Well, shit.
Hurricane Irma 'Rapidly Intensifying' In Atlantic Ocean
http://media.nj.com/new-jersey-weath...fc1df3863a.jpg
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hurricane...163246420.html
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Well, shit.
Hurricane Irma 'Rapidly Intensifying' In Atlantic Ocean
http://media.nj.com/new-jersey-weath...fc1df3863a.jpg
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hurricane...163246420.html
Yeah been watching it for a week
When it rains it pours
Welp
nearly all models have it going FL and East Coast, and some having Irma not making landfall.
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/show...35#post9129935
Already posted
Mother nature sweeping the leg tbh
https://heavyeditorial.files.wordpre...4408.png?w=704Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
5 days later, it looks to nail Florida, enroute to the inner Gulf of Mexico, where waters, due to global warming, are unseasonably warm.
Unseasonably warm. We are near the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. This is when they are expected.
Ive got family in Ft. Meyers. I told them to board up and get the fuck out of there now and heard to Georgia. This thing looks like it's going to erase Puerto Rico, Haiti and Cuba before it straddles Southern Florida. Jeebus.
I'd skirt Georgia and head a bit further tbhQuote:
Originally Posted by TeyshaBlue
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarrinS
Yeah gotta GTFO while you can. Don't want to end up stuck in bumper to bumper like when Houston evacuated back in what, 04?Quote:
Originally Posted by TeyshaBlue
That's what I was worried about. Get out now before everyone else jams the freeway.Quote:
Originally Posted by baseline bum
Kinda hard to leave when we still have work and school - not to mention mother, mother-in-law and widowed sister each living alone - someone's got to put up their shutters and dig them out if they're trapped. We had been planning to go to Orlando for Night of Joy and Rock the Universe (Christian concerts) this weekend but don't want to be trapped on the road or in Orlando. This monster could hit anywhere. At home, we have shutters, generators, supplies, chain-saw, etc. - not that that'll matter with 185 mph winds. I just hope it doesn't hit between downtown Miami and Fort Lauderdale - it'll wipe out the airports and business centers. Hurricane Andrew was much smaller and quick moving so we started repairs right away and hit south of the city of Miami (the residential suburbs).Quote:
Originally Posted by TeyshaBlue
I guess it's selfish of me to hope that it hits the east coast of Florida but it's much less dense there with Tampa/Sarasota/St. Pete compared to Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach.
My advice is to NOT evacuate if you live on the FL peninsula. Traffic is too bad and you could run out of gas in stop-and-go traffic on the highway with any fuel stations in the area being sold out.
My advice: Ride out the storm and stay prepared, have a functional generator in your house and plenty of nonperishable food.
Confused.Quote:
Originally Posted by rmt
Called this shitQuote:
Originally Posted by hater
This thing is a mosta
Huh? Do you mean that I am confused or that you are confused?Quote:
Originally Posted by Spurminator
I am. How does Irma hitting the East Coast of Florida impact Tampa more than WPB/Miami?Quote:
Originally Posted by rmt
Sorry, my bad - I meant West Coast.
No problem, I should have assumed that.
At this size, hard to imagine Irma wouldn't impact both areas/coasts regardless.
Well, shit. They're both in their 70's.:depressedQuote:
Originally Posted by UNT Eagles 2016
Rush Limbaugh: Hurricane Irma Part of ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy to Advance ‘Climate Change Agenda’
https://am11.akamaized.net/med/cnt/u...17/07/rush.png
“The reason that I am leery of forecasts this far out, folks, is because I see how the system works,” Limbaugh noted, adding that this is something you can see in the way “the deep state deals with Trump.”
https://www.mediaite.com/online/rush-limbaugh-hurricane-irma-part-of-deep-state-conspiracy-to-advance-climate-change-agenda/
or, Limp Balls spells it proving the CIA formed Irma
CIrmA
I'm in central florida like 30 miles north of tampa. people already going nuts at the grocery store with the water and such.
Your claim that gulf water temps are due to global warming is the kind of crap that gives climate science a bad name. There is no justification for your claim. Current water temps are well within the normal range of variability.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandomGuy
not sure about water temps but the temperatures of the latitudes are just as much a contributing factor.
Be happy to admit I was wrong, I just remember reading something, but couldn't find it later. Feel free to provide some actual data I can see. Most of what I see on a quick search is too technical for casual reading/summation.Quote:
Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy
I do know that overall oceanic heat content has been going up, and up, and up.
