand south of Myrtle Beach the damage got worse and worse, until I arrived at a stretch down near Merrill’s Inlet where there was nothing left of the shorefront properties but piling poking up towards the sky. But there was one exception to this rule; one lonely cottage standing alone on its pilings, with its staircases swept away, but still bravely a habitable structure.
Of course I became very curious and inquired, and what I discovered was that the owner of that particular cottage had gone the extra mile. While all his neighbors had build cottages on pilings twelve feet high, he spent a few extra bucks and built his cottage on pilings fourteen feet high.
In other words, build thoughtfully.
Phil. @ur momisugly November 2, 12:19 pm
Good to hear you survived Sandy OK Phil, but gosh, you say at least a dozen trees blown down in your neighbourhood! Did you ever hear about the big European storm in 1987 mostly wreaking southern coastal areas in England? It was reported that an estimated fifteen million trees were blown down, at a time near the start of the recent warming period. (the worst such storm since 1703).
An interesting account in Wikipedia is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1987
It seems that the high winds were the problem rather than spring tide, high population density, and tidal funneling etc
Good morning. Checking over various sites I’ve noticed there is some concern about what the nor’easter next week might do to unprotected shorelines. However after big storms the coast is not as unprotected as some imagine.
When I used to live along beaches I noticed that, during the winter, the beach’s sand gets eaten away, but an off shore sandbar gets built up. The off shore sandbar breaks waves further out, protecting the beach from further erosion. Then, during the summer, that off shore bar melts away and the beach builds back outwards. It is a natural cycle. Coastal geology is very mobile.
However I hope the nor-easter doesn’t happen. I think folk can use a long dose of sunshine.
1821, you say..? 1936..? Don’t believe you.
Everyone know that ‘climate’ started in 1975….
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Monty says:
November 2, 2012 at 2:57 pm
Bruce: negative feedbacks? Which ones are these then? Forget about cloud iris effects….they probably don’t exist.
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Evidence?
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.
Of course there’s regional positive feedbacks (the N hemisphere) — ice/snow albedo effects. The lower the latitude of the snow/ice, the greater the effect. That’s why the climate is so variable/unstable during glacial compared to interglacial (IG) periods. Seen the ice-core records? The variability of interglacials are much smaller. Why’s that? Pretty clearly, ice-albedo positive feedback is relatively subdued during IGs — the remaining glaciers are too far poleward to reflect much light. The slightly declining temps during the IGs correlate nicely w/declining N hemisphere summer insolation, so there’s no evidence of significant positive feedback.
So the question becomes — what about the overall global feedbacks? One would think positive feedbacks would keep the earth in a LGM-state (20 kyrs ago) forever, or even lead to an ice-ball. But no, it routinely, at ~100kyr intervals, overcomes that and briefly returns to an IG, correlating w/maximums of Milankovitch parameters. So even during the last 2 mil yrs, the climate is “cycling”, warm and cold, around a relatively constant mean. That’s the classic pattern of an overall negative feedback system.
I’m not convinced there’s any net CO2/water-vapor positive feedback. For positive feedback, more H2O vapor has to get up high. and that means more convection, clouds & greater albedo. There’s no evidence of significant positive feedback except the well-known ice – albedo effect.
Anthony has previously documented the expansion of lower Manhatten (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/28/freaking-out-about-nyc-sea-level-rise-is-easy-to-do-when-you-dont-pay-attention-to-history/). Anyone calculate what the in-filling of New York harbor and constriction of flood area by construction of sea walls contributed to the height of the storm surge as measured in lower Manhatten?
Caleb, you are a truely objective voice of reason. You have my sincere respect.
Went to Dr. Mann’s FB page, saw reference to an interview by Alan Colmes on FOX. Listened to interview – Mann says Sandy’s effects were worsened by the 1 foot increase in sea level. I went back to FB, posted a question how sea level rising millimeters per decade could exacerbate a storm surge, and something to the effect that I was not aware of any recent one foot sea level rise. Mann replied (Flattered!) but says :
Michael E. Mann comment byThomas L. Bowden Sr. “How does sea level rise measured in millimeters per decade relate to storm surge measured in tens of feet?” Response: Thomas–sea level rise at NYC past century was > 1 foot. More than 1 foot of the record-breaking 13ft coastal surge was arguably therefore due to SLR. Its the difference between a bad flood and a disastrous flood.
Then he revises response:
[Thomas L. Bowden Sr. claims hasn’t seen any mention of 1 foot of SLR anywhere] Response: Thomas, then you need to read up a bit more: http://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricane-sandy-climate-connection.html
That’s a helpful, (albeit patronizing) link that explains his frame of reference – If Sandy happened 100 years ago, maybe the subways would not have flooded. OK
But then he hides my initial question, and blocks me from further comments. Apparently, he “knows” I am not worth his time. Related the event and posed the question why I would be blocked over in the SkepticalScience thread and another blogger tells me “Dr. Mann is very busy – post your questions in a relevant topic discussion” HELLO this is the one he sent me to!
I know this is trivial and all, but it’s interesting to experience the smugness first hand. Maybe I was ignorant to ask the question – as no one seems to contest the 1 foot rise over the last 150 years or so, but that’s not really what I was asking and I think he was disingenous in the Colmes interview because in the context of the question, his response seemed to suggest he was talking about a recent AGW driven 1 foot increase. I guess if you are a paleoclimatologist, a hundred years is “recent” but it still seems a bit extreme to block me just for misunderstanding (or trying to clarify) his frame of reference.
Maybe it had something to do with posting this excerpt from the IPCC statement:
“The prize was awarded to the IPCC as an organization, and not to any individual associated with
the IPCC. Thus it is incorrect to refer to any IPCC official, or scientist who worked on IPCC
reports, as a Nobel laureate or Nobel Prize winner. It would be correct to describe a scientist
who was involved with AR4 or earlier IPCC reports in this way: “X contributed to the reports of
the IPCC, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.”
