The hype meter at the Discovery Channel has pegged at full McKibben. See this:
Sandy wasn’t even a category 1 hurricane when it made landfall. Yet somehow, that elevates it for “megastorm” status?
I wonder if AccuWeather meteorologist Henry Margusity (who was heavily relied upon in the show) knew before he got suckered into this show that they’d make such incredible leaps of labeling?
Now, with a storm that doesn’t even come close to storms that have hit the area in the past, such as 1954 Hurricane Hazel or the Great Hurricane of 1938, what will they call a Cat3 or greater storm if it hits the area? Here’s some possibilities:
- SuperDuperStorm
- MegaMegaStorm
- GigaStorm
- SandyOnSteroids
- Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Storm
- Spawn of MegaDoppler 9000
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John Brookes: “It was a really big storm. ”
It was a “big” storm, though only borderline Cat.1. Hazel in 54, and the big storm in ’38 were more powerful. And Sandy hit just right to push water into the NYC “funnel”, during high tide, on a full moon. The NAO was negative, which steered Sandy westward. CAGW was not a factor, unless you claim this was responsible for the previous BIGGER storms.
Anthony Watts said in part: “Sandy wasn’t even a category 1 hurricane
when it made landfall.”
Sandy did have hurricane force sustained winds at landfall, according to
National Hurricane Center determinations. There were merely unusually at an
offshore location on the unusually left side storm – and in an offshore direction.
Although Sandy did not produce any hurricane force sustained winds in USA,
the reason Sandy was disqualified from being a hurricane was because that
storm had transitioned into a Nor’Easter. Some of those do have eyes, though
mostly clouded by low clouds, and lacking eyewalls that amount to a circular
squall line of thunderstorms with convection from surface to tropopause.
I would not minimize Sandy, because the large size of Sandy was largely due
to extratropical forces favorable to a Nor’Easter to form where Sandy was
running into. Instead, I would compare Sandy to the October 1991 “Perfect
Storm”, Agnes of June 1992 (mainly just a rain event but historically bad),
and (as you did do) Hazel of October 1954.
All of these storms did most of their damage after being disqualified from
being tropical cyclones. They were storms that feed mainly from horizontal
temperature gradient. That tends to be greater at colder times of the year.
And in the northern hemisphere, less when the world is warmer, since the
Arctic has been warming more than the tropics.
The point I see everybody missing is that FEMA has screwed up and failed to do its job in the aftermath of Sandy at least as badly as they did after (bigger) Katrina and Rita. Another on the list of things our “hope and change” president said he’d change for the better but hasn’t.
KiwiSi;
Is there no room to discuss things here? Have I got this wrong?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Have you been snipped? Banned from posting? No? So what’s stopping you from continuing the discussion?
Several points have been made in response to you. If you wish to clarify your assertion, by all means, I for one am listening. But simply saying the sea levels are increasing is kinda meaningless. As I said earlier (presuming you and “Simon” are one and the same) the rise isn’t accelerating even though CO2 emissions have increased massively in recent years.
Suppose you threw a ball in the air, and kept track of its height every tenth of a second. You’d notice that as it rose in the air, itz rate of ascent kept on slowing down until it reached itz peak trajectory. So for the time segment prior to the peak it would be fair to say that it is still rising, but it would also be fair to say that the deceleration will eventually overcome the ball’s momentum, it will reach a peak, and then fall back to earth.
We don’t have close to the data required to know exactly what is driving sea level rise, but we do know that it is decelerating and we know also that the temperatures which are supposedly driving it upward have not changed in about 15 years, suggesting that other factors are at play.
There is an interesting article dated October 24, 2012 (one week before Sandy!): Sea Level Rising Faster Than Average in Northeastern U.S. You know, I gotta give credit to the editor of OnEarth for exquisite timing.
The John Boon full paper in PDF referenced by the article is: John D. Boon (2012) Evidence of Sea Level Acceleration at U.S. and Canadian Tide Stations, Atlantic Coast, North America. Journal of Coastal Research In-Press. 9 pgs. He fits tide gauges to a quadratic model and uses 35 year serial trends for first order rates.
Boon has quite an accelerated extrapolation to get a rise of 27 inches by 2050. I wouldn’t bet the farm on his prediction. But assuming the data is valid, we have to ask how sea level rise can accelerate north of Norfolk, but not south of there. A possible reason for localized acceleration in the tidal readings could be a change in currents and/or salinity of parts of the ocean. PSMSL.org FAQ reports “These currents lead to differences between the MSS and the geoid of 1-2 m..” (see WUWT comment May 28, 2012, Is Sea Level Rise Accelerating?” This means that localized accelerations can happen, but must be limited in degree and duration. You cannot depart far from the geode.
I am watching a bizarre show on the History Channel. I have learned that a cold front energized Sandy and turned it into a super-storm. The Storm of The Century. This proclamation by a ‘scientist’. Gov. (Useless Andy) agrees. There was absolutely nothing he could have done in the face of this disaster caused by conservative industry. Nothing. No storm was ever so great.
It is like listening to drug addicts discuss the best high, but with their added expertise on neurology. . .
John Brooksie ! I have just this to share with you … http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eScDfYzMEEw
Oh for god’s sake. Sandy was a notable autumn gale, nothing more. That a stiffish autumn gale did so much damage is entirely down to the complete unpreparedness of New York for even a minor sort of storm.
Crispin in Waterloo noticed the recent dip in sea level rise. But this is just a temporary blip, and no reason to doubt that the sea will continue to rise. Just as atmospheric temperatures regularly drop down – amidst a generally increasing trend, the sea level will continue to rise.
Crispin also tries to comfort us by pointing out extremely rapid sea level change in the past. Somehow that doesn’t reassure me. If it changed rapidly in the past, it could do it now (but lets hope not).
Bill Jamison says:
November 18, 2012 at 6:53 pm
Define “megastorm.”
Hint: mega-, the SI prefix for one million (10^6)
FYI:
1900 Galveston hurricane, fatalities 6000–12,000 direct
Damages $20 million (1900 USD) – $558,720,000 (2012 USD)
145 mph (230 km/h) Lowest pressure 936 mbar (hPa); 27.64 inHg
Sandy: Pressure bottomed at 939.9 mbar; 27.76 inHg and had maximum sustained winds of about 90 mph.
Sandy went extra-tropical as it was making landfall, as such, it’s wind field opened up to a size more appropriate for that structure.
“Megastorm” my arse.
Brooklyn-Battery tunnel flooded by Sandy was opened to limited traffic on Nov. 13, 2012
http://observer.com/2012/11/the-hugh-carey-brooklyn-battery-tunnel-just-reopened-and-already-theres-traffic/
Both sides of Broklyn-Battery tunnel to open Monday, Nov. 20. For busses and cars. Trucks not yet allowed.
For history: Nov. 1, 2012, NYDailyNews:Repairing the New York subway system after Hurricane Sandy may be the MTA’s biggest task yet. A good summary of what was flooded and early repairs.
John Brookes says:
November 18, 2012 at 8:15 pm
Really tough decisions? Well, more along the line “Do we rebuild, or do we sell?” Long Beach Island was rebuilt and development exploded on the north end of the island after the 1962 storm.
AGW has very little to do with barrier islands – they’re sand traps that keep migrating on shore until silly people come along and try to stop them. Then the ocean-facing people get upset when the towns help nature build some really big protective dunes that block the view of the ocean….
Donald L. Klipstein says:
November 18, 2012 at 9:02 pm
A storm with hurricane force winds is not necessarily a hurricane. The NHC downgraded it to an extra-tropical storm just before landfall, so technically, Anthony is right. There was still sort of an eye structure, but I’m not sure what the other criteria for extratropical/tropical weather were impacted.
For all those deniers of natural sea level changes – here is some information. Wikipedia has this right – for the moment. At several times in the geological past sea level has been 200 to 300 metres higher than present.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_stratigraphy
@ur momisugly 9:02 pm Donald L. Klipstein says: “ I would not minimize Sandy, . . .”
I, and I think most regular readers of WUWT — and the host thereof, agree with the fact that Sandy was a major storm and did major physical damage. Lives have been lost and businesses damaged and many likely will not survive. The WSJ has been following several and reporting on the problems faced. Lots of agreement on the impact of this storm.
But we should not let anyone suggest all of this is caused by CO2. Past storms were not. This one was not. Suggesting this can be fixed by wind turbines and electric cars is nonsense. Living on a sand bar is bad for one’s health and hard on everyone’s pocketbook. I live at 2,240 feet and object to paying for beach enhancement and rebuilding private homes in the sand.
November 18, 2012 at 7:10 pm | Simon says: “The sea is rising. About 3mm a year at present. Are you saying it isn’t?”
——————————–
Try 3mm per DECADE, if at all. Some places in the world have recorded increases and others decreases. Around Australia, a recent study has identified 3mm per decade.
Just watching some garbage here in Australia, some group throwing a gig with lights, speakers mixing desks, dancers etc. in Rockefeller Plaza NY. Everyone seems happy, content and dancing. Sandy was definitely no megastorm if they’ve recovered that quick. Just a “hype”-r-storm..
^ my apologies … wrong.