Be happy to flesh that out in great detail if you want, and that heat is most definitely due to global warming, whether you want to quibble about terminology or not.
Tracks now have it rolling up Florida, and rolling along the coast.
https://icons.wunderground.com/data/...01711_5day.gif
Will grifter evangelists spew that Mar-a-Lago is destroyed because God simply wants to test the strength of their God-chosen hero?
Best to buy a couple of large water containers like you find at academy or some camping store. Fill up with tap water at the last minute.Quote:
Originally Posted by AaronY
I have one 7 gallon container for a family of four, and might get a second. 1/2 gallon a day per adult (3, given the size of my 1st) and a bit less than that for the 11 year old. 3 day supply, if there is nothing in the taps.
Back up is having the ability to boil the water (camp stove or gas grill), or really weak beer like bud light or michelob ultra. Forget the bullshit about alcohol being a diuretic. It is, but consider what the stuff is dissolved in (hint: the alcohol is dissolved in something that rhymes with "mah-ter".)
A few chlorine tablets or camping water purification systems works wonders too.
Much easier than buying bottled water.
If you don't need the water afterwards, I just use it to flush the toilets after the worst is over.
Not that I have given the issue much thought... heh.
Our city didn't have clean water for a week or so after the flooding, if I remember correctly.
I hope that building is wiped off the map. It would save the taxpayers a lot of money.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
you're actually in a /comfy/ spot then. The storm will have calmed down a little once it gets to your area, but I would make sure you have a full tank of gas and enough nonperishables for atleast a week without power. That's about what I did for Harvey but I was woefully underprepared with generators and shit like that. Make sure to have booze to enjoy the hurricane time off :toastQuote:
Originally Posted by AaronY
i'm curious about the jet streams and the planetary waves. more static jet streams have yielded some rather catastrophic climate events over the past few years.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandomGuy
Jetstream position, movement is shown only rarely on nightly local weather news. It's one of the best macro-weather indicators.Quote:
Originally Posted by rjv
I should have been more clear in my post. I have read some articles on how the planetary waves (Rossby waves) have been impacted by greenhouse gases because the effects of the gases have been to cause the waves to linger longer over certain regions. In other words, we are seeing more "stuck" patterns like the one we saw with Harvey. This is the same effect that was responsible for a Siberian drought and floods in Pakistan in the summer of 2010.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
Trash has unarguably declined in articulation, vocab, phrasing, idea density over the past several years, an indication that his brain is fucked and unfuckable.
eg:
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...vQB_normal.jpgKyle Griffin
✔@kylegriffin1
Trump on Hurricane Irma:
"It looks like it could be something that will be not good.
Believe me.
Not good."
(CNN)
10:35 AM - Sep 6, 2017
video: http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/09/0...urricane-irma/
I don't understand the buying of bottled water. Just tap it for a freakin' week.
Christ, we're such followers.
That is the part that worries me most in terms of risk management: unintended consequences of unbalancing a very complex system that we don't fully understand.Quote:
Originally Posted by rjv
I have always likened it to poking a hibernating bear with a stick, and hoping nothing happens, or walking into an advanced spaceship and randomly flipping switches and pressing buttons.
Sooner or later Something Bad is bound to happen.
We understand enough to know that is happening now, and the ultimate damage will not be known for centuries.
Humans are proven to be very bad at long term decision making from a physchological standpoint, and that is very clear when you start making arguments about risk mitigation and costs to people who haven't thought it through.
There is a certain element of tribalism to it as well. Humans are very resistant to fact that contradict their pre-existing views from someone they perceive as outside their group.
If only he could get our nuclear to tippy-top. That would free up a lot of resources for things. You know. Good things.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
:rolleyes
And a boomstick for the lootersQuote:
Originally Posted by Mark Celibate
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thread
If the water gets contaminated, the city will shut it off
some Irma video streams
http://digg.com/2017/hurricane-irma-live-video-streams
Yeah man, I just filled a bunch of one liter bottles (I have tons of them I use when hiking/camping) plus a couple of empty milk jugs and pitchers with tap water when Harvey looked like it was coming here. And if those ran out I have a bunch of purification tabs I use when hiking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thread
Bottled water is such a fucking scam.
