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."

Comments

Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Use the Chinese alphabet. If you have a year where you run out, it's all just one big hurricane.

Re: Easy solution

[Black Parrot]

> Use the Chinese alphabet. If you have a year where you run out, it's all just one big hurricane.

Or FEMA could just stall and clean up two at a time, so we'd only need half as many names.

Re:Easy solution

[JPriest]

I thought Hurricane-names v6 was supposed to solve this problem. Can't we NAT them or something? Maybe we could follow x86-86 and hack in extentions or something. Come on Slashdot, I know we can solve this.

Re:Easy solution

[cashman73]

Just imagine how many names we would need if we had a beowulf cluster of hurricanes? Ah, think of the power! :-)

Re:Easy solution

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Oh great. Those sound like Porn star hurricane names. I can just imagine FEMA trying to help out all the people fucked over by Hurricane Jenna Jameson

Re:Easy solution

[niktemadur]

Oh great. Those sound like Porn star hurricane names.

Want to know what your very own porn star name is?
It's an easy formula:

Your second name + Name of street you grew up in = Your porn star name

If it doesn't quite fit, use the name of another street that's part of your life, like the one where your school is or was, the one where you work, you get the idea.

For example, my porn star name would be "Alex Roman".

What?

[Shads]

They can't get a baby book out and look up a few more names? They didn't even get a name for ever letter of the alphabet?! What are we paying them for!!?

Re:What?

[MightyMartian]

How about "Hurricane Man-Are-We-Fucked-Or-What" or "Hurricane I-Hope-This-Drowns-Michael-Brown"?

Re:What?

[jdray]

I was watching CNN last night, and they were displaying names for some of the displaced children from the area affected by Katrina. If they start using some of the names that are evidently common in that part of the U.S. (Shaniqua, Delwayne, etc.), they will never run out. I suspect if I lived on the coast and someone told me that Hurricane Shaniqua was on its way, I'd run like hell.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is George Bush's fault that there are so many hurricanes.

Re:What?

[Fishstick]

The storms are named A-Z, with a few letters skipped.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml

Katrina was the (one, two three.. ) 11th tropical depression/storm/hurricane of the 2005 season.

Next year, the 11th storm will be named 'Kirk'.

Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.

Re:What?

[oliana]

here, use this:

Naming Chart Coolness

Re:What?

[RealProgrammer]

George Bush doesn't care about anonymous hurricanes.

Re:What?

[kfg]

why use personal names anyways.

For exactly the same reason we give names to ip addresses.

KFG

Re:What?

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

I knew a hurricane Shaniqua. *shudder*

Re:What?

[Golias]

The real question is: Why name them at all?

It's a rainstorm. A big, swirly rainstorm.

Here in Minnesota, we don't get hurricanes. We get blizards. If you suggested naming any kind of snowstorm with human names, you would be laughed at.

People in Minnesota still sometimes talk about "the big Halloween blizard" from a little over ten years ago.

Compare news items:

"A category 5 hurricane flooded New Orleans."

vs.

"Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 storm, flooded New Orleans."

Apart from some useless trivia to stump your friends with a few years down the road, what do you really gain by naming it?

Re:What?

[AdamWeeden]

No, they just assumed they wouldn't need more than 21 names

Darn lazy Y2Hurricane programmers!

controversial?

[syrinx]

Everything I've seen says that climate scientists say there's no connection at all. The only place I've seen any connection put forward as a fact are people who write letters to the editor in the NY Times and similar papers.

The list of Pacific hurricanes uses X, Y, and Z (but not Q or U), whereas the Atlantic list doesn't use any of those five letters. Perhaps they should add X, Y, and Z names to the Atlantic list too now.

Re:Controversial?

[RapmasterT]

Why did it get so cool in the seventies?

The 50's were really the "cool" decade, the 70's were really more about "funky".

Re:controversial?

[onepoint]

>>number of cat 4 and 5 hurricanes has nearly doubled in the last 30 years due to rising water temperatures

as you may not know there is also a correlation about the rising water temperatures, there are less pirates now. please see the reference http://www.venganza.org/

may you get touched by the noodle appendage
Onepoint

Re:controversial?

[dubl-u]

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.

Re:controversial?

[Martin Blank]

Actually, there has been a fairly public argument between climatologists and the hurricane researchers. The former claim that the increase in hurricanes is further evidence of global warming; the latter claim that this is part of the normal patterns. William Gray, a prominent hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, has been among the more vocal critics of those claiming that global warming is at fault for the increase.

Re:controversial?

[Sylver Dragon]

I have seen articles in quite a few papers, as well as reports on the BBC, CBC, and NPR all stating that the number of cat 4 and 5 hurricanes has nearly doubled in the last 30 years due to rising water temperatures.

I realize it's a bit passe but you might try reading the second article linked to in the blurb for a good refutation for that. As seems to be the case very often, those pushing the global warming stuff seem to pick time periods for their studies based on what will disinclude data which might point to a natural cycle.
In the linked article, they show the data for the previous 25 years as well as the data from the last 30. Unsuprisingly, when the data from the previous 25 years is graphed next to the data from the last 30, the graph looks a lot more like a snapshot from a long cycle than it does a trend.

Re:controversial?

[MindStalker]

From what I understand hurricanes are caused when you have warm water and cooler air. Generally this is caused by quick temperature drops in the air. This is why most hurricanes happen in september, when air is starting to cool It seems to me, and I could be wrong, but global warming would cause warmer air, and possibly cooler water as less of the suns rays would hit the water.

Re:controversial?

[Pentagram]

Everything I've seen says that climate scientists say there's no connection at all.

Then you haven't been looking very hard.

Re:controversial?

