Month: August 2011

Drawing the obvious conclusion from the past summer’s weather extremes,  —  Michelle Bachmann says Hurricane Irene was a message from God to cut spending.

Washington Monthly:

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann campaigned in Florida yesterday, attending services at a Baptist megachurch near Tampa. Afterwards, the right-wing lawmaker offered a rather unique perspective on the weekend’s weather developments. (via Jay Bookman)

She hailed the tea party as being common-sense Americans who understand government shouldn’t spend more than it takes in, know they’re taxed enough already and want government to abide by the Constitution.

“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.

I realize there are conservatives in evangelical circles with whom this message will resonate, but under sensible political norms, this should probably be a career-killer for a national political figure.

Consider exactly what she’s saying here. A major storm swept through the East coast over the weekend, causing at least 20 deaths across eight states. Michele Bachmann, a member of Congress and a leading presidential candidate, believes the hurricane was a message from God? And that the deadly storm has something to do with Bachmann’s opposition to federal spending? And that God is somehow aligned with Tea Partiers’ agenda?”

Apparently not a career killer in 21st century America.

UPDATE: Bachmann now says drilling in the Everglades would be ok.  Presumably the Grand Canyon as well. What about under the White House –  or Bethlehem?

One of the country’s most respected experts on Atmospheric Science, and an adviser to this series, Dr. Andrew Dessler, has an op-ed today on Governor Rick Perry’s dismissal of climate science.  Read the original here –

Texas Gov. Rick Perry stirred up controversy on the campaign trail recently when he dismissed the problem of climate change and accused scientists of basically making up the problem.

As a born-and-bred Texan, it’s especially disturbing to hear this now, when our state is getting absolutely hammered by heat and drought. I’ve got to wonder how any resident of Texas – and particularly the governor who not so long ago was asking us to pray for rain – can be so cavalier about climate change.

As a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, I can also tell you from the data that the current heat wave and drought in Texas is so bad that calling it “extreme weather” does not do it justice. July was the single hottest month in the observational record, and the 12 months that ended in July were drier than any corresponding period in the record. I know that climate change does not cause any specific weather event. But I also know that humans have warmed the climate over the last century, and that this warming has almost certainly made the heat wave and drought more extreme than it would have otherwise been.

I am not alone in these views. There are dozens of atmospheric scientists at Texas institutions like Rice, the University of Texas, and Texas A&M, and none of them dispute the mainstream scientific view of climate change. This is not surprising, since there are only a handful of atmospheric scientists in the entire world who dispute the essential facts – and their ranks are not increasing, as Gov. Perry claimed.

In  response to the current extreme drought and heat wave in Texas and the southwestern US, Governor Perry issued a proclamation in April, urging Texans to pray for rain,

Continue reading “Rick Perry: Pray for Rain, and Shoot the Messenger”

Photo making the rounds, said to be of New York sunset as Irene clears away.

If you watched Ben Santer “beat the crap” out of Pat Michaels in congressional hearings last year, (above) you probably won’t be surprised at Michael’s latest ill-considered blurt.

Yahoo and Here:

“A day later, the smart money is still riding a very Gloria-like track, but with a cyclone that will be weaker than projected. It is doubtful that Irene will even cough up eight bodies (the number killed by Gloria), though power outages east of where the center makes landfall (probably on Long Island) may be extensive.”

The original piece was published at Forbes, (recently a Mecca for anti-science blathering) -where apparently someone thought the better of it and has changed the passage to:

A day later, the smart money is still riding a very Gloria-like track, but with a cyclone that will be weaker than projected (and hopefully kill fewer than the eight people who died in Gloria) though power outages east of where the center makes landfall (probably on Long Island) may be extensive.

See more of Michaels in his surprisingly candid presentation to the Heartland conference a few years ago. (hint: it really has not been “cooling since 1998”)

Some good postings today from Joe Romm, Climate Central, and others, on the best way to understand how climate change has been affecting extreme weather events.

