I missed this announcement yesterday, but when I saw the word “paleotempestology” today, I immediately thought of Dr. Michael Mann, mainly because he throws tempests and everybody else studies them as examples of scientific silliness aka Tabloid Climatology™. Sure enough, after reading the breathless press release, he’s involved. – Anthony
What Paleotempestology Tells Scientists about Today’s Tempests
GSA Annual Meeting & Exposition: Technical Session, Wednesday, 7 November
Boulder, CO, USA – Understanding Earth’s paleo-hurricane record cannot be more timely and important in a light of Hurricane Sandy, which shocked the U.S. East Coast last week. Talks in this Wednesday afternoon session at the GSA Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, integrate field, lab, and model analysis of past hurricanes and future scenarios, covering a wide range of temporal and spatial scales.
Session co-organizer Daria Nikitina of West Chester University says that “gaining understanding of past events provides the context for future coastal vulnerability. Given predicted global warming, the frequency and magnitude of severe weather events will probably increase and with it the likelihood of more coastal devastation” like that witnessed in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut last week, as well as associated weather events further inland.
Presenter Scott P. Hippensteel of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte will talk on “The effectiveness of traditional paleotempestology proxies in backbarrier marshes from the Southeastern Atlantic Coast” at 2:55 p.m. Writing for the Geological Society of America’s science and news magazine, GSA Today, in 2010, he notes, “Growing populations and recent hurricane activity along the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines have made clear the need for a more accurate and extensive record of storm activity” (GSA Today, v. 20, no. 4, p. 52). He also writes that “the field of paleotempestology has never been of more importance,” especially “in the current period of climate change” (GSA Today, p. 53).
As early as 2001, presenter Jeffrey P. Donnelly of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution addressed “Sedimentary evidence of intense hurricane strikes from New Jersey” (Geology, v. 29, no. 7, p. 615). In the article, he warns, “Intense storms present a significant threat to lives and resources and can result in significant alteration of coastal environments.” He discusses, “The most famous storm affecting the New Jersey shore in the twentieth century was the Ash Wednesday northeaster of March 5–8, 1962… Storm surge associated with this storm overtopped many of the barrier islands of the New Jersey coast and deposited overwash fans across backbarrier marshes there.” In Wednesday’s session, Donnelly will speak about “Late Holocene North Atlantic hurricane activity” at 1:35 p.m.
Michael E. Mann of The Pennsylvania State University, who spoke earlier this week in a late-breaking panel on Hurricane Sandy, will deliver a talk on “Relationships between basin-wide and landfalling Atlantic tropical cyclones: Comparing long-term simulations with paleoevidence” at 3:40 p.m. on Wednesday.
Heading the session with Nikitina are Andrea D. Hawkes of the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Jon Woodruff of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Hawkes is a co-author on the Donnelly talk; Woodruff is a co-author on a talk presented by Christine M. Brandon, also at U-Mass-Amherst, “Constraining hurricane wind speed at landfall using storm surge overwash deposits from a sinkhole in St. Marks, FL.”
GSA’s Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division and International Section cosponsor this session, along with the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) 588: Preparing for Coastal Change.
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This is a subsect of the internationally recognized religion of climatology?From the entrails of small animals to super-computer G.I.G.O some aspects of our nature does develop very slowly, the old Gods were all masters of climate chaos and controlled the storms, the wind the rain, now its new names and same old religion.
Mr Mann and friends are the greatest gifts to all hoping for a speedy end to ‘wetting oneself about the weather”, perhaps we should post on their twitter sites faunning accolades to encourage this behaviour. Sort of like creating more of the aerosol that causes these characters to pause from their gnawing at the root of society and come out into the open, hat tip to???
As politeness and good manners now appear to be mistaken for fear and surrender,so these nitwits become braver and louder, that all can bask in their wisdom. Is the modern expert truly one who knows more and more about less and less?
Time to abandon the Phd logo and reinstate High priest.
I think we need to get our head straight on this. 1. The new term is nothing but showmanship and should be dismissed. 2. The papers all appear to be interesting and quality. We geoscientists have been doing this kind of stuff for a very long time. Perhaps if more people would pay attention they would do a better job of siting things like power-plants next to oceans.
Hmmmm…
Anthony’s previous thread (Fashionable words and climate science) got me thinking…
Could “Paleotempestology” become another fashionable climate word?
Does anyone else want to take their fist and (self-snip) that smug mug?
New name for Mann — scurriloligist.
About time. scientists have been wondering for years what to do with all the exact data collected on storms during the last 20,000 years. We need someone like Mann to create an encyclopedia organizing this vast body of knowledge. /
Paleotempestology? Seriously? It’s getting ridiculous, people.
johnny old boy said: “They [hurricanes] are one of nature’s giant air-conditioners and balancing engines. ”
Perfectly put. Imagine how much heat energy is moved from the oceans to the air and the tropics to temperate zones. One could not imagine a way of accomplishing this faster.
Having sat out Hurricane Agnes in 1972 on a small sailboat on the Chesapeake, it was amazing how calm the weather was for almost two weeks afterwards—no sailing, only motoring. There was no energy in the atmosphere—it was spent. It felt like the aftermath of a world war with a light grey pall over the entire region.
Climate Scientology . . .
Perhaps “paleodeceptiveologist” fits better.
In a world of paleotempestology, Mann is a teapot dictator.
Paleoidiocy, the study of morons who lived in a far past, will certainly want a piece of Mann for study.
“paleotempestology”
…takes place in a “paleoteapot” no doubt.
Sea level would have been somewhat higher by then, “only” about 100 feet lower. The LGM was about 7 kya to 9 kya earlier and even with both “Dryas” events intervening sea level had been rising since the LGM. Another movement of ecosystems that took place is a long, slow stampede of forests northward about 1,000 km IIRC.
Paleoloology-science of dredging up old sh1t.
Since there have not been any storms like this before (according to The Team, anyway), should the term not be NEOtempestology?
(My spellchecker doesn’t like that word.)
Here is a new gem from Mann’s mate Grant Foster:
“The disappearance of landfast ice caused by man-made climate change affects tectonic stresses, which could impact the likelihood of earthquakes, tsunamis, even volcanic activity.”
Neosklimaphobos !
Gary Pearse says:
November 8, 2012 at 6:26 am
These storms are well known and well studied. They do not need to be discussed as “paleo” because they aren’t. Also the hurricanes you refer to had the decency to keep moving and hence didn’t damage the land as much as the 1962 storm did. Nor did they have the long fetch that brought so much damage in 1962.
One good thing that came from Sandy is I found a good resolution aerial photo showing three of the breaches on Long Beach Island at Harvey Cedars, and my brother found a photo of the wreckage of my grandparent’s house. I don’t know if I can get them upload to my 50th anniversary post about the storm, I’ve been too busy to try.
As others have observed above, storm surge breaching of barrier dunes is highly unlikely to be continuous. Same with wind speeds.
I recall a post-cyclone damage survey where a substantial code-compliant structure was destroyed, but a mere 200m down the shoreline an old shack, held together by coat-hanger wire and bailing twine, was completely undamaged.
“Paleotempestology” (like tree rings) would be great for cherry-picking.
The current trend of alarmists experiencing existential angst is to move on to something else, but the problem with “dirty weather” is that there is too much real data to fudge, and too many people with decades of expertise.
Interesting how little gets said about hurricanes during Mann’s suspect period of 150 years prior to the present, when contemporary accounts and measures are simply not to be trusted. The climate hysteria model demands that from here forward all phenomena of whatever sort are to be seen as indicative of a catastrophe that’s now, and suddenly, well underway. The behavior of weather prior to the sacred era is not to be alluded to. The hurricane(s) of the 20’s for instance, when Lake Occachobee in Florida was blown entirely out of its banks and many hundreds of people drowned, possibly as many as two thousand. Here’s a contemporary description of what happened in Florida in the year 1926, when TWO hurricanes struck South Florida in a period of four days. (What would the more hysterical of the Climatistas say (and do?) if such a disaster were to strike the U.S. today?)
U.S.
1926 U.S.A. Hurricane Relief
20th September 1926 : Following the severe hurricanes that hit Florida and Miami in particular President Coolidge has asked the nations people to help and give donations to the American Red Cross. The government has sent eight coast guard ships to Miami and the Florida National Reservists have been called to active duty to help distribute help and assistance . The most damage was caused by the second hurricane just 4 days after the first which cut off all communications to Palm beach and Miami. Relief trains with food , medical supplies and clothing are arriving hourly from all parts of the United States. The new city of Hollywood just 17 miles from Miami is totally devastated with just 1 building left standing. First reports indicate 200 people have died in Fort Lauderdale and surrounding areas and 800 in Miami and wind speeds for the hurricane reached 140 MPH. The hurricane then went through Pensacola in Northern Florida with wind speeds still at 100MPH and the area was evacuated.
Full Size Original Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Miami_beach2.jpg
It appears that Mann has found himself hobnobbing with a passle of real honest to god earth scientists, and feels it necessary to cloak his bovine excreta in the most intentionally obtuse and turgid esotericisms he can strain to bring forth. Once one hacks through the intentionally confusing and disingenuous hopper of his godawful prose, it’s pretty obvious what he’s (still) up to. Jeffrey Donnelly seems like an honest broker, and I have no doubt that he and others may be directing a lot of their commentary toward the likes of Mann. Hard to be sure.