Monty says; 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.
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.
The Iris effect is one negative feedback. Sure, it hasn’t been “proven” definitively, but why “forget about it” – unless, of course, your mind is already made up. That’s it, isn’t it? Others include clouds – specifically fewer high thin ones and an increase in low, thick ones, all types of storms, particularly t-storms, cyclones, and hurricanes.
No one said anything about the feedbacks being all negative, so that’s a strawman. By “serious scientist”, you must mean folks such as yourself -you know, the ones whose minds are already made up.
I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high on Sandy delivering the political result you want, which would be the one keeping your CAGW gravy train rolling along for just a bit longer – at least until you retire, right?
What is going to happen in the discussions on Sandy’s “unpresidented storm surge” when someone posts documentation that the effect of Sandy was only 5 feet above what the tide level would have been without the effect of Sandy?
Well done article…. especially liked that ‘preaching to the mire’ 😉
On the nightly news one set of folks were moaning about several days without power and running out of food after 2 days… I can only wonder at them. Growing up ‘in the boonies’ we expected to have food on hand for a week, or two, or more. Having the power go out was common. We kept candles and Coleman Lanterns on hand. On person moaned about needing to throw out all the food in the Fridge…. They could have: Eaten it in a big party day one, used a camp stove to cook and preserve it, canned it, dried it, salted it (use water softener salt if needed), smoked it, etc etc etc. Of course, that takes the mind set of someone who doesn’t live in Manhattan…
What I keep ‘around the house and in the car’:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/crisis-kits-and-preparedness-packs/
Used in various storms, one 7.1 quake, and sometimes the food was used ‘between jobs’.
Oh, and all the folks in a panic over electricity could just plug this into a car:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/minimalist-emergency-power/
Or just one of those rechargeable ‘car jumper packs’ that sell for about $40 and have a cigarette lighter outlet on them too. Mine also has a nice built in light…
With an LED bulb, one of those packs would give a few WEEKS of lighting. Just leave it plugged into the wall to charge once a week while waiting for the “aw shit” to happen….
Yes, it takes a tiny bit of thinking ahead, and about $400 for the deluxe kit (or about $200 going cheap) and you, too, can have a disaster hit and just cruise right on through it…
In the (roughly) 30 years I’ve had these kits, I’ve used them about once per 5 years for one thing or another (not counting the day to day use of a tool, food, or money out of a kit ‘for convenience’ reasons). On one occasion, we could not get a hotel and at about midnight stopped the car in a KOA Campground instead. Used the ‘minimal’ car kit for everyone to stay warm sleeping in the car and have snacks and water. ( It was along the coast near Oregon and what wasn’t dead empty was booked solid). Space blankets work surprisingly well.
So while I have a lot of sympathy for the folks who lost so much, and hate to see the suffering involved; a little bit of preparation goes a very long ways. So “for next time”, maybe the folks there could stock up a bit on food, water, “camping” equipment…
BTW, as in a fit of “none to bright” it looks like several of the high rise buildings have their electrical switch rooms in the basements… that are flooded… even getting the power back on to lower Manhattan will not cure the residents power issues. (Per a local on the nightly news). They have to pump out, dry, and test / repair the electrical closet in the basements… and that is going to take a long while. Were I designing for such an area, I’d have put the electrical and switch gear on the 13th floor… but they didn’t ask me 😉
If you live within a mile of the shore in hurricane country, expect to be flooded and hungry in the dark at least once per lifetime, and probably more…
Re : DesertYote says:
November 2, 2012 at 5:59 pm
“WOW the trolls are sure getting desperate. Most of them aren’t even close to making any sense.”
Perhaps the problem is not one of trolling, but understanding what people accused of trolling are saying. Do you need some help with clarifying some claims that have been made that you don’t understand yet?
RE: fujirider says:
November 3, 2012 at 2:25 pm
I think it is good you asked Mann questions and were polite. While I do enjoy going nose to nose at times, it tends to get me excluded from discussions, except on sites like this. I have learned it is better to at least begin by being polite. Also questions are a great form of subtle debate. You just have to expect to sometimes get the “baffle them with b—sh–” answers. When you do get b—sh–, you can sometimes continue the discussion by playing dumb, and asking further questions beginning with, “I ‘m sorry, but I don’t understand how…” Eventually you may get some denigrating response about your low IQ, and how only Climate Scientists understand, However you have had an effect, and perhaps have caused a silent lurker witnessing that site to think more deeply.
I think it is important to hit the Alarmist sites. Not that I myself do so all that often, but in theory we should be constantly wearing them down.
It is wrong to assume all scientists working for the government are moochers and willingly involved in fraud. In my curiosity about the ice up at the north pole I have emailed various government departments, and received some wonderfully polite and detailed responses.
Long ago my Mother used to tell me, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” when I was crabby. Of course I would always respond, “Flies should be swatted.” However it doesn’t hurt all that much to be polite, and sometimes it can even be more satisfying than curses, especially when it gets the person you are debating knocked off balance, because he or she was insulting because they expected you to explode.
Regarding Mann stating the ocean rose ” > foot in NYC in 100 years,” my source was Joe D’Aleo over at WeatherBELL, and he commented it had risen roughly a foot since 1821, which is closer to two hundred years. (191 years to be exact.) I think I’ll inquire of him about his source.
There. Did it. I’ll tell you if he sends me his source.
Thanks Caleb – I look forward to learning the source of that information.
When talking about ‘Sea Level Rise,’ it is important to be able to distinguish between that due to an actual increase in sea-water volume and those due to tectonic or ground level changes in the land used as a reference.