[Phat_Tony]

They certainly aren't going to be proving a connection anytime soon. There's no way they're going to set up a double-blind experiment where they vary the temperature of the ocean for long periods of time while holding all other factors constant, then carefully measure hurricane activity.

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.

Re: controversial?

[Black Parrot]

> From what I understand hurricanes are caused when you have warm water and cooler air. Generally this is caused by quick temperature drops in the air. This is why most hurricanes happen in september, when air is starting to cool

Hurricane season peaks in September, but we still get a darn lot in June-July-August, when there's not a heck of a lot of cooling going on in the tropics of the northern hemisphere.

I think a more accurate description is that you need hot water+air at the surface and cooler air way up high, so that seawater will evaporate, the hot damp air will rise, and the water will condense out of the air when it gets high enough to cool down.

> It seems to me, and I could be wrong, but global warming would cause warmer air, and possibly cooler water as less of the suns rays would hit the water.

FYI, global warming shouldn't be visualized as "everything's warmer", but rather as "more thermal energy in the atmosphere and oceans". It will not necessarily be spread evenly (it never has been), and uneven spread is probably a recipe for more storms - especially heat engines like hurricanes, but also more winter storms and other things you wouldn't expect from a naive understanding of what "global warming" means.

Re:controversial?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Webster et al. 2005. Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment. Science 309:1844-1846. (full text pdf)

Re:controversial?

[paul144hart]

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.

What?

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

They are not inventive enough to develop new names? Also, why use personal names anyways. Why not simply call them Hurricane 2005_21 or 2005_145. Is this really a problem? And who decided on 21 reserved names? Why not 30 or 50? Why is this news?

Bad PR

[thatguywhoiam]

The Greek thing may not be the best idea... after the big storms the US has endured so far, I doubt anyone would bee looking forward to HURRICANE OMEGA.

Re:Bad PR

[lgw]

I think hurricanes should have names that *encourage* evacuation!

Hurricane Killer
Hurricane Throat-Ripper
Hurricane Goatse

I mean, who would decide to "just stay here and weather Hurricane Goatse"?

Re:Bad PR

[PaxTech]

with any luck it'll hit the rich and loosen up some of those tax cut dollars into the economy.

Yeah, totally, because all those rich bastards just take their tax cut loot and throw it on the money pile they keep under their mattress, right?

You should really refrain from comments about what would be good for the economy until you have two brain cells to rub together.

Re:Bad PR

[Phat_Tony]

I'm more worried about the first one- who wants to meet the Alpha Male of Hurricanes?

And yes, it would be male. They alternate genders, and the last hurricane on this year's list is "Wilma."

Re:Bad PR

[SlayerofGods]

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.

Re:Bad PR

[rodac]

Sorry to spoil everything but you completely missed his joke.

Alpha and Omega, the first and the last letter of the alphabet.

i.e. Alpha and Omega == The Beginning and The End.

In a more bilbical sense Omega refers to the end of the world.

==> Hurricane Omega == Hurricane "the end of the world"

Sorry to spoil everything but school systems in the western world today, yadayadayada...

Re:Bad PR

[fm6]

One year they had a nasty Hurricane Anita that coincided with Anita Bryant being in the news for her anti-Gay Rights initiative. I've heard (probably an urban legend, but who knows) that many people thought there was some connection between the activist and the storm, and sent her hate mail because of it.

Re:Bad PR

[PaxTech]

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.

Re:Bad PR

[PaxTech]

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.

Re:Bad PR

[Guuge]

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.

Re:Bad PR

[Duncan3]

How about...

Hurricane living below sealevel gets you killed
Hurricane living on the beach destroys your house
Hurricane this happens every year so move dumbass
Hurricane there goes another $2000 from every taxpayer.

One or two more of these this year, and the US economy will collapse completely as we repeatedly bail out people too stupid to move.

Re:Bad PR

[thatguywhoiam]

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.

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.

Re:Bad PR

[PaxTech]

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.

PING!

[minus_273]

wow FR linked to the front page of slashdot! I never thought I'd see the day. As everyone knows, cooreation is a really bad basis to draw conclusions from.

  You will also notice that use of gopher space has gone down with the rise of hurricanes this year. I think it is time we all dropped the internet and went back to gopher space.

Names...

[ackthpt]

They can't get a baby book out and look up a few more names? They didn't even get a name for ever letter of the alphabet?! What are we paying them for!!?

These will be a hit with techies...

"That hurricane isn't ready for release."
"Why not?"
"Because it's Beta!"

Thank you, I'm here all week.

RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!

[Dr. Transparent]

Oh Lordy it's rainin, must be global warming!

Oh Lordy it's snowin, must be global warming!

Oh Lordy a TORNADO! We never had those before global warming!

A WHOLE CITY FLOODED BY A HURRICANE! ACK! That surely couldn't happen without global warming!

For the love, what a bunch of fear-mongering horse shit.

Re:RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!

[KrackHouse]

What's with the outbreak of rational, non left-wing thought on Slashdot? Is everybody trying to be ironic?

Only controversial if you're in denial

[mspohr]

Interesting that a columnist for the "Free Republic" would be given the same weight as "Science" magazine.

The Bushies have been in denial about global warming and have been spreading FUD at every chance. Most real scientists have accepted the fact of global warming. This "controversy" is just another example of denial and FUD.

"Free Republic is the premier online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America. And we always have fun doing it. Hoo-yah!"

These people aren't scientists, they are politicians.

Re:Only controversial if you're in denial

[SubtleNuance]

Anthropogenic Global warming is a reality.
From The American Association for the Advancement of Science's Journal Science
"Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... Most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations"

Global Warming causes sea-surface temperatures to rise.
From NASA:
""There has been a strong warming trend over the past 30 years, a trend that has been shown to be due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere"
Special Multimedia Bonus Goodness!

Sea-surface energy fuel hurricanes
From Nasa:
"Hurricane winds are sustained by the heat energy of the ocean, so the ocean is cooled as the hurricane passes and the energy is extracted to power the winds.

PROFIT!

Re:Only controversial if you're in denial

[mspohr]

Yes, you are correct, "fact" is an imprecise term.

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.

Trolling?

[TrappedByMyself]

The connection between this record-breaking storm year and global warming remains controversial.

So we may hit a total that we hit in 1933. How is this evidence of a change or part of the global warming debate? Shouldn't we be seeing totals consistently higher than the past? Or is someone just trying to stir up a liberal/conservative debate?

Re:Trolling?

[abb3w]

So we may hit a total that we hit in 1933. How is this evidence of a change or part of the global warming debate?

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.

more intense != more storms

[danharan]

TFA article confuses more storms and more severe storms, and the editors blithely repeat that assertion.

It's pretty straightforward: the force of the storm depends on the temperature on the ocean's surface. Higher temperature means nastier storms.

Look, if you don't believe humans are affecting the climate with CO2, fine. If you think things aren't getting worse, fine. But can you quit mis-representing people's arguments and research conclusions?

Now back to reading that dupe about IE being more secure than FF. Gotta love editorial standards here.

1933 number is deceiving

[ctwxman]

When you think back to 1933, please remember - no satellites or radar and much more rudimentary communications. It is the prevailing wisdom that 21 understates the actual number, since there were probably some storms at sea (which ships try to avoid) which aren't accounted for.

As to the Global Warming/hurricane connection, here are the words of hurricane guru Dr. William Gray:

Many individuals have queried whether the unprecedented landfall of four destructive hurricanes in a seven-week period during August-September 2004 and the landfall of two more major hurricanes in the early part of the 2005 season is related in any way to human-induced climate changes. There is no evidence that this is the case. If global warming were the cause of the increase in United States hurricane landfalls in 2004 and 2005 and the overall increase in Atlantic basin major hurricane activity of the past eleven years (1995-2005), one would expect to see an increase in tropical cyclone activity in the other storm basins as well (ie., West Pacific, East Pacific, Indian Ocean, etc.). This has not occurred. When tropical cyclones worldwide are summed, there has actually been a slight decrease since 1995. In addition, it has been well-documented that the measured global warming during the 25-year period of 1970-1994 was accompanied by a downturn in Atlantic basin major hurricane activity over what was experienced during the 1930s through the 1960s.

BTW - I am a meteorologist... or meaty urologist, I never quite remember.

Re:1933 number is deceiving

[metternich]

Parent is correct. The number of hurricanes globally is not increasing. However, there is evidence that Hurricanes are becoming more intense because of global climate change.
Linkie.. (Lots of papers.)

More descriptive huricane names

[FidelCatsro]

"the organization adopted a rotating series of women's names"
I always wondered why they give them nice polite names.
I think "Hurricane Bastard" or "Hurricane Stalin" would be more appropriate .
Just name them after real scum bags ...

Re:More descriptive huricane names

[TimmyDee]

Lewis Black said it best. . .

"Hurricane Andrew? Why would you call a hurricane Andrew? Did the hurricane show up in a little cravat and a dickie, smelling of polo, sipping of perrier, going "Scurry, scurry, Andy's here!!!" What do they call tornado? Tornado. You get the message. They don't go,"Tornado Timmy's coming, FLEE!" Why, if they're going to give a hurricane a name, give it one that applies, like Hurricane Jesus-Christ-On-A-Crutch! Followed by the next big one, Hurricane Holy-Fucking-Moses!"

Science: controversial

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

so what they are saying is...

[night_flyer]

...that there was global warming in 1933?

Alpha and Beta Bugs

[liam193]

Is there a correlation between Hurricane Alpha or Hurricane Beta and the number of mosquitos left by any flooding?

Re:Return to the old?

[minus_273]

Hurricane Xena warrior princess..

Not linked to more, but will effect strength.

[ERJ]

Actually, everything I have read indicates that we Global Warming don't know how global warming will effect the number of hurricanes. (http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~tk/glob_warm_hurr.html/

However, due to how hurricanes gain strength (by pulling heat from the water) global warming could be linked in an increase in strength.

Re: Greek alphabet?

[Black Parrot]

> What's the point in using the Greek alphabet, since all the US media is going to use English/Roman letters to report the names?

I suppose they could use numerals: 0liver, 1ouanne, 2ebulun, 3lizabeth, 4arry, 5andy, 6ob, 7erri, 8???, 9ale, 10uis, ...

Re:Global warming issue

[djward]

We have records of atmospheric gas content going back many hundreds of thousands of years, from ice cores. We are rapidly approaching that point where the atmospheric CO2 levels are 100% HIGHER than the prior maximums over this time period.

Levels of methane, another potent greenhouse gas, are approaching 1000% higher than any previous peak on record.

BOTH of these curves begin a sharp exponential climb right around 1700 AD - the industrial revolution.

It is a fact that these gases contribute to a greenhouse effect, and it is also a fact that humans have contributed to the greenhouse gas content of the atmosphere.

Re:Global warming issue

[BWJones]

From your question, it appears that you have never studied science, but letting that go, I always have to wonder about what it is with people that seem so resistant to the idea of global warming. After all, what is it that you are objecting to? Not being able to drive your 9MPG SUV without having to pay more?

Lemme ask you this: How much of your future and your children's future are you willing to gamble on all us scientists being wrong?

