Superstorm Sandy Shook the Earth

sciencehabit writes "When Superstorm Sandy struck the United States on 30 October, it didn't just devastate the Eastern Seaboard, it shook the ground as far away as the West Coast, producing tiny vibrations in Earth's crust that were picked up by seismometers there. Scientists can use this activity to track the path of the storm. Now, they say that analyzing past records of these vibrations may help them discern whether climate change has influenced the amount of storminess over the world's oceans in recent decades."

Comments

well, that's grasping

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be simple enough to check for increased or decreased storminess through satellite images and records.

If you're trying to find another proxy then you're not getting the results you want from the available proxies.

Re:well, that's grasping

[beschra]

I'll feed the troll.

One thing that's probably very difficult to measure from satellite images is energy in a storm, which I would think would be an important part of measuring storminess. I'd think that knowing how far the impact extended through the earth would be very helpful in measuring energy.

Re:well, that's grasping

[Anonