By Paul Homewood
There’s a very good website here, which some of the most memorable hurricanes since pre-colonial times:
The full list is here, all the way down to Irma. Well worth a bookmark if you ever want to challenge anybody who denies hurricanes happened in the past!
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
September 11, 2017 at 06:36AM
Consider what happened in the days after the hurricane hit Texas (These facts are taken from the daily market summary produced by S&P Global Platts.)
Hurricane Harvey was a human tragedy with at least 60 people killed and thousands forced out of their homes. But it has not produced an energy crisis. The US system has proved to be remarkably resilient. Other countries need to learn from what has happened.
Harvey is a sharp reminder of how much has changed in energy security. There was no shortage of crude oil — in the US or at the global level. The market is well supplied. Despite the Opec production quotas, and the problems in Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela where output is running below capacity, supply easily covered the shortfall in the US. If, as David Sheppard wrote in the FT last week, the US Federal authorities held stocks of refined products as well as crude there would have been no break in supplies at all.
But other issues can pose a challenge to the flow of supply that consumers take for granted. Primary sources — the raw materials — need to be processed and converted into forms of energy that can be used by consumers. Crude oil must be refined into gasoline or other products, gas or coal converted to electricity. And the lines and grids must be in place to take energy from the point of production to the point of consumption.
This aspect of energy security tends to be ignored — because we are in an age of plenty. The last two weeks have shown that security of supply means more than being able to withstand embargoes or politically motivated cuts in supply. The breakdown of infrastructure is far more of a risk.
The US seems well able to cope. A century and more of development, helped recently by the growth of the shale business, gives the US a diversified network of supplies linked by a web of lines carrying crude, products, gas and electricity. Although the refinery business is concentrated around the Gulf coast, there are enough sources of products to cover temporary shortfalls.
via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
September 11, 2017 at 04:34AM
Even as leading scientists, environmentalists and most Democrats accept research that shows climate change accelerating — and as some see it contributing to the two mammoth hurricanes that have threatened the United States this year — some in Trump’s administration have openly raised doubts.
The rise of climate change skeptics has been most pronounced in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which helped lead then-President Obama’s efforts to regulate climate change-causing pollutants.
Administrator Scott Pruitt has questioned carbon dioxide’s role as a “primary contributor” to a warming climate, something accepted by most researchers. He’s also called for a public debate over climate change science, a proposal that has caused scientists, environmentalists and former regulators to bristle.
“I think it’s going to have a chilling effect on science overall because it’s going to elevate those scientists who are in the vast minority and give them a stage that, frankly, they don’t deserve,” said Christine Whitman, President George W. Bush’s first EPA administrator, who called the proposal “shameful” in a Friday New York Times op-ed.
“It’s wasting taxpayer money and making it an even more difficult issue for the average person to wade through, which I think is part of the political agenda, to make the case that we don’t need to do anything about this issue.”
The EPA has taken other actions to minimize its use and publication of science, including removing its climate science website and putting a political appointee in charge of reviewing grants. That official is reportedly targeting grants that focus on climate change.
Pruitt has surrounded himself with like-minded officials, including his August appointment of Cathy Stepp to be a principal deputy regional administrator for the Midwest. Stepp questioned humans’ role in climate change during her tenure as a regulator in Wisconsin.
EPA officials defend their approach. Pruitt has said a “healthy debate is the lifeblood of American democracy,” and he has indicated his review could help refocus federal funding for environmental regulation.
“We are putting the science front and center, because we believe that Americans deserve a robust, open debate about the science around climate change,” said spokeswoman Liz Bowman.
via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
September 11, 2017 at 04:19AM
“The dynamical set up in the atmosphere was extremely favorable for Irma to develop into a major hurricane and maintain very high intensity,” climatologist Judith Curry told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Irma formed off the African coast in late August and quickly became a hurricane strength event in sea surface temperatures around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Within hours, Irma became a Category 3 storm.
Hurricanes need warm water, low wind shear and lots of moisture to gain strength. Irma formed at the perfect time. Hurricane season usually peaks in September when the Atlantic Ocean sees its hottest temperatures and has a lot of moisture.
Curry said a major reason Irma intensified so quickly was because of weak wind shear. Wind shear takes away the heat and moisture hurricanes feed off, and it tilts a storm’s vortex, further weakening it. Irma was able to put warm water and moisture to use because of the low wind shear.
“In fact, the dynamics were probably more important than the warm sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean,” Curry said. “Irma reached Cat 3 status over temperatures in the Atlantic that weren’t all that warm.”
The storm reached Category 5 as it moved into warmer air and water near the Caribbean. Irma maintained wind speeds of 185 miles per hour for 37 hours — a record in the satellite era.
Irma temporarily weakened after making landfall in Cuba, but strengthened to a Category 4 storm Sunday morning when it hit the Florida Keys.
Irma hit Florida has a Category 3 storm, bringing 142-mile-per-hour wind gusts and “catastrophic” storm surge, according to weather forecasting officials.
For days, Florida residents prepared for the massive storm. Many saw the footage of complete devastation wrought by the massive storm, which was much larger than the infamous Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
Irma weakened to a Category 2 by the evening while making its way up Florida’s west coast.
The storm made landfall a little more than two weeks after Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast, which was linked to man-made global warming by some in the climate science community.
University of Washington climate scientist Cliff Mass took on claims global warming made Hurricane Harvey worse. He looked at the data and found man-made warming played an “inconsequential” role in the storm.
via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
September 11, 2017 at 03:36AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 