Australian sea-levels respond to CO2 by slowing down…
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/2011/07/australian-sea-levels-are-not-accelerating/
D Böehm
I am happy for you to challenge my view. It was just your statement..”So go peddle your climate alarmist nonsense elsewhere.” Pardon me for saying, but It seemed, a little well….unwelcoming.
So now I feel welcome, here is what I have to say? You seem reluctant to credit CO2 with the warming. I can excuse that. But there has been increased warming. We can argue about how much, but it is there. Pretty much every scientist (every scientist really) on both sides of the debate accepts that. And sea level rise has increased as a result. As water warms it expands and swells. Simple. And that is without the melt from glaciers etc.
If you take the time to even skim read this:
http://academics.eckerd.edu/instructor/hastindw/MS1410-001_FA08/handouts/2008SLRSustain.pdf
you will see there has been an increase in the speed of rise. Graph (a) on page 12 says it all.
Please direct me to a reputable link that says otherwise and I will happily read it.
Another coincidence was its unusual (unprecedented?) low atmospheric pressure in the eye.
Discovery Science channel just aired the program “A Few More Degrees” as part of their “Avoiding Apocalypse” series. It ends with the preposterous statement of “Eliminating Co2 from the air we breathe is the key to our survival”. Simply astounding.
Daniel L. Hagen quotes a rabbi (respect) to the effect that environmentalism is not the view of everyone.
Obviously, first, one has to define terms (in rabbinical and other traditions of thought). But, if I define, for the purposes of discussion, ‘environmentalism’ as the recognition that we humans depend for our well-being and, perhaps, very existence, on natural systems which we do not control and cannot replace with human-made systems, and therefore have to make sure that those natural systems continue functioning effectively (as our ‘life-support’, let’s say), we all must be ‘environmentalists’.
We humans, with 200,000 years at most of existence, cannot outguess or replace the 4 billion year evolution of the biosphere and volatisphere, and we must recognise that we are subject to the natural environment, and dependent on it. Biomes, ecosystems, have a value which we still cannot really measure in terms of our economics; they sustain us, but we (often) think they can be destroyed or changed without long-term consequences. However, humans are an essential part of the biosphere and we change it: I’m British, for example, and I recognise that humans on those islands have completely changed the biomes that existed before their arrival. There is no ‘wild’ or ‘natural’ place in the British Isles.
We need great understanding of those natural systems, and of our interactions with them; that’s what science is about in relation to climate and many other topics. I read and learn and occasionally write in WUWT because I am environmentalist, amongst other things. To be a real environmentalist requires a deep understanding of how the whole world works, critical and thoughtful. I am not betraying my youthful environmentalism by being sceptical about CAGW; on the contrary, I am learning from those scientists, in many areas, who are presenting sound evidence and explanations for how the Earth system works, and how to really care for the environment.
.
Utterly predictable the rush for interested parties to push the line that this storm was something greater than it was, of course for the people caught up in the storm I am sure it was a frighting experience, yet for a storm which has been billed as one of the worst on record the loss of life’s has been (thankfully) remarkably small.
well, the World Bank should know a thing or two!
19 Nov: Sydney Morning Herald: Tom Arup: Degrees of devastation: major report warns of drastically hotter planet
The World Bank has warned the planet is on track to warm by four degrees Celsius this century – causing increasingly extreme heat waves, lower crop yields and rising sea levels – unless significant action is taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
In a major report released ahead of the year-end United Nations climate summit in Qatar, the bank says changes associated with four degrees of warming would have dramatic and devastating effects on all parts of the world, including Australia, but that the poor would be most vulnerable…
The report – a snapshot of the most recent climate science prepared for the bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics – says global mean warming is now about 0.8 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
It says that if current promises by nations to curb emissions are met then it is most likely there will be more than three degrees warming. However, under that scenario it warns there is also a 20 per cent likelihood that four degrees of warming will occur by 2100.
If current promises are not met, then the world is “plausibly” on a path to warm by four degrees this century, possibly as early as 2060, the bank says.
The report, titled Turn Down the Heat, says if the world experiences four degrees of warming it would: (TRY GUESSING BEFORE READING)
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/degrees-of-devastation-major-report-warns-of-drastically-hotter-planet-20121119-29l3c.html
the Bank should be grateful the Australian Prime Minister has their back:
15 Nov: Prime Minister’s Office: Speech to Business Council of Australia Dinner
It’s been observed by some that there are controversial Labor policies reflected in the White Paper – like the NBN, like school improvement, like pricing carbon…
In total around sixty per cent of the world’s GDP is either subject to a carbon price today, or has one legislated or planned for implementation in the two or three years ahead.
International carbon markets will cover billions of consumers this decade. Ask the bankers at your table whether they want Australia to clip that ticket. We’re going to help them get their share…
http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/speech-business-council-australia-dinner