Re:Global warming issue

[djward]

I should edit - we are around 300% of prior maximum for methane.

Corporate-sponsored hurricanes.

[CorruptMayor]

I think we need to start letting corporations sponsor hurricanes. In exchange for getting their name on a hurricane (and thus in the press), they'll pick up 50% of the damanages.

Just think: Pepsi Presentes Hurricane Melvin. Hurricane Ashlee: A Joint Venture of Wal-Mart, Google, and Dell.

When I becomes president, I tells ya.

freerepublic dot com?

[localroger]

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.

Record set in 1933

[DRue]

Were the 21 hurricanes in 1933 caused by global warming?

Re:Record set in 1933

[Stephen Samuel]

1933 was probably an odd spike Statistically, you expect that from time to time in any random pattern.

2005, on the other hand is just the following a pattern of slow, continual growth. -- and it's also been the case that we've been recently pushing records for both numbers and severity. It's not just a spike we're looking at. It's a pattern of growth.

Put it another way: 1933 was a freak year. 2005 isn't.

Re:Record set in 1933

[eln]

We have thousands of years of climatological data due to techniques like ice core sampling. The science behind global warming is not just based on what the local weatherman has been saying for the past 100 years.

Re:Record set in 1933

[SDF-7]

What pattern of slow, continual growth are you getting? Backup your assertions.

As a counterpoint, I'd point you at:
http://www.junkscience.com/Hurricanes/Hurricanes.h tm, which granted dates to 2004 -- but certainly a "slow, continual growth" pattern where 2005 isn't a freak year would show up in that data.

More importantly, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml has the raw data. I tend to agree with the JunkScience analysis of it, which implies that we're simply on the rising edge of the cycle coming out of a lull.

Re:Record set in 1933

[gomel]

We like to think we know everything. How can we say there is global warming when we have maybe 100 years on the subject. Same thing for Hurricanes.

Global warming is 'controversial' only as long as one forgets three undeniable facts: melted water lakes in the middle of Greenland, glacier melting and permafrost melting. We have more than 100 years on documented data on the length of glaciers and they have been getting smaller at an accelarated pace.

These phenomena can not be explained by anything else than a long term change in climatic conditions.

Re:Record set in 1933

[Wiwi Jumbo]

Um... I don't think that was his/her point.

I believe (I don't have the facts myself, just inferring from the previous comment.) the idea he's trying to get across is that over the "thousands of years of climatological data due to techniques like ice core sampling" there is a noticeable spike within those "300-odd years' worth of industry".

But once again, I don't have the facts. (much too lazy :)

Re:Record set in 1933

[Profane MuthaFucka]

That's not insightful. Junk Science is a website that is meant to push a political agenda, not pursue science. Two minutes there is enough to convince you of that.

Re:Record set in 1933

[BJZQ8]

Assuming that Global Warming is undisputed fact, what do you propose doing about it? The entire world is built on a foundation of burning things to power other things, you can't change that overnight. 40-mpg cars and wind turbines? It will never power the world of 20-30 years from now. The global GDP has been advancing at a 3-5 percent rate for quite some time. That means that in 20 years we will have probably more than doubled our energy consumption. It's nice to think that ocean waves and hydrogen fuel cells will change the world; but remove burning things, and releasing CO2, and you throw the world into economic chaos. Economic depressions and hyperinflation are the types of things that start global wars; not the sorts of things that help the environment. Although I suppose a world conflict brought on by an energy shortage will solve the energy usage problem anyway...

Re:Record set in 1933

[KarmaMB84]

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml NOAA seems to confirm what junk science is saying...there's no obvious pattern.

Re:Record set in 1933

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Oh come on, Junk Science sucks and can't be relied on for the truth. If someone lies to you 90% of the time, and tells the truth 10% of the time, you can't trust them. It just so happens that the probable truth matches their agenda, this time.

Re:Record set in 1933

[PakProtector]

I hold that Vikings were Pirates, and therefore we're all doomed.

Re:Record set in 1933

[tehdaemon]

Making decisions based on assumptions is often a very bad idea, as you pointed out.

However, what he meant is 'assuming for the sake of argument'. That is a very usefull assumption and it usually does not cause any harm.

Regardless of whether global warming is a natural cycle, human caused, or non-existant, none of these are 'undisputed facts' by any means. Indeed, there seems to be far more disputes than facts....

Re:Record set in 1933

[SETIGuy]

Note the this is "Hurricanes that hit the U.S." rather than number and severity of Atlantic hurricanes. There a rather significant difference between the two.

Re:Record set in 1933

[rossifer]

When volcanoes spew more greenhouse gases in a day than mankind has done in 10,000 years... Gimme a break.

Actually, the Mt. Saint Helens eruption added about 4% to the US greenhouse gas emissions for 1980 (one part in twenty five!). On average, volcanos put about 110 million tons of CO2 into the air per year. Human activity puts about 10 billion tons of CO2 into the air per year (about 90 times as much as volcanos). Volcanos also tend to pump out more SO2 than anything else, and SO2 is a reverse greenhouse gas (causing global cooling).

The largest eruption in recent history (and probably the largest in the last twelve thousand years) was Tambora in 1815. That eruption is believed to have produced 300 million tons of SO2 and 80 million tons of CO2. But the output of the biggest volcano in recorded history is just a drop in the bucket compared to modern human activity.

Regards,
Ross

Re:Record set in 1933

[BJZQ8]

So we would need a government Office of Assessing Vehicle Need. OAVN: Sir, I see here that you have 2 children and a wife. A Chevrolet Aveo will do fine for you, here is your vehicle voucher. Sir: But I take my kids and their friends to soc... OAVN: The regulations are quite clear on the matter. You do not *need* to have anything larger than an Aveo. Thank you, come again. SECURITY!

what if a greek letter is retired?

[smoondog]

Hmm, what if Hurricane alpha is a major hurricane and then alpha is retired, is this just a finite set of extra names?

-Sean (OutdoorDB - The Outdoor Wiki)

1933? Was it global warming then?

[MirrororriM]

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.

What gets me is all of these "record breaking lows/highs" and along with it comes "it hasn't been this hot/cold/stormy/etc since (insert 30 to 70 year old year here)". Well what was the excuse back then? Seasons and temperatures fluctuate all the time. Records aren't broken every day, nor every year...they just get randomly broken.

So please explain to me why exactly, when referring to 1933, there were 21 storms back then - was it global warming? No.

Before you mod this flamebait or troll, I'm just trying to make a logical point. I'm not a believer or non-believer of global warming, I just get sick of the years-ago referrals as if it were significant without someone thinking it out logically.

Re:Global warming issue

[Inebrius]

I have to ask the same question...what is it with people that are so willing to accept global warming as a human created phenomenon? Where is the evidence?

Prior to enacting laws and restrictions that cost our economy hundreds of billions of dollars (trillions over time), I'd like to know that not only is this not a natural cyclic phenomenon, but that 1) The proposed changes will actually make a difference; and 2) That global warming is BAD for us.

I have never heard an argument about why raising the temperature a few degrees is actually bad, and I'm not talking about raising sea level 5 or 10 feet. Don't more plants grow if the climate is warmer?

Also, why do pro environmental climatologists exclude data that does not fit their model, and overemphasize data that does? Ever heard of the hockey stick and the BS surrounding it? What about the medieval warm period? Notice how most of the historic temp graphs don't cover pre 1500 AD. Also, notice how the climatologists have flipped since the 70's, when we were headed for an ice age. Should we have burnt more fossil fuels then and turned on our heaters 24/7?

I'm all for wait and gather more data, then decide the best course of action for the results we want to achieve. And my SUV gets 15mpg, but I rarely drive it because I DO pay more than most people, every time I fill up the tank.

How much of you and your childs future (economically) are you willing to gamble on the scientists and big check writing politicians being wrong?

"From your question, it appears that you have never studied science, but letting that go, I always have to wonder about what it is with people that seem so resistant to the idea of global warming. After all, what is it that you are objecting to? Not being able to drive your 9MPG SUV without having to pay more?

Lemme ask you this: How much of your future and your children's future are you willing to gamble on all us scientists being wrong?"

Retired Names

[nairnr]

I think one of the interesting things, was the retiring of names after a significant damage causing storm.. Katrina will never be used again, as will Andrew. That is why no names start with Q, U, X, Y and Z. Not enough names to use.

Re:Global warming issue

[Mr. Underbridge]

As a scientist, the problem I have isn't the idea, it's some of the research. Much is being claimed as fact, and these facts often contradict each other. Extrapolations are being taken as gospel among the policy community. There's a lot of dogma on all sides of the debate. It's gotten extremely political, to the point that even questioning the "established" conclusion makes one a pariah in the academic community. There is too much integration between policy and science here, and a lot of people are using policy goals and their beliefs to drive their research.

To disclose, I'm a chemist/statistician, and I drive a prius. I'm in favor of hedging our policy on the side of safety - but purely as a scientist, claiming any sort of accuracy in terms of climate prediction seems ridiculous given the current models.

You say "all us scientists" as if you have 100% consensus, and as if you're a climatologist. Are you?

Re: Greek alphabet?

[Trailer Trash]

How about using the AOL screen name generator?

We're sorry, the name "Hurricane Sam" is taken. How about "Hurricane TNBabe2348"?

In other news...

[jabber01]

Chinese zoologists report a surge in native butterfly populations unseen since 1933.

Well Then, Read What A Scientist Says

[BRock97]

"These people aren't scientists, they are politicians."

Fine then, ask the scientists. William Gray, the grand daddy of hurricane forecasting and the go-to guy at the beginning of the season thinks the hurricane-to-global-warming connection is way overblown to non-existant.

If that is too definitive for you, a group of scientist out of the University of Colorado have come to the conclusion that the claims of a linkage between global warming and hurricane impacts are premature [PDF]. So the brightest minds in hurricanes don't see it and I doubt that they would be in denial.....

evidence for global warming

[Dink Paisy]

There isn't any firm evidence that global warming is in fact a problem, but we do know a few things.

First, the climate has become slightly warmer over the past hundred years. This is known fact, over the period for which accurate measurements and records are available.

Second, there are suggestions from analysis of tree trunk rings that the climate has become progressively warmer over the past several centuries. This research is controversial, and not everyone accepts it.

Third, records from antarctic ice show that there is much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any time in the recent, or even quite distant, past.

Accepting global warming requires a belief that the first item is part of a trend, and that it is a result of human behaviour. Although that isn't proven, it does seem a distinct possibility, especially in light of the third item.

They Need Corporate Sponsored Names

[duerra]

If hurricaines were to have corporate sponsored names, the names could be assigned to storms based on how much devistation they are expected to cause, and people would be able to relate to it! Forget these "categories".

Just think about it, hurricaine "Bob's Used Exercise Equipment" wouldn't be that big of a deal, but people would be fleeing their asses out of town once hurricaine "RIAA" or hurricaine "Microsoft" was being warned for!

Even more problematic than the lack of names...

[bareman]

Media agencies are running out of anthropomorphized behaviors for meteorological phenomenon.

"Targets gulf coast"
"Directs its wrath at..."

Free republic...

