Slashdot Mirror
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."
Use the Chinese alphabet. If you have a year where you run out, it's all just one big hurricane.
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!!?
Shadus
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.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
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.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
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.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
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?
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
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.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
As to the Global Warming/hurricane connection, here are the words of hurricane guru Dr. William Gray:
BTW - I am a meteorologist... or meaty urologist, I never quite remember."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
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
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.
Hurricane Xena warrior princess..
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
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.
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.
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.
Were the 21 hurricanes in 1933 caused by global warming?
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.
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?
Chinese zoologists report a surge in native butterfly populations unseen since 1933.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
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
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
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.
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.
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!"
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.
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...
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.
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.
Also, I can kill you with my brain.
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.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
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".
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.
>;k
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
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?