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Running out of Hurricane Names
fm6 writes "LiveScience is reporting that the 21 names reserved for tropical storms and hurricanes in Atlantic Basic are almost used up. If there are more than 21 storms, they'll start using the Greek alphabet. The most storms ever recorded was 21 in 1933, before they started giving them official names. The connection between this record-breaking storm year and global warming remains controversial."
If we have been only accurately tracking climate for 100 years, and the Earth has been around for hundereds of millions, why are we assuming that global warming is something that humans are doing??
Only for the global warming fetishists, apparently. National Geographic even had an article last month showing the water surface temperature cycle being a noticably cooler now than it was last time we had these storms kick up (1940s). If global warming were a major factor, why isn't it warmer now? Why did it cool so much in the 1970s and 80s?
I have to point out that while the science is not necessarily clear on global warming, this doesn't merit the 'we'll just wait until we're sure' approach.
Note how institutions (like, oh, say the office of the president) tend to protect themselves despite attacks not being 100% certain. Note how secret service agents protect the president, even though not all law enforcement officials worldwide agree that it's completely certain that at 12:31 on november the 30th a bullet will enter the presidents head at a 30 degree downward angle fired by a middle aged assassin whose motivations have been understood fully.
That's a very valid approach - overprotect where the downside of a realized small risk would be great. I just wish we were as smart when it comes to protecting the species. As it is, we can't even protect the inhabitants of one city with days of advance warning.
Reminds me of Hurricane Ivan.
Which of course reminded every news caster in the country of apparently the only Ivan they've heard of; Ivan the terrible.
Certainly made the storm seem more imposing calling it that all the time.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
why use personal names anyways.
For exactly the same reason we give names to ip addresses.
KFG
I must have missed the day the motto changed to "news for fascist whack jobs." Of course their mirror-image twins at democraticunderground.com aren't much more reliable, but they tend to be more polite. Neither site is a suitable source for science information.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
According to this article, they currently think the main effect of global warming will be stronger hurricanes, not more hurricanes.
Of course, that's the current theory. If it turns out that we consistently get more, we'll end up with some new theories. Global warming is a big uncontrolled experiment, so it's hard to say. That's pretty sloppy science; I say we should have waited until we had two planets so we could try this side by side. And really, 20 or 30 would be better, so we could get a good statistical sample.
Were the 21 hurricanes in 1933 caused by global warming?
They like to set up models, but their climate models can't prove a connection either, because they're all based on a lot of assumptions, abstractions, and potentially erroneous inputs. We're a long way off from weather models with any level of certainty. When they can give spot-on weather reports for a month out, then it'll be time to start paying attention to the models.
All they have now are measurements, where they hope to see a correlation. But no matter what correlation they saw, even if it was the most beautiful curve you've ever seen, with a curve fit with an R value of 1.0, correlation does not imply cause and effect. But at least it wouldn't contradict their theory.
What they actually have is a tiny sample, where nearly any conceivable data set would mean nothing. The problem is that there are so many factors. While their actual data set is really jumpy and shows no really strong trend, suppose it were different- suppose they got their "ideal" data set over the past 30 years. Suppose it showed that the number of hurricanes is trending up sharply and steadily. If they had seen this trend, which would most strongly support the hypothesis of global warming, it would equally strongly support all of the following hypothesis:
1. We're in a natural cycle of hurricanes increasing, which global warming is making worse.
2. We're in a natural cycle of hurricanes increasing, which global warming is having no effect on.
3. We're in a natural cycle of hurricanes increasing, which global warming is partially alleviating.
4. There is no natural trend, and global warming is causing a rise in hurricane activity.
5. We are in a natural cycle of reduced hurricanes, and global warming is counteracting that entirely and actually increasing the number of hurricanes.
6. There is no actual trend at all. The number of hurricanes every year is entirely random, with no natural tendency or influence from global warming, and our 30-year sample happens to look like it has some trends, because any series of random numbers will appear to have some trends over certain samples.
