Hurricane Harvey and Climate Change

[RavenSky]

It's a fact: climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly | Michael E Mann | The Guardian

We can’t say that Hurricane Harvey was caused by climate change. But it was certainly worsened by it

good article. Thanks!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You can be pedantic about it all you want, but I wasn't asking what the probability was that a reported event that happened happened as reported. My point was that improbably things do happen occasionally, so I was wondering how improbably it would be that a 500 year event would happen three years in a row.

Exactly. And I was explaining that since it did happen then it is a certainty. The fact that it did happen does not mean that the world is coming to an end any more than my drawing any specific stud poker hand (all of which would have a one in more than three hundred billion probability) does. However the probability of it happening again in the future is pretty damned slim.

When you get results that far away from the normal it suggests you should double-check your probabilities. Is 3 500-year floods in 3 years an extreme outlier--or is our perception of what is a 500 year flood out of date?

 

[Kharakov]

Climate change reminds me of the old saying "Build a man a fire, he'll stay warm for a night. Teach a man to build a fire, and he'll burn down the forests, burn through oil reserves, create runaway global warming, and a generation of humans will be warmer while really crazy weather patterns disrupt global agriculture and then destroy the US hegemony by destroying the USA's ability to produce food. "

 

[Shadowy Man]

Climate change reminds me of the old saying "Build a man a fire, he'll stay warm for a night. Teach a man to build a fire, and he'll burn down the forests, burn through oil reserves, create runaway global warming, and a generation of humans will be warmer while really crazy weather patterns disrupt global agriculture and then destroy the US hegemony by destroying the USA's ability to produce food. "

That old saw? Of course.

 

[bilby]

Build a man a fire, he'll stay warm for a night. Set a man on fire, he'll stay warm for the rest of his life.

 

[fromderinside]

Nothing there.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

Isn't the watershed part of the climate? How is replacing wetlands with concrete not impacting the hydrosphere?

aa

 

[repoman]

I am not going to argue the finer points of climate change with a climate change denier. I will leave that task to those with more patience and more knowledge than me.

I will point out, however, that no one here actually mentioned "human activity is the primary cause". We were simply discussing how climate change is creating more and more intense storms. And that is a documented fact.





http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warmin...pacts/global-warming-rain-snow-tornadoes.html

Already, there is evidence that the winds of some storms may be changing. A study based on more than two decades of satellite altimeter data (measuring sea surface height) showed that hurricanes intensify significantly faster now than they did 25 years ago. Specifically, researchers found that storms attain Category 3 wind speeds nearly nine hours faster than they did in the 1980s. Another satellite-based study found that global wind speeds had increased by an average of 5 percent over the past two decades.

There is also evidence that extra water vapor in the atmosphere is making storms wetter. During the past 25 years, satellites have measured a 4 percent rise in water vapor in the air column. In ground-based records, about 76 percent of weather stations in the United States have seen increases in extreme precipitation since 1948. One analysis found that extreme downpours are happening 30 percent more often. Another study found that the largest storms now produce 10 percent more precipitation.

William Lau, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, concluded in a 2012 paper that rainfall totals from tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic have risen at a rate of 24 percent per decade since 1988. The increase in precipitation doesn’t just apply to rain. NOAA scientists have examined 120 years of data and found that there were twice as many extreme regional snowstorms between 1961 and 2010 as there were from 1900 to 1960.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ClimateStorms/page2.php

Does that mean that Hurricane Harvey or any other specific weather event was caused by or made worse by climate change? That is extraordinarily difficult to say with absolute certainty - though NOAA did an interesting study on exactly this question in 2013 - and not every extreme weather event will be a result of climate change, but NOAA did find that

...analyses of seasonal and annual precipitation extreme values over the north-central and eastern United States (see “Seasonal and Annual Mean Precipitation Extremes Occurring During 2013: A U.S. Focused Analysis” in this report) showed an anthropogenic
contribution.