Holy Shit no signs of life or communication from Barbuda
RIP looks like the entire island is back to prehistoric times
You likely won't have access to clean tap water for a week or longer after the storm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thread
But, you can fill up now to your hearts content from the tap. It'll keep for at least month in any container. Use the empty plastic bottles you spent a $1 each on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth_Pelican
They're just throwing good money after bad because they saw others throwing good money after bad. Rush right out & queue up.
I get 3 cases of 48 sixteen ounce bottled water for $2.99 each at Costco - can't beat the convenience and price - no need to mess with chlorine, worrying about sanitation, etc. Fill up the bathtubs for flushing (and we have a lake in the backyard). One cannot depend on tap water, electricity, supermarkets, etc for 2 weeks until things start to get back to normal. We have 2 small Honda generators (and 4 five gallon containers of gas) - one to run refrigerator and one to occasionally run the microwave. Ds has allergies so I bulk cook, freeze and microwave for him. Also handy is a chain-saw to clear the road of debris and a landline phone (although I complain about it) since cel phones might not work after a hurricane.
Yeah, may pull the trigger on a generator. I would prefer solar panels and a Tesla Powerwall, but can't get that spending past the Chief Wife Officer.Quote:
Originally Posted by rmt
90% of Barbuda is completely obliterated according to Barbuda governor :cry :cryQuote:
Originally Posted by hater
RIP
Some islands got wiped off the map :wow :wow
Probably lots of wooden shacks with zinc roofs :-( No preparation, no supplies like the gas tanks and water/food flowing into South Florida. Hopefully loss of life is low but where does one shelter from 185 mph winds? Even concrete buildings will blow away - maybe a cave in the side of a mountain?
Are you gonna write your name and SSN on your left tit like they're saying for people who ride out the storm?Quote:
Originally Posted by rmt
Send pics, tbh. :lolQuote:
Originally Posted by baseline bum
I actually work out of home. I was a programmer for a while then went to telecommuting doing that but I was kind of shit at it so I got a search engine analyst job on the side (one of these people https://arstechnica.com/features/201...google-raters/) then they promoted me at that Leapforce so I just quit the programming. Plus I do other work at home sidebjobs (thing called UHRS for Bing plus some customer service shite) So I'll still be able to work as long as internet is up. Kind of weirdly looking for forward to it thosince it is kind of weirdly fun going through a hurricane if you don't get any real damage obviouslyQuote:
Originally Posted by Mark Celibate
I'd stay. I love my shit & don't want anyone to touch it.
We should all chip in and get you a plane ticket there sonQuote:
Originally Posted by Thread
Not sure you'd want to see middle-aged ones that'd been through 4 years of nursing :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by DarrinS
Lol, just a crude joke. I'm pushing 50 myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by rmt
Hunker down and stay safe.
Record floods. Record temperatures. Record fires. Record droughts. Record rain. Record storm strength.Quote:
Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy
Three 100-year floods, just in Texas in two years.
We have been told that global warming is real, and it will cause more extreme weather events, and that those extremes will be worse than they would be otherwise.
What I read said that the storm went over a very warm eddy that spun off a regular gyre, and that the oceans are measureably warmer than they were even 30 years ago.
What does your data say about that gyre? Is that warm water gyre warmer, or in the normal range?
When do we get to say "yup, this is what they said would happen"?
Even die hards like Wild Cobra have given up at this point.
An AGW convo with KosmicParasite? :lol
https://assets.rappler.com/8F6DD4E7E...21C937E37F.jpg
DESTROYED. An aerial photography taken and released by the Dutch department of Defense on September 6, 2017 shows the damage of Hurricane Irma in Philipsburg, on the Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Maarten. Gerben Van Es / Dutch Defense Ministry / AFP
Quote:
French authorities say at least 8 lives have been lost on the French side of St Martin.
Rutte said the priority now was to get the airport in the southern Dutch part of the island up and running again, to enable aid to be brought in.
After holding crisis talks with his top cabinet ministers, Rutte confirmed "there is no power" on St Martin and the island's "infrastructure is badly damaged."
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told reporters the airport on the French side will be reopened, allowing helicopters and aircraft to supply aid.
"The airport in the north has not been hit so much," Collomb said.
Images shot by a Dutch naval helicopter over St Martin revealed the extent of Irma's trail of destruction.