JEFFREY DONNELLY: With a series of high-resolution reconstructions of hurricane-induced overwash from high deposition rate sites from across the western North Atlantic we document patterns of event occurrence dating back as much as 4500 years. Some sites preserve annual laminations with interbedded overwash sediments that provide exceptional chronological control.
Translation: We use the best empirical/observational methods we can to directly calculate historical storm patterns of those hurricanes that actually made landfall.
Now comes our favorite carnie huckster…
MANN: Substantial uncertainties exist regarding the long-term relationships between various measures of Atlantic Tropical Cyclone (TC) activity, e.g. annual total named storm counts vs. major landfalling U.S. hurricanes.
Translation: We have no idea whatsoever how many un-named hurricanes of whatever size or intensity were generated at sea for the thousands of years preceding satellite technology.
MANN: Evaluating relationships from historical observations is perilous, as the records are short, spanning little more than a century, and observational biases potentially become quite substantial in earlier decades.
Translation: Before we had all this super-modern 21st century technology, folks probably just made up all the stuff about how extensive or powerful the storms they experienced actually were. I mean, we all make stuff up, right?
MANN: Comparisons are further hampered by the fact that these biases may have differential impacts on different quantities.
Translation: Some folks might have thought they damn near got drowned when in fact they actually only damn near got blown away..?
MANN: Here, we instead examine the relationships between various measures of Atlantic TC activity using the idealized framework provided by a climate model simulation subject to estimated natural and anthropogenic radiative forcing over the past millennium (AD 850-1999). Following the downscaling approach of Emanuel et al [K.A. Emanuel et al, Hurricanes and Global Warming, Bull. Am. Met. Soc., DOI:10.1175/BAMS-89-3-347, 2008]
Translation: You’ve got to use the cool stuff you made up to calculate other cool stuff (that you also make up). Wow. This could make my hockey shtick look like something that couldn’t get on America’s Got Talent.
MANN: We use the large-scale fields of the climate model simulation to force a model of tropical cyclone genesis, tracking, and intensification. This process yields synthetic long-term basin-wide seasonal TC histories with realistic statistical attributes. Using the simulated TC histories, we examine relationships between basin-wide TC activity, landfalling TCs, hurricanes, land-falling hurricanes, and major U.S. land-falling hurricanes on timescales ranging from the inter-annual through centennial.
Translation: I can do this all night. Because like I say, I can use cool, made up stuff to produce other cool made up stuff. Exponentially.
We also use these synthetic TC histories to assess the limitations of inferences that can be drawn from networks of geological records of past landfalling hurricane activity.
Translation: And I can use all my own made up stuff to criticize and refute stuff I don’t like that might get discovered by guys who don’t talk very much but actually go out and dig and get dirty looking at actual real stuff.
JEFFREY DONNELLY: The marked decline in the number of large storm deposits, which began around 600 years B1950, has persisted through present with below average frequency over the last 150 years when compared to the preceding 4000 years. Enough said
Anthony
Please,Please Please when ever you have a post pertaining to this odius Mann don’t use a picture of him.It’s has the same effect on me as some one running their nails down a blackboard..Its the arrogant smirk and the beady eyes.
thanks
A tempest in a tree rot.
Perhaps Mann could give a talk on Affidavitology. He could use as an example his testimony in response to the Petition brought against him and the University of Virginia by the American Tradition Institute requesting certain emails.
The testimony of Michael Mann was given in a sworn affidavit in which he stated:
“A true and correct copy of my curriculum vitae is attached hereto as Exhibit 1.”
This “true and correct copy” of his CV which formed part of his sworn affidavit stated:
“2007 Co-awarded (with other IPCC authors) the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.”
The Notary Public and Mann both signed Mann’s affidavit on July 23 2012 with the statement:
“Michael E Mann……personally appeared before me this day and having been by me duly sworn deposes and says that the facts set forth in the above affidavit are true and correct.”
Mann’s CV would presumably have been included in the affidavit to give an outline of his background so as to give his testimony credibility. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize would be a very significant enhancement to the credibility of Mann’s testimony in the sworn affidavit.
As Mann was not awarded the prize as he claims I wonder what his explanation would be for making a false claim in his CV which he swore was “true and Correct” in his affidavit.
http://www.atinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Part-1-2012-07-24-Mann-Affidavit.pdf
http://www.atinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Part-2-2012-07-24-Mann-Affidavit-2.pdf
http://www.atinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Part-1-2012-07-24-Exhibit-1-to-Mann-Affidavit.pdf
Fool a Mann,
Mann the fools,
Tools for fools,
Waste of thumbs.
Make thyself mad mann, mr mann.