So can we blame climate change for Harvey? Maybe. Maybe not. But we do know that - thanks to climate change - Texas and Florida and other coastal states can expect to see a continuing increase in "500 year flood" events like Hurricane Harvey.

And finally, in response to those who say that it wasn't the storm itself that created the flooding; that is was the massive amounts of concrete in a city like Houston... wouldn't that be an example of "human activity is the primary cause"?

My largest pet peeve, discussions on climate change that always center on weather occurring in the US.

Yeah, what is happening in the Arctic now is astonishing. Gonna flood Houston permanently.

Also what about the flooding in Bangladesh now?

Also, the atmosphere has taken on about 2% of the warming from CO2 (and methane, nitrous oxide and other ghg) increase. Ice melting another 2%, continental land mass another 2% and finally the oceaans have sucked up 94% of the increased thermal energy.

This climate will stop changing when a radically different set point stabilizes. One that doesn't care about us.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Exactly. And I was explaining that since it did happen then it is a certainty. The fact that it did happen does not mean that the world is coming to an end any more than my drawing any specific stud poker hand (all of which would have a one in more than three hundred billion probability) does. However the probability of it happening again in the future is pretty damned slim.

When you get results that far away from the normal it suggests you should double-check your probabilities. Is 3 500-year floods in 3 years an extreme outlier--or is our perception of what is a 500 year flood out of date?

Isn't that the point? I mean, statistically speaking, if I have to recalculate the average that's proof that something has changed.

 

[starwater]

When you get results that far away from the normal it suggests you should double-check your probabilities. Is 3 500-year floods in 3 years an extreme outlier--or is our perception of what is a 500 year flood out of date?

Isn't that the point? I mean, statistically speaking, if I have to recalculate the average that's proof that something has changed.

Averages have to be recalculated. There is no normal now.

 

[fromderinside]

There never was. It's just relative to us in some frame.

 

[rousseau]

It's weird having a deep understanding of the last 400 years of history and knowing how hopeful the world's been about 'reason'.

I suspect the historical view on scientific progress is going to change drastically in a century or two, when people finally figure out what the hell just happened.

 

[bigfield]

I suspect the historical view on scientific progress is going to change drastically in a century or two, when people finally figure out what the hell just happened.

"The Industrial Revolution enabled developed nations to consume resources and pollute the environment at a rate that quickly led to environmental catastrophe. We've since invented our way out of those problems and it was nice to have a bit of a fresh start.

"Also, we noticed that while a few humans are very clever, groups of humans are really fucking stupid."

 

[TSwizzle]

It's unfortunate, but in a way I don't blame people.

People don't want to accept that the beautiful world we created in the last hundred years might have been a huge mistake. They don't want to accept that our stunning level of affluence, free-time, and worldly pleasures may become more and more at risk. They don't want to believe that 'God-like' human-kind may be stunningly fallible. Many just want to believe that they're in a nice little bubble, where the outside world can't touch them. They want to raise their kids in their yards, surrounded by picket-fences, and pretend that nothing is wrong.

To me it doesn't look much different from belief in religion. Climate change denial is akin to a psychological mechanism that lets people believe all is well, despite obvious, cruel, and harsh realities about the world around us. It shields people from the cognitive dissonance they'd experience if they accepted that human-kind is really not that great, smart, or meaningful.

Unfortunately, you can dodge your responsibilities, but you can't dodge the consequences of dodging your responsibilities, as we are now (not in the future) witnessing.

The earth's climate has never been stable. Why people think that the climate shouldn't change is baffling. That they think they can control the climate is the religion.

 

[Ford]

Why people think that the climate shouldn't change is baffling.

Your straw isn't very sturdy there. I wouldn't recommend building a full-sized man out of it.

 

[RavenSky]

This is the first time on record that the Atlantic has had two hurricanes with 150-plus mph winds at the same time, Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach said.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/08/us/hurricane-jose/index.html

“Atlantic currently has 3 Cat. 2+ hurricanes at same time — 2nd time on record this has occurred & first time since 1893,” tweeted Phil Klotzbach, hurricane expert from Colorado State University.