Huge containers normally stacked at a port had been tossed aside like matchsticks, roofs had been peeled off buildings, and debris was scattered everywhere.
Boats in a marina lay on their sides, half-submerged in water.
"The priority now is to bring emergency aid to the people... consisting of sending food and water to 40,000 people over the coming 5 days," Dutch Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk said.
He said Royal Dutch Marine patrol ship Zeeland was in the area while support ship the Pelikaan is expected to arrive in the area at 1500 GMT.
Both carry personnel and vehicles and have the capacity to make potable water.
The Netherlands is also sending a KDC-10 jet to the Caribbean as well as making a C-130 transporter available from the southern Caribbean island of Curacao, Plasterk said.
"Our highest priority is to restore public amenities," naval Lieutenant Egbert Stoel told Dutch television RTL from Curacao.
Rutte also called on Dutch citizens to donate to a special fund set up by the Dutch Red Cross.
He warned there were renewed fears about oncoming Hurricane Jose, expected to make landfall in the area over the weekend.
Jose, classified as a Category One hurricane on the 5-level Saffir-Simpson scale, is hurtling through the Caribbean and set to follow in Irma's path. – Rappler.com
indeed. Predictability in a complex system is the hallmark of meteorological forecasting. There are just so many variables and very sensitive variables at that. However, the random variations in our climate, I think, are no match for the variations which are not bred by chance and thus, it is the latter that most likely leads to this systemic vertigo you speak of. And I agree that there is a psychological element to this but also an element that is just one of greed and dishonesty on a far more sentient level.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandomGuy
Watching the streams shows Irma is not fucking around. Whilst I have prepared for the Big One on this side of the country, I can't imagine the constant fear hurricane season presents. Even if you're a denier ans whatnot, there has to be something in the back of your mind that allows you the chance that something is changing and furthermore impacting these storms. Either way, if you're in South Florida, be safe and don't let pride be the fall. If you can get out, do it.
http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/Re...s/image014.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by The Gemini Method
I'm not a denier just not an outright believer yet. 2005 was just as bad and since then it's been relatively normal so that's not enough evidence for me. The only reason Harvey was bad was due to the fact that it stalled.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gemini Method
So far the only two reasons I feel somewhat inclined to believe in climate change are due to the media always shoving it down my throat and reading scientific papers that I'm too dumb to understand. But I don't see any evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger year by year
:lmaoQuote:
Originally Posted by DarrinS
Now link me all the scientists who claim that climate change is causing more hurricanes
Fucking retard
Media is awful at reporting scientific throry/findings. Would stick to the papers. Abstracts and conclusions are easy enough to understand. If their math is flawed, it would be challenged and eventually retracted. It's not like we have a shortage of skeptics chomping at the bit at a chance to prove the damn elitists wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Celibate
The main place you see denial is on TV in the form of some guest on a Fox program and in congress, usually from that one party. The only major political party among developed nations with their firm stance on that issue.
yeah that's what I was getting at. To kind of rephrase what I am saying, I trust the scientists like Manny that they know what they're doing as opposed to Alex Jones :lolQuote:
Originally Posted by spurraider21
But the link between current weather events and climate change is too complicated for me to understand. My issue is the common layman saying "Oh c'mon, two bad hurricanes in a row! You know it's gotta be climate change, right?" pretending like they actually know what's going on and that they didn't get it straight from CNN
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Celibate
Sure but what would be the motivation of the climate treehugging hoaxers to persist with this "hoax"?
I just cant find any possible motivation from them, so I usually side with the climate change scientists. Pkus I know lots of scientists and although many exagerate their conclusions, they never would go along with a hoax imo
Quote:
Even if you're a denier and whatnot, there has to be something in the back of your mind that allows you the chance that something is changing and furthermore impacting these storms.
So, there were more landfalling storms in the eight years in the last bar than there were for more than 50% of the full decades of the last century?Quote:
Originally Posted by DarrinS
Once again, your graph probably doesn't say what you think it does. About all you have done, yet again, is make a case for AGW.
(total for decade ended up at 19 hurricanes of cat 3 or higher hitting landfall for the decade, the 3rd highest total)
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/tropical-cyclones/201013
Those 3% of scientific papers that deny climate change? A review found them all flawedQuote:
Originally Posted by spurraider21
Quote:
But what about those 3% of papers that reach contrary conclusions? Some skeptics have suggested that the authors of studies indicating that climate change is not real, not harmful, or not man-made are bravely standing up for the truth, like maverick thinkers of the past. (Galileo is often invoked, though his fellow scientists mostly agreed with his conclusions—it was church leaders who tried to suppress them.)
