The 1990 Galveston Hurricane was the deadliest natural disaster to ever strike the US. It came on shore September 8, 1900 and killed somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people.
http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/bigs/wea00589.jpg
The storm surge was 15 feet high, which flooded the entire island. They have since built a seawall.
Adjusted to 2005 US Dollars, it was the second costliest Atlantic Hurricane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Galveston_hurricane
Atmospheric CO2 was 296 ppm at the time.
The Labor Day, 1935 hurricane was the most intense hurricane to ever make landfall in the US. It came on shore with an unbelievably low atmospheric pressure of 892 mbar (Katrina was 920 mbar.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1lSVcYM2WE]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_Labor_Day_hurricane
Atmospheric CO2 was 309 ppm at the time. If this same hurricane occurred today, it would absolutely, positively be blamed on CO2 and “global warming.”
Why Is the Media Ignoring Discovery Channel Gunman’s Radical Views?
http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2010/9/3/Why-Is-the-Media-Ignoring-Discovery-Channel-Gunmans-Radical-Views.html
By PETER ROFF
Posted: September 3, 2010
James Lee, who walked into the headquarters of the Discovery Channel Wednesday, taking hostages, was an environmental radical who believed people were destroying the planet.
According to a manifesto of sorts he posted on the Internet, Lee believed that “Civilization must be exposed for the filth that it is” and demanded that the Discovery Channel and its affiliated networks stop airing programs “encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions.”
Oddly enough, it’s a view shared–perhaps not directly but at least in the same general neighborhood–by any number of prominent thinkers and talkers who take a dim view of the impact mankind has on the planet.
Lee, who not only holed up with hostages but had pipe bombs strapped to his body, was, in the general sense, antimankind–as he said on his Web site in a somewhat distorted echo of the prophecies and prescriptions of Zero Population Growth founder Paul Ehrlich. “Saving the Planet means saving what’s left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies!”
Ehrlich, it is worth noting, predicted in the late 1960s in his book The Population Bomb that the resource needs of mankind could not keep pace with the growth of the world’s population and, as a result, global famine would be commonplace by the mid-1970s or early 1980s.
According to news reports Lee was also influenced, alarmed, and possibly even spurred to action by former Vice President Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, which holds out equally dim prospects for the future of mankind as long as necessities like the internal combustion engine are allowed to continue in operation. Lee himself touched on that issue as well on his Web site, writing that is was important to:
Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don’t build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!
If James Lee had been a member of a Tea Party group or an activist opposed to abortion rights the national media would be in the throes of ecstasy, describing his actions as the product of some sort of loosely organized effort that should have all Americans living in fear for their lives and their liberty. The Department of Homeland Security would probably announce the creation of some sort of task force to investigate his activities and root out his followers and allies. And President Barack Obama would no doubt address the issue in his weekly radio address. But Lee was neither of those things. He was a radical on the edge of an already radicalized movement but one that continues to gain uncritical acceptance among the general public. Perhaps it’s time for a reassessment.
Chris Landsea at the National Hurricane Center wrote an excellent piece a few years ago, explaining why they name more storms than they used to.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea-eos-may012007.pdf
It basically comes down to better monitoring techniques. With satellites, they find more storms in the mid-Atlantic.
More storms are named now :
But a smaller percentage of the named storms make landfall.
This is due to two factors. Fewer hurricanes are making landfall, and more hurricanes are found now far from land. All hurricanes are shown in blue, and major hurricanes are shown in red in the graph below.
Conclusion : There is no valid reason to believe that any type of Atlantic storms have become more common.
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Joe Romm has an interesting post today
Captain’s log from the Chukchi Sea: “The water temperature is 7.5 degrees. If we weren’t sailing, it would be a great temperature for a swim!”
Then Joe goes on :
And that’s why the ice can keep melting even after the air temperature goes above freezing.
Seems reasonable enough, if you don’t bother to use your brain much. There are a couple of minor problems.
Sure enough, there isn’t any ice in the Chukchi Sea. This time of year, the Chukchi Sea is normally almost ice free.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.10.html
How are you going to melt ice that doesn’t exist Joe?
Yes, SSTs in the Chukchi Sea are above normal.
This blog has been live for four days, and is averaging over 2,500 page views per day. That works out to nearly a million page views per year. Yet we are only averaging 40 comments per day. i.e only one comment per 60 page views. I want to hear your opinion on football, politics, science, the weather, whatever! It doesn’t matter what side of the fence you are on, have at it.
We are all here to learn from each other. Albert Einstein said :
“The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
and
“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
http://math.nyu.edu/~gladish/teaching/eao/water-phase-diagram.jpg
Fresh water freezes at 0ºC on the surface of the earth (mp on the diagram.) It doesn’t matter if you are in Arizona or Ireland. It doesn’t matter what the partial pressure of water is in the air (i.e humidity.) The freezing point is unchanged.
Yet we know that there is still vapour in the air at minus 10ºC. How can this be? The phase diagram shows no vapour at mp, and certainly not to the left of mp.
The reason we have vapour in the air is because some of the molecules of frozen water are constantly being raised to higher energy states through collisions with photons, and collisions with other molecules.
The temperature can be well below 0ºC, and yet there is no frost on the car. That is because there are just as many molecules being sublimated as there are being frozen. Thus there is no net buildup of ice.
Now suppose the humidity increases, or the temperature decreases to a point where more water molecules are freezing out of the air than are being sublimated. Then we start to see accumulation of frost. That is called the dew point.
If you are clever, I think you will see where I am taking this discussion.
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2010/08/31/sp-usopen-two.html
It has been a long time since Spain was on top – but after winning Wimbledon, the World Cup, the Tour de France, and soon the US Open …
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10610414
It took decades to finally kill of Franco’s ghost.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VE0KbqKoOI]
Best watched in 480p resolution. Each ring represents 100,000 km² forecast error.
Disclaimers : I would never shoot a cute little bear. September isn’t over yet. A lot can still happen to the ice.