Jose has exceeded all expectations by explosively intensifying into a Category 4 storm — the third straight hurricane in 2017 to do so, following Harvey and Irma. This is the first time on record three straight storms have attained Category 4 or higher status, according to Klotzbach.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ing-land-this-weekend/?utm_term=.ef37e8081bb0

 

[Shadowy Man]

It's unfortunate, but in a way I don't blame people.

People don't want to accept that the beautiful world we created in the last hundred years might have been a huge mistake. They don't want to accept that our stunning level of affluence, free-time, and worldly pleasures may become more and more at risk. They don't want to believe that 'God-like' human-kind may be stunningly fallible. Many just want to believe that they're in a nice little bubble, where the outside world can't touch them. They want to raise their kids in their yards, surrounded by picket-fences, and pretend that nothing is wrong.

To me it doesn't look much different from belief in religion. Climate change denial is akin to a psychological mechanism that lets people believe all is well, despite obvious, cruel, and harsh realities about the world around us. It shields people from the cognitive dissonance they'd experience if they accepted that human-kind is really not that great, smart, or meaningful.

Unfortunately, you can dodge your responsibilities, but you can't dodge the consequences of dodging your responsibilities, as we are now (not in the future) witnessing.

The earth's climate has never been stable. Why people think that the climate shouldn't change is baffling. That they think they can control the climate is the religion.

It depends on what you mean by "stable". And nobody thinks it shouldn't change. And the same people who studied the climate that gave you the result that the climate changed in the past are the same people who are studying the climate telling you that we are on the brink of something bad. So, how do you believe climate science in one regard (climate has changed in the past) but choose not to believe climate science in another (current climate change is very likely anthropogenic and potentially catastrophic for the human race). Is it just because you *like* one answer over another? That's not how science works. We don't determine scientific fact based on what is most convenient to believe.

 

[skepticalbip]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/08/us/hurricane-jose/index.html

“Atlantic currently has 3 Cat. 2+ hurricanes at same time — 2nd time on record this has occurred & first time since 1893,” tweeted Phil Klotzbach, hurricane expert from Colorado State University.

Jose has exceeded all expectations by explosively intensifying into a Category 4 storm — the third straight hurricane in 2017 to do so, following Harvey and Irma. This is the first time on record three straight storms have attained Category 4 or higher status, according to Klotzbach.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ing-land-this-weekend/?utm_term=.ef37e8081bb0

You may also note that way back in 1933 we had 20 named storms, 11 hurricanes, and six of those hurricanes were "Major Hurricanes"; 1950 there were 11 hurricanes -eight of them "major hurricanes"; 1969 there were 12 hurricanes - five of them "major hurricanes".

Then again in 2013 there were only 2 hurricanes- neither one a major hurricane.

Weather and climate are two different things.

 

[TSwizzle]

And nobody thinks it shouldn't change.

The hysteria tells me different.

And the same people who studied the climate that gave you the result that the climate changed in the past are the same people who are studying the climate telling you that we are on the brink of something bad. So, how do you believe climate science in one regard (climate has changed in the past) but choose not to believe climate science in another (current climate change is very likely anthropogenic and potentially catastrophic for the human race). Is it just because you *like* one answer over another? That's not how science works. We don't determine scientific fact based on what is most convenient to believe.

Climate change is natural. It changed in the past and it will change in the future.

 

[blastula]

The hysteria tells me different.

And the same people who studied the climate that gave you the result that the climate changed in the past are the same people who are studying the climate telling you that we are on the brink of something bad. So, how do you believe climate science in one regard (climate has changed in the past) but choose not to believe climate science in another (current climate change is very likely anthropogenic and potentially catastrophic for the human race). Is it just because you *like* one answer over another? That's not how science works. We don't determine scientific fact based on what is most convenient to believe.

Climate change is natural. It changed in the past and it will change in the future.

The current rate and direction of change is not natural (i.e. it's anthropogenic).