Furthermore, with so many factors that affect weather, less than two dozen hurricanes per year, an apparently large natural variability, the probability there are many natural trends that could be working in conflict or in concert, using a mere 30-year sample is like trying to estimate global warming with a 30-day temperature sample. It would make all the difference in the world if you take your sample during spring or fall, and time you take it at all, it's extremely unlikely it would give you an accurate picture of what's going on at all. If they had 1,000 years of data, I might expect them to find something more convincing there.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Because of the question as to whether this is from a natural cycle, or whether from global warming effects causing increased baseline ocean temperatures, or simply a statistical fluke year. As a first pass, either of the first two sounds credible as a cause. (If you RTFA, the last sounds less so.)
We know climate moves in cycles; we also know that hurricanes are formed by (and get their energy from) warm water. We don't have detailed records for a long enough time frame to readily determine if it's just a natural swing in the cycle. Ergo, we should be doing climate research, perhaps specifically focused on what affects hurricane formation.
Perhaps it's Global Warming; perhaps it's a natural oscilation in the deep ocean currents; perhaps it's just a statistical outlier event. Depending on which, the responses might be different. If it's an outlier, we can just plan for a short term headache with the rebuilding. If it's caused by human-induced global warming, we should start taking measures to ameliorate it. If it's just an unstoppable natural cycle unrelated to human influence, we should start considering what extent build-up of coastal developments ought to be insurable/taxed/regulated/&c, and considering how to minimize the impact on our national transportation infrastructure.
The fact that we are headed for a record year and don't know the cause suggests we should be doing more research into climate and oceanography, in order to determine the best reactions... preferably backed more by clearly stated measurements and mathematically calculated confidence intervals, rather than more by political pre-evaluation of what the implications might be for Senator Bedfellow's congressional district. Mother nature doesn't give a damn what we think the world ought to be like; she's going to hit us with the way it is.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Media agencies are running out of anthropomorphized behaviors for meteorological phenomenon.
"Targets gulf coast"
"Directs its wrath at..."
As the creationists are fond of pointing out, evolution is only a theory. Similarly, global warming is only a theory. Both of these theories do have the support of the vast majority of legitimate scientists.
This leaves room for FUD by political manipulators since too many people don't have any real understanding of science.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
You clearly don't understand economics either, but I guess I'll take a small shot at enlightening you a little.
Your comparison between rich people buying yachts and poor people buying food is a strawman. The tax cuts take money the government would have spent (i.e. wasted, since the choices the government makes have nothing to do with efficiency) and gives it back to the people it came from in the first place. Impoverished people have nothing to do with this. No one got a reduced welfare check because of the tax cuts.
Rich people investing their money leads to unemployed people getting jobs, as the companies invested in use the money to expand their businesses and purchase goods and services. This is better than the government spending the money if you believe that the money will be spent more wisely by the person who earned it and worked for it rather than by some government functionary who decides based on who contributed the most to his re-election campaign.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
New work on teleconnections suggests that these cooling and warming trends are periodic in nature. El Nina etal is a 7 year oscillation. They have discovered others with periods of several decades. The interaction of these are potently a scientific reasoning. Real temperature trends will need to be coorelated over centuries, not decades. Of course, destroying the ozone layer could really play havoc as well.
Why did you frame 'left' and 'irrational' together? Or do you conclude that any non 'right' argument is automatically irrational?
If so, then you needn't worry - the irrationality here is alive and well, thanks to your efforts. Kudos! :)
On topic, I don't think its irrational to ask the question: is climate change a factor in the hurricane season? The scientific consensus (i.e. peer-reviewed Science and Nature-type consensus) is that it is not a major factor, not the underlying cause. Hurricane seasons appear to be cyclical, historically.
However that same consensus says that global climate change is absolutely, inarguably, happening. The causes of that are measurable and observable. Whether the Earth itself goes through its own cycles or not - and it likely does - we have definitely fucked with that cycle and now the outcome/effects are unclear.
Am I being 'irrational'?