[tfoss]

Should tell you something that the "controversial" claim is based on a Free Rpublic article. The guy who they are using as a reference, is pretty well established as one of the leading anti-global warming proponents. A selection of, Dr. Patrick Michaels _scholarly_ articles from his website at UVA:
Michaels, P.J., and R.C. Balling, Jr. 1999. Global warming: The political science of exaggeration. Prometheus 1, 63-70.
Hansen, J.E. and P.J. Michaels. 2000. AARST Science Policy Forum, New York. Social Epistemology 14:133-186
Michaels, P.J., and R.C. Balling, Jr. 2000. The Satanic Gases. Cato Books, Washington DC. 234 pp.

Additionally, his research interests on that UVA page (where he is the CATO Institute Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies) include:

The core issue over the next ten years will not be "How much will the climate warm?" but, rather, "Why did it warm so little?" My research also leads me to believe that the next decade will see the emergence of a paradigm of "robust earth," as opposed to the fashionable "fragility" concept. The papers listed below provide some evidence for these observations. It is entirely possible that human influence on the atmosphere is not necessarily deleterious and that it is simply another component of the dynamic planet.

Ok, so let's look at 'Tech Central Station,' the location hosting the article the free republic is referencing. Dr. Michaels articles on there include:
  Stepping up the Pressure:The all-out, last-ditch effort by global warming alarmists to find any excuse to compel the US to take action.
  Tip of the Iceberg:Yet another predictable distortion.
  Conjecture vs. Science: Are the editors of Science are more interested in conjecture than in firm scientific findings?
 

And, incidentally, as stated on the About TCS webpage, 'Tech Central Station' is published by DCI Group, LLC. And, DCI LLC is "top Republican lobby and PR firm associated with telemarketing company Feather Larson & Synhorst DCI and the direct-mail firm FYI Messaging. The DCI group publishes the website Tech Central Station and has close ties to the George W. Bush administration." according to Source watch.

This is pretty clearly an guy who does not buy into global warming as a concept, despite near universal agreement in the scientific community. To hear him proclaim 'no its not' arguments to scientific articles in both Nature and Science seems to carry rather little weight...particularly when he is publishing on a clearly partisan website. Write a Science/Nature (or hell PNAS, whatever) article refuting this, have it peer-reviewed and then there might be some reason to talk. Until that point, this is little more than personal ideaology posing as "science."

-Ted

Free Republic has no credence

[Intelligent Design]

It saddens me that link made it onto slashdot's frontpage as a credible source regarding global warming. If you want to get an informed opinion, read the original article and a commentary at Science.

Most of the Free Republic article was spent summarizing the science article, which concluded as was quoted. The conclusion they reached first mentioned the observed trend from satellite data over the past 30 years: an increasing frequency of intense hurricanes. They also mentioned that this observed trend is consistent with predictions made by an extremely sophicasted simulator, such as this one(from the science article's references). The simulator's function is to provide predictions of hurricane type, location, and frequency based on as wide of a variety of climate conditions as possible, and to provide them as accurately as possible (which is tested by comparison with observations).

So the simulators can accurately predict some trends in hurricane activity. Here that trend was an increasing frequency of intense hurricanes, given an increase in CO2 concentration and an increase in ocean temperatures, which is what has been observed over the last 30 years.

Since the Free Republic author didn't like the conclusion reached by the scientist, he tries to append some non-satellite data to the beginning of the study and make his own new study. Any numbskull would notice that the data he appended is much noiser than the data in the study, and he clearly isn't qualified to attempt such a study (which is why his article wasn't published in a peer-reviewed journal like Science).

The best thing to do in these situations is school yourself and then come to your own conclusions on this matter.

No, not really

[Gruneun]

Here's a list of the retired hurricanes:



The letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z aren't used because there aren't enough names that start with those letters (in our culture). Otherwise, you run a pretty good chance of having hurricanes Xavier and Quentin pretty much every year.

Everyone but you.

[thatguywhoiam]

What's with the outbreak of rational, non left-wing thought on Slashdot? Is everybody trying to be ironic?

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'?

Well, maybe if you'd read up a bit

[porkchop_d_clown]

you'd learn the answer.

Current theories seem to suggest that storm frequency varies on a long term cycle independent of global warming. However weather models do suggest that a warmer ocean means that the storms we get will be stronger.

21 storms in 1933?!?!?! But ...

[SengirV]

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?

Re:Errrr....

[puppetman]

How about the NOAA?

The link has some interesting quotes:

"The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."

"The results described above are based on a recent simulation study carried out by Thomas R. Knutson and Robert E. Tuleya at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). This study examined the response of simulated hurricanes to the climate warming projected for a substantial build-up of atmospheric CO2. Such an increase in the upper-limit intensity of hurricanes with global warming was suggested on theoretical grounds by M.I.T. Professor Kerry Emanuel in 1987."

MIT, NOAA - pretty reputable sources. So point me to the articles where the link between Global Warming and extreme weather (like hurricanes) is dismissed?

I tried NAT

[davidwr]

I had a hard time putting two hurricanes on the same port at the same time, and when I finally did, it was just one big mess.

The Global warming link is irrelevant...

[daVinci1980]

It's completely irrelevant whether global warming is a cause for the increase in hurricanes or not. If it is, then there's nothing we can do to help the problem in the short term--even if we reduced human contributions to global warming to 0, it would still take many years for the damage done already to dissipate. So blaming the especially strong hurricane season on global warming is a bit like blaming your father for the kind of person you've turned out to be. It might make you feel better, but it won't help with the actual problem--that you're a deadbeat drunk and you beat your kids.