From Climate Progress – Highly recommended reading:

Climate science suggests that global warming will make hurricanes like Irene more destructive in three ways (all things being equal):

1. Sea level rise makes storm surges more destructive.
2. “Owing to higher SSTs [sea surface temperatures] from human activities, the increased water vapor in the atmosphere leads to 5 to 10% more rainfall and increases the risk of flooding,” as NCAR Senior Scientist Kevin Trenberth put it in an email to me today.
3. “However, because water vapor and higher ocean temperatures help fuel the storm, it is likely to be more intense and bigger as well,” as Trenberth writes

CP’s Joe Romm quotes Jeff Masters:

… this year sea surface temperatures 1 – 3°F warmer than average extend along the East Coast from North Carolina to New York. Waters of at least 26°C extend all the way to Southern New Jersey, which will make it easier for Irene to maintain its strength much farther to the north than a hurricane usually can. During the month of July, ocean temperature off the mid-Atlantic coast (35°N – 40°N, 75°W – 70°W) averaged 2.6°F (1.45°C) above average, the second highest July ocean temperatures since record keeping began over a century ago (the record was 3.8°F above average, set in 2010.) These warm ocean temperatures will also make Irene a much wetter hurricane than is typical, since much more water vapor can evaporate into the air from record-warm ocean surfaces.

To see how warm sea surfaces can affect such a storm, review this vid from 2005 of Katrina. Watch as the storm crosses florida as a category 1, weakens, and then explodes into a Cat 3-5 as it busts out into the then-record warm waters of the Gulf.

More Katrina/Nasa pics here.

Continue reading “That’s One Big Storm. Did Climate Change make it Bigger?”

Significant threat from heavy rains, due to many areas already saturated from a storm system that just cleared out.  Will try to stay current.

Scott Mandia update 5:43 EDT August 26:

I finally have some good news. Although the track is still bad (making 2nd landfall on Long Island) Irene is being weakened by upper level wind shear and some dry air that has entered. She is a cat 2 right now but is expected to weaken to a category 1 before hitting the NC coast and remain a category 1 as she moves northward. So, it appears at this time we can expect a minimal category 1 hurricane hitting here late Sunday morning or early afternoon. Winds will still be high at 75 mph – 85 mph so there will be downed trees and power outages but perhaps not quite as bad as could have been.

Of course, Irene could still strengthen but it is not expected to do so. Now we need to hope that Irene tracks more to the east and weakens further so we can back to our lives next week with minimal impact.

We are certainly not our of the woods this year. The PEAK of hurricane season is early September so we are not even half way.

Good luck to us all!

From Jeff Masters Weather Underground, 3:46 PM EDT, August 26

Forecast for Irene
With its eyewall collapsed and just 18 more hours over water before landfall, Irene does not have time to build a new eyewall and intensify. The storm is too large to weaken quickly, and the best forecast is that Irene will be a strong Category 1 hurricane at landfall in North Carolina on Saturday. Based on the latest wind analysis from NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division (Figure 2) and Irene’s continued weakening trend, I predict that the 80-mile section of North Carolina coast to the right of where Irene makes landfall will receive sustained hurricane-force winds of 75 – 85 mph on Saturday at landfall; the 80-mile section of coast to the left will receive 55 – 75 mph winds. High wind shear of 30 knots will begin ripping into Irene Sunday morning when it is near Southern New Jersey, and more rapid weakening will occur. By the time Irene arrives on Long Island Sunday afternoon, it will probably have top sustained winds in the 65 – 75 mph range. However, since Irene is such a huge storm–tropical storm force winds extend out up to 290 miles from the center–it has set a massive amount of the ocean’s surface in motion, which will cause a much larger storm surge than the winds would suggest. At 3:30 pm EDT this afternoon, a wind analysis from NOAA/HRD (Figure 2) indicated that the potential storm surge damage from Irene still rated a 5.0 on a scale of 0 to 6. This is equivalent to the storm surge a typical Category 4 hurricane would have. While this damage potential should steadily decline as Irene moves northwards and weakens, we can still expect a storm surge one full Saffir-Simpson Category higher than Irene’s winds when it impacts the coast. Since tides are at their highest levels of the month this weekend due to the new moon, storm surge flooding will be at a maximum during the high tidal cycles that will occur at 8 pm Saturday night and 8 am Sunday morning. Wherever Irene happens to be at those times, the storm surge damage potential will be maximized. I continue to give a 20% chance that a 3 – 4 foot storm surge high enough to over-top the Manhattan flood walls and swamp the New York City subway system will occur on Sunday. The latest 11 am probabilistic storm surge map from NHC shows a 20 – 30% chance of a storm surge in excess of 3 feet in New York Harbor (Figure 4.) Keep in mind that these maps are calculated for normal tide level, and this weekend’s high tides will be nearly 1 foot above normal.

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