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
You can't cut taxes for the poor. They don't pay any income taxes in the first place, since by definition they don't have any money. The poor have nothing to do with this discussion, though you and others keep bringing them up for some reason.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Sigh. Here we go again.
The tax cuts take money the government would have spent (i.e. wasted, since the choices the government makes have nothing to do with efficiency) and gives it back to the people it came from in the first place.
Wrong. The money has already been spent ("wasted") by the government. Tax cuts are an additional expense, driving the nation even further into debt. The tax cuts have not decreased federal spending ("wasting") at all.
This is better than the government spending the money if you believe that the money will be spent more wisely by the person who earned it and worked for it rather than by some government functionary who decides based on who contributed the most to his re-election campaign.
You're forgetting that the government is already the one spending the money. A tax cut is just another free handout from the government to a targeted selection of people. Follow the money and see who benefits most, and then watch the cycle of publicly funded political contributions continue.
How could that be? W wasn't the president then. And we've all heard how the number of storms this year is ALL W's fault.
I'm confused. Can some Liberal help me out with this?
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Uh huh. Keep goin'.
The rich people who invested the money did invest it in their businesses, and they did hire unemployed people. Those people went and bought goods and services as you said - in fact they are incredibly good at finding the cheapest goods and services. They demand them. Because everyone wants to keep as much of their money as they can, right? Which leads to increased competition. Rich people then say, we need to make more money to prove to our shareholders that we rock and are competitive. Companies look for ways to reduce costs via globalization. Workers are cheaper in other places than Country A, so this is good business. Prices of goods sold come down, poor people get laid off. Even poorer people in Country B get Sniny! New! Jobs! - which are paid pathetically (to stay competitve) and are forced to work in horrible conditions because Country B has no workers' protection laws. Manufacturing leaves Country A bit by bit. Country B finds niche providing manufactured goods to the first country. Country B isn't so poor anymore - they start buying up our now-increasing debt, so that the original country's now-laid-off-again poor people can continue to buy their cheap stuff. Country A now makes nothing but software and entertainment.
Meanwhile, the now Richer people in Country A lobby some government functionary who decides based on who contributed the most to his re-election campaign that they can make things easier for them here, like say, eliminating the fair wage laws after a devastating hurricane.
You cannot just take a little snapshot of economic transaction and declare it to be a Great Thing when Rich People Get Richer. It's such a fallacy that it is almost below contempt. Look at what is happening in N.O. right now - it is just like the petri-dish economic experiments that had the corporatist types all lathered up about Iraq. I don't know how many times it has to fail before people figure out that it does not help anyone except a tiny tiny minority in the long run. Either you have empathy or you don't.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
The rich guy earned the money, and he'll invest it in whatever brings him the best return, since he knows that if it's wasted it won't be easy to replace. The money tends to go to companies that are managed well, and are successful.
The government didn't earn the money, and when it's spent there's more where that came from, so they don't care nearly as much. The person deciding what to spend it on decides based on politics, not whether the money will be put to good use. The money tends to go to companies who've given large campaign contributions and spent the most money on lobbyists.
That's a simple utilitarian argument about why it's better, but there's also a moral argument to be made that the people who best know how to spend the money are the ones who the money belongs to, as in the people who earned it. Remember, a tax cut doesn't mean giving money to the rich, it means taking less money from the rich. There's a difference, if you're not a frothing at the mouth slashdot leftist.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
The link between the growing intensity of hurricanes and global warming is not controversial. The vast majority of the evidence currently supports this link, and the current scientific consensus is that there is a link.
The only reason there appears to be a controversy is because of the media's misguided efforts to present a "balanced" story, leading them to quote any crackpot that believes the opposite of the current scientific consensus. Like that FreeRepublic author.
Seriously, saying there's a controversy because some random internet author from a grassroots convervative organisation who has no scientific background claims there is one, is like saying that the moon is made of blue cheese because the hobo yelling at traffic says so. Never mind the actual objective science that says otherwise...