There will always be hurricanes. Just like there will always be tornados, droughts, earthquakes, sinkholes and other natural disasters. That's why they're called natural disasters. They're natural. They're a part of nature. The fact that there are 200 hurricanes this year and only 10 next year doesn't help the people affected by them any more or less.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that there isn't global warming. I have skin. I can tell it's there, even over my relatively short lifespan. We should get in on the Kyoto accord (or at least emulate like we're a part of it), cut back our emissions and do our best not to perturb the natural rest-state of the environment. But in the short term, we need to figure out better ways to evacuate people from affected areas and find better methods to deal with disaster recovery.

Re:The Global warming link is irrelevant...

[Minux]

It is true there will always be hurricanes and natural disasters, the question however is how you can reduce the impact of these events. Earthqaukes in California resulted in the strenghting of building codes, as did the the recent land slides. These actions will not have any immediate effects, but will help when the next quake happens.

By your standards we should abandon all long term ideas and only focus on the short term; and where if anywhere has that got us?

You yourself agree that global warming is real. So why not start taking action that will help the long term side by side with short term options. Yes disasters will happen and nothing you ever will do will stop those. But you cannot loose sight of what might hapen in the future.

so your first line "it's completely irrelevant" is truely irrelavent.

Just my two cents.

Hurricane KHANNN!...

[Ieshan]

Oh man, it would have been so great to have news organizations playing Shatner during all of the broadcast intros if the most recent one was Hurricane KHAAAAAAAN!

Quit Making up Stuff

[Perl-Pusher]

Geeze anyone can google and find out the truth in 10 seconds. Try the National Hurricane Centers own statistics. Look at the 10 year statistics. You cannot make any correlation. It's oddly cyclical and you cannot say any given year is normal. I'm not denying global warming, but it's not the cause of every bad storm. Stuff happens, hurricanes, tsunami's, earthquakes it has happened since the man first walked upright.

When you have alot of chicken littles running around crying 'the end is near', and make unsubstantiated claims, nobody can take you seriously. You end up getting compared with crop circles, yeti and ufo's.

Fat-fingered the link

[Gruneun]

List of retired names

There is no controversy

[JoeDuncan]

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...

Re:There is no controversy

[rampant poodle]

The objective science...http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

Use scary names

[teal_]

Who's going to take a hurricane named Katrina or Ophelia seriously? Here are some hurricane names that might get people's attention to get out of dodge:

- Osama
- Saddam
- Adolf
- Lucifer
- Vader

RealClimate is a biased source

[WombatControl]

RealClimate is not a credible source. It's run by an environmentalist lobbying group out of Washington DC - do a WHOIS on the domain.

Using them as a source is like producing a GOP press release that says that George W. Bush is the best President ever. That may or may not be true, but one can't expect impartial analysis from someone who has a definite interest in pushing one side or the other.

Future News

[Rei]

Hurricane Report:

        Tropical depression #36 has increased in intensity to a tropical storm with maximum sustained windspeeds of 49 miles, and has been named tropical storm Pi. Its eye wall has circularized surprisingly early, and the storm is expected to gain strength as it squares the radial islands of the Florida Keys.

        Hurricane Delta continues to change latitude, longitude, pressure, and windspeeds in the west, Atlantic, with d-la=-1.3, d-lo=0.2, d-p=-15 mbar, and d-w=15 mph. This is quite the contrast to last year's hurricane Iota, which refused to change much at all. It is recommended that all residents in the eastern Carribean continue to plot the course of this dangerous storm carefully, as all of this data is subject to change.

        Hurricane Beta has been downgraded to tropical storm beta as it decays over the North Atlantic. Beta caused quite a scare after it formed from the reminants of the collision of tropical storm alpha and the eastern antilles, but has passed harmlessly through open water ever since it was spawned.

        Tropical storm Lambda continues to redefine itself as it disintigrates now that it has moved inland from the Texas gulf cost. A category 5 hurricane on impact, it left a swath of destruction as a void in its wake. After making landfall, it took a break before continuing for n>3 days across the continental United States. The variable number of refugees that fled in advance of the hurricane are not expected to return any time soon; garbage collection must be done and the environment cleaned up first.

Re:Global warming issue

[Distinguished Hero]

We are rapidly approaching that point where the atmospheric CO2 levels are 100% HIGHER than the prior maximums over this time period.
Levels of methane, another potent greenhouse gas, are approaching 1000% higher than any previous peak on record.

Oh, well in that case, it's a good thing the Bush administration has a plan to significantly reduce the amount of methane being released into the atmosphere.

What's that you say? You haven't heard about this on the BBC, CBC, NPR, CNN or even FOX News? How interesting.

Controversial?

[coaxial]

Yeah. Just to the Freepers.

So we have an industry shill and a thinktanker on one side, and almost the entire climatology community on the other. (out of 928 peer-reviewed papers published, NOT ONE denied global warming was real and was occuring now due to human activities. 75% accepted that conclusion explicitly or implicitly, and the remaining 25% made no mention either way.) Yeah that's controversial, and so is the planet being round.

Just last week it was reported that arctic sea ice melting was accelerating, and therefore we have passed the tipping point.

There may have been controversy 30 years ago. The only controversy now is the manufactured one for political gain. Then again, I suspect fm6, also believes that the white house was changing scientific results simply to make it "fair and balanced".

Re:Global warming issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a biochemist myself (not the OP), but I have to say - if you are a chemist, then both of our opinions on climatology are basically at layperson level (slightly better perhaps, because we understand the process of science in general).

I'd have to say that if the overwhelming majority of climatologists and those in related fields are able to agree both on the occurrence of global warming as fact, and the involvement of human activities in exacerbating global warming (with the level of effect still debated), then perhaps it is you who don't have a proper handle on the field?