Not so, according to a review published in the journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology. The researchers tried to replicate the results of those 3% of papers—a common way to test scientific studies—and found biased, faulty results.
Quote:
“Every single one of those analyses had an error—in their assumptions, methodology, or analysis—that, when corrected, brought their results into line with the scientific consensus,” Hayhoe wrote in a Facebook post.
https://qz.com/1069298/the-3-of-scie...re-all-flawed/Quote:
Broadly, there were three main errors in the papers denying climate change. Many had cherry-picked the results that conveniently supported their conclusion, while ignoring other context or records. Then there were some that applied inappropriate “curve-fitting”—in which they would step farther and farther away from data until the points matched the curve of their choosing.
And of course, sometimes the papers just ignored physics altogether. “In many cases, shortcomings are due to insufficient model evaluation, leading to results that are not universally valid but rather are an artifact of a particular experimental setup,” the authors write
https://link.springer.com/article/10...704-015-1597-5Quote:
Originally Posted by Paper abstract
Cherry picking is one of the main ways that really dishonest hacks use, in my experience.
That is the hard part about the science, as CosmicCowboy rightly pointed out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Celibate
At some point though, how many record setting events do we need in a row to say "yeah, some shit is happening?"
As I have always stated, we are living in the test tube.
Denying anything is changing has gotten harder and harder for the paid hacks to do, so they have fallen back on "it isn't humans", without saying what is causing the data trends we are seeing. This then gets parroted by the people who think there is some scientist conspiracy.
If it isn't human-caused, what *is* it?
This is where conspiratards tend to fail. Ask a 9-11 truther what they think *really* happened, and you get a lot of smileys, but no workable, testable theory.
Similar with a lot of people who say they are honest skeptics.
"we are living in the test tube"
nope, living in the anthropocene's boiling water, it's already too late for the frogs to jump out.
The AGW trend has lasted decades now, with plenty of evidence that the slope is steepening.
a reporter was interviewing this woman with a 2 year old. the reporter asked why she hadn't left, and she said " we're just gonna stay here and see where it takes us"
Quote:
Originally Posted by RandomGuy
And we had a 12 year hiatus after Katrina. (Shrugs)
Humans might have caused these hurricanes after all.
Woke
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2017/0...-even-funnier/
Isn't there already one shitty climate change thread?
Well unfortunately Darrin is able to post across several threadsQuote:
Originally Posted by AaronY
:lolQuote:
Originally Posted by spurraider21
"I dunno, I don't really care about climate change or think it's a big deal. (Shrug)"
Later that day...
"LOL check out this Twitchy article making fun of climate alarmists"
Kinda getting scared of this one been through some other hurricanes living down here and they weren't too bad but really scared of being without power for several days. Was kind of looking forward to it when I didn't think it might run right over the top of me
...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spurminator
No. It was making fun of a retard who thinks the govt is manufacturing hurricanes.
Just a busy season after 12 uneventful ones, tbh.
Thats a good point. You should make it another 450xQuote:
Originally Posted by DarrinS
At least we have early warning. The Galveston hurricane of 1900 killed thousands.Quote:
Originally Posted by AaronY
Another good point. Racking em up.
Mainly that pic of Hurricane Andrew going around of it being so small compared to this one got me terrified
Those fucking cars. Jesus Christ.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
Irma continues to rapidly weaken. May be a tropical wave at landfall
https://www.vox.com/science-and-heal...na-meteorologyQuote:
Hurricane Irma: how the storm got so big, intense, and scary
“You need a perfect recipe to get a storm like Irma.”
Updated by Brian Resnick@B_resnick[email protected] Sep 7, 2017, 6:30pm EDT
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gja1...1745.1km.0.jpgNASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team
Hurricane Irma is an absolute monster of a storm. Its powerful winds have kept it a Category 5 (the highest on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale) for more than two days, which makes it one of the most powerful and longest lasting Category 5 storms on record. And with two and a half days until a possible Florida landfall, it doesn’t seem to be losing steam.
