Slashdot Mirror
Recipe for a Storm — Forecasting a Hurricane Season
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers investigating the ingredients that go into a hurricane think they have found a reliable basis for predicting the overall strength of a hurricane season. Jim Kossin and Dan Vimont have found a basin-wide circulation pattern that offer one possible explanation in the previously unexplained differences in long-term hurricane trends. "Kossin and Vimont, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, noticed that warmer water is just one part of a larger pattern indicating that the conditions are right for more frequent, stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic. The atmosphere reacts to ocean conditions and the ocean reacts to the atmospheric situation, creating a distinct circulation pattern known as the Atlantic Meridional Mode (AMM). The AMM unifies the connections among the factors that influence hurricanes such as ocean temperature, characteristics of the wind, and moisture in the atmosphere."
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers...
Good thing these fine young scholars are boldly venturing forth into the areas of meteorology most crucially important to the Midwestern region of the United States.
Canadian forecasters said that due to El Nino, the earth is cooling down by 1 degree on average and that we can expect a very cold winter - worst in 15 years - brrr...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The forecasts were way off. What's that old joke? Weather forecasters have it so good. They can be wrong 75% of the time and still keep their job.
What?
Every June in Florida the local news is full of reports by experts that this year would be the worst hurricane season on record. After 7 years of hearing the same stuff I started to tune it out.
You want a storm? Forget your wife's birthday, that'll bring a storm.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
This would be really newsworthy if their model could predict where and when, not just how strong the entire season will be. ;-)
These guys aren't the first to "discover" this connection. The article does a piss-poor job of explaining it, but basically the global thermohaline circulation varies in speed. Sometimes it runs fast and sometimes slow. The fast periods tend to last about 15-20 years, with the slow ones a little shorter, and it's a self-correcting cycle. Our observed records of this pattern correspond very well with the last hundred years of Atlantic hurricanes.
Global warming is a major threat, and it's going to be responsible for a lot of weather problems, but Atlantic hurricanes aren't one of them. Once you increase Atlantic surface temperatures to a certain point, you actually tend to increase upper-level shear, which is extremely disruptive to hurricanes.
The 2005 season was so terrible because four of the storms that made landfall passed over the extremely warm loop current in the Gulf of Mexico shortly before making landfall. It was a busy season and we just had some really bad luck on top of it. Even considering this, they were all weakening when they actually hit, and the destruction of New Orleans is entirely due to shoddy construction of the levees. Katrina may have been a cat 5 at sea, but the levees failed in category 1 conditions.
Why do we listen to people that cannot reliably tell us what will happen tomorrow in terms of weather? We are supposed to attribute credibility to them for prediciting hurricanes, and even global warming, a much longer cycle of data and extrapolation, when I am not sure if I need an umbrella or not. Ridiculous.
no comment
Today is 1st December. A typical storm involves snow, sleet,ice and freezing rain. Maybe these guys in WI should get outside some time. (hint: a shovel would be useful )
But not now. The forecasts are never even close. They change their forecast several times during each season otherwise it would not even resemble reality. Hurricane forecasting will probably be decent at some point but it is worthless right now.
With climate change occurring, the norms are shot to hell. Worse, the great lakes appear to be losing water (wether it is long term or not remains to be seen), which will hurt the aquifers AND change their rain in the long run. Yes, If I were a state that depends on rainfall water (which is all states not on the oceans or that are large; alaska, texas), I would be spending some time checking out what is going on.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I am being Devil's Advocate Here
Devise theory -- publish
Wait one year -- revise theory -- publish
Repeat
Get tenure
Chill
The proposed model is obviously flawed. Everyone knows you can't have a hurricane model which doesn't account for Al Gore.