I know it is quite possible for scientists to move between quite disparate fields, but to offer your opinion as a "scientist" both you and the original poster should be making sure you are completely up-to-date on the relevant research.

It can be annoying when certain community groups jump the gun and make stronger claims than are supported by the science involved, but I see no evidence that the field of climatology is guilty of your assertions - I suggest that perhaps you haven't availed yourself fully of the total research available.

The phrase which raises a warning with me is your statement that "claiming any sort of accuracy in terms of climate prediction seems ridiculous given the current models". I've seen similar statements before - from creationists and Intelligent Design followers regarding evolution. That is a statement of rhetoric, rather than good scientific debate.

I don't have the background to judge the "current models" but many here do. In future, if you want to claim you have done the homework and found some science wanting, then you should state what your specific concerns are. To do otherwise is not only pointless, but actively harmful to other laypeople's views, since you are claiming your view under the guise of professional scientist.

Pirates

[dvicci]

The increase in hurricanes is not due to the increase in global temperatures, rather, it is due to a decrease in the number of pirates.

Use Two Names...

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Since hurricanes mostly hit Southern states anyway, start using two names after we use up all the
single names for the year. By October we'll get hurricanes like Bubba Earl, Ellie Mae, Joe Bob, etc.

Re:Use Two Names...

[billybob2001]

Blow me! ;-)

--
billybob2001

Re:Faulty Grasp of Science

[Phat_Tony]

It's interesting that from my comment you can tell so much about my scientific underpinnings. I'd have hoped someone might be more scientific about verifying their understanding before attacking someone else's credibility. For example, from only reading your post, I would suspect that you have a faulty grasp of the english language, logic, and science. But with so little information to go on, I'd hesitate to accuse you of this. Perhaps you were just sleepy, or in hurry when you composed your post, or trying to support a political agenda, rather than incompetent.

I wasn't publishing a peer-reviewed scientific paper, I was posting a comment on Slashdot. I wasn't trying to use the scientific definition of "proof," the mathematical definiton of "proof," or the legal definition of "proof," I was just speaking plainly. I'm sure to your reasoning, the theory of gravity, the theory of evolution, the germ theory of disease, and the heliocentric theory of the solar system are only conjectures, which are not, and can never be, proven. But to all of us who are having a friendly discussion about what all this stuff means, these things have been "proven" by a commonly accepted colloquial use of the word "prove." Any conjecture that passes peer review, stands the test of time, makes it into the textbooks, and becomes a scientific theorem might be considered to have been "shown to be correct," or "generally accepted," or "undoubtedly accurate," or any other synonym or euphemism you might choose for the word "proven." I'm sure, from your message, that if I'd said "Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem" or "Louis de Branges proved the Bieberbach Conjecture," you'd attack me for "having a faulty grasp of mathematics," because they "only provided a logical proof within an assumed framework."

I'm fascinated by the way you twist your semantic quibbling into a "disproof," if you will, of every actual point I made in my post. It is as if I were to point out that your statement "their coherence with the rest of the accepted body of science" is redundant, because that's part of what constitutes "the weight of evidence supporting them", and then concluded that everything you'd written were false because I caught something that could be improved upon in the way you state your case.

In this case, there would be no reason to fall back on illogical, unscientific arguments for why you're wrong in saying "Currently the theory that nastier hurricanes are caused by global warming has more evidenciary support and is more coherent than competing theories, thus it is the currently accepted explanation," since I can rely on reason and scientific literature to back me up. With your keen grasp of science, I'm interested that you didn't feel the need to, for example, offer any sort of references, arguments, or data supporting any assertion you made in your post. So here's some. First, start with every argument I made in my post, and see if you can actually offer any counter argument to any of them. Then try to actually RTFA linked to the Slashdot story, and notice that this "trend" only exists for the narrow subset of data the researchers choose, and as soon as you throw in the data from 1925, the trend is reversed.

Unfortunately it isn't available online, (well, you can see some of it at Amazon.), but chapter 5 of Bjorn Lomburg's The Skeptical Environmentalist provides an overwhelming accumulation of peer-reviewed data culled from Science, Scientific American, and the UN Meteorological Organization showing that there is no positive correlation between global temperature and hurricane frequency or severity. In fact, the best available data shows a week negative correlation, although any long-term trend is nearly lost in

I have lots of names

[cygnusx197]

Unfortunately I can't repeat them in public.
They're the names I call the lovely girls in my life.

They swoop in, there's lots of dampness and blowing at first, but when they leave, they take the house.

Re:Global warming issue

[Klaruz]

Sucker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Central_Station

two words

[the_1000th_Monkey]

corporate sponsorship!

Imagine it. A huge fund is started where the winning bid for each hurricane's name is deposited, and this is what we dip into to pick up the pieces afterward!

This way when Citigroup takes your house, it's because it cleaned it off it's foundation into the Gulf of Mexico!

But really, there will be such heavy bidding for the Category Fives so that every talking-head will be saying "remember this relief effort is brought to you by Walmart."

Outsource to India

[artemis67]

I suggest outsourcing the naming to India, and at a much lower cost.

Hurricane Punjab
Hurricane Krishna
Hurricane Patel
etc...

Re:Outsource to India

[The Cydonian]

Considering that we have 800-odd languages and at least 20 different scripts, I'd say it's a good option! :-)

Retiring names

[bgramkow]

For hurricanes (such as Katrina) that cause an exceptional amount of damage they retire the name. So if the 22nd hurricane of the year is a monster will they retire "Alpha" as a hurricane name?

Re:Retiring names

[DrunkenTerror]

Hey, I hadn't thought of that. This is the single interesting comment in the thread.