As of Thursday afternoon, Irma was blowing sustained 175 mph winds. “That’s similar to a tornado, except this tornado is 80 miles wide,” says Jeff Weber, a meteorologist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Much of South Florida is now under a hurricane and storm-surge watch. That means the National Hurricane Center believes dangerous winds, rains, and coastal flooding could arrive by Sunday. The greatest danger in a hurricane is usually flooding from storm surge. The hurricane center predicts 5 to 10 feet of surge will be from the Jupiter Inlet (just north of West Palm Beach) on the Atlantic Ocean, through the Florida Keys in the Gulf — an area that spans hundreds of miles. And impacts in Georgia and Carolina are also a possibility.
Irma is expected to maintain a Category 4 or 5 status for the remainder of its path toward Florida, through Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas.
We’re witnessing a truly extreme event. But as Weber and Phil Klotzbach, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University, explain, this is the exact time of year you’d expect the most powerful storms to form. It’s also not that surprising to see multiple tropical cyclones forming at once, as we’re seeing with Hurricanes Jose and Katia, which could also make landfall this weekend.
But for a monster like Irma, all the conditions — that are actually quite common for this time of year — have lined up. “You need a perfect recipe to get a storm like Irma,” Klotzbach says.
And we have it.
Why Irma got so big, intense, and scary
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/unqD..._843719830.jpgAn aerial photograph hows the damage of Hurricane Irma, on the Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Maarten GERBEN VAN ES/AFP/Getty Images
The strength of a hurricane is determined by three main factors: water temperature, wind shear, and moisture in the atmosphere. Warmer water and atmospheric moisture give the system energy. A low wind shear — i.e., sharp changes in wind directions as you go higher and higher in the atmosphere — keeps a hurricane from dissipating.
All these conditions have been ideal for Irma. As for the wind shear, Klotzbach says there’s “almost zero.” That’s just bad luck. “If you plot shear averages over the Atlantic over the past 30 years, there’s really no trend,” he says.
The Atlantic, meanwhile, reaches its hottest temperatures for the year in September (that’s why the peak of hurricane season is September 10). Klotzbach says the Atlantic is a degree or two Fahrenheit hotter than it usually is this time of year, which is providing Irma with some extra fuel. (The surface area of water in the Atlantic topping 82.4 degrees in September has been growing slightly since the 1970s, which also could contribute to Irma’s strength.)
Irma reached a top speed of 185 mph Tuesday, and maintained those winds for 37 hours. That’s “close to the maximum intensity you’d ever get out of an Atlantic hurricane for that long,” Klotzbach says.
What’s more, Irma only is going to encounter more hot water — approaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit — as it moves toward Florida. (The Gulf of Mexico, on the other hand, has been about 4 degrees above normal, which helped Harvey intensify so rapidly.) And, according to Klotzbach, “the atmosphere is more saturated than normal too.” So there’s plenty of energy and moisture to keep this system spinning quickly.
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/M04H...rw_2017248.png
Irma has a runway of warm water all the way to Florida. NASA / NOAAAlso fortuitous for Irma: It hasn’t made much direct contact with land. Yes, it devastated several islands in the Eastern Caribbean. But small islands “don’t create dry air to entrain into the system to slow it down,” Weber said. Irma’s eye has also traveled just North of islands like Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, which has allowed it to keep up its momentum. “It’s a perfect path [meteorologically speaking] through the islands, and riding north of Hispaniola and north of Cuba the whole way,” he adds. Irma is following a runway of hot water all the way to Florida.
There are currently three hurricanes in the Atlantic and Gulf. Is that normal?
Within the past two days, two other storms — Katia and Jose — have achieved hurricane status in the Atlantic and Gulf. And what are we to make of the fact that three hurricanes are currently active at the same time?
This also isn’t unprecedented. It happens on average once every 10 years, Klotzbach explains. “In the satellite era, since 1966, this has happened in: 1967, 1980, 1995, 1998, 2010 and now in 2017.” So it’s fairly common, especially near the peak of the season, like we are in now.
Is climate change to blame for Irma’s strength?
This is always a tricky question when it comes to hurricanes. These storms are powerful, but they’re not necessarily much more powerful than storms we’ve seen in the past. Also, meteorologists have only been tracking hurricanes by satellite since the 1970s. Hurricanes have ravaged the Atlantic coast for hundreds of thousands of years. Scientists are still figuring out what, exactly, is “normal.”
But climate change does likely play a role, albeit a subtle one.
Vox’s Dave Roberts explained it best in a piece about Hurricane Harvey:Say I turned up Earth’s gravity by 1 percent. More people around the world would trip and fall. Does it make sense to say, of a particular person tripping and falling, that the increase in gravity (“gravity change”) caused it to happen? No. Does it make sense to say that gravity cause it to happen? No. …
Increased gravity is a causal condition in every fall, but it is not the primary causal agent in any one fall. Similarly, increased heat energy is a causal condition in every storm (not just the bad ones) — every storm forms and travels in the same global climate — but it is not the primary causal agent in any storm.
Florida has been hit by intense hurricanes before. But the damage today can be greater because there are more people and fewer natural protections.
Climate change science predicts that in the future, hurricanes will intensify. There will be simply more energy available for them to form, and more moisture in the air to sustain them. Both Klotzbach and Weber agree the current consensus on whether hurricanes today are more intense due to climate change is messy.
But we don’t need the threat of climate change to know that hurricanes are a dangerous threat to South Florida and the surrounding area. We know this because hurricanes have ravaged Miami before. (If anything, it’s weird that the United States hasn’t more hurricanes in the past 10 years, as the Washington Post explains.)
In the 1940s and into the ’50s, “South Florida was hit by five Category 4 or 5 hurricanes in six years,” Klotzbach says. “Just what’s happened in the past should be scary enough to realize this stuff can be bad.”
But yet the South Florida coastline has only grown denser, reaching a population of 6 million for the first time in 2016.
In 1926, Miami was hit with a storm that was likely a Category 4, and it devastated the young city, killing 375. If that same storm struck today, Brad Plumer explains at the New York Times, it “would inflict more than $200 billion in damage.” That’s an amount greater than Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Andrew, the worst storm in the state’s history, caused $26.5 billion in damage. Today, it “would be far more catastrophic,” Plumer writes.
South Florida's rapid development has put way more infrastructure & people in harm's way than there used to be https://t.co/voPBHQ89hx #Irmapic.twitter.com/tjBeguCrrD
— Brian L Kahn (@blkahn) September 7, 2017
What makes hurricanes like Irma more dangerous than ever before is not climate change. It’s hubris.
“I would maintain that the actions humans have done to the land, such as paving roads and blocking natural estuaries, taking away sand barriers, and things of that nature, is a far greater impact than anything we’ve done in the warming world,” Klotzbach says. “If Miami was not completely paved and not much forethought was put into drainage when they built the city 100 years ago, this would not be as bad of a situation.”
Good I hope its a category 2 by tomorrow
"What makes hurricanes like Irma more dangerous than ever before is not climate change. It’s hubris."
hubris? :lol
actually, it's greed of the oligarchy, its property development division.
Even if politicians had the intelligence :lol to make their regions less vulnerable to severe weather, they'd be corrupted or replaced by bought politicians who would let the property developers run wild, which is the story in, eg, Houston, and how BigOil (and Army Corps of Engineers) has destroyed in less than a century the protective value of Mississippi delta of southern Louisiana, built over 10Ks of years.
Welcome to the suicidal anthropocene.
and then there's this little taxpayer accounting problem:
FEMA’s flood insurance program is drowning because of climate change
https://qz.com/1064109/is-the-nation...-out-of-money/
Dallas Rep. Hensarling pushing for overhaul of federal flood insurance program
Dallas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is pushing for the House to approve in September a full five year re-authorization of the National Flood Insurance Program, a bill his committee passed that includes measures to bring the NFIP closer to solvency.
many observers expect Congress to instead pass a short-term measure and delay political fights over how to fix the program.
Friendswood Rep. Randy Weber, a Republican, said he’s concerned about any modifications that would lead to
higher flood insurance rates :lol no shit!
a drop in property values. :lol no shit!
Meanwhile, the NFIP is likely to face billions in claims from those affected by the storm, with the potential to bump up against its $30.4 billion debt limit.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/harvey/2017/08/29/dallas-rep-hensarling-pushing-overhaul-overburdened-flood-insurance-program
iow, people, esp WEALTHY people in McMansions and expensive beach- and river-front mansions, in any flood-prone regions, are TAKERS, mooching on taxpayers to subsidize their flood insurance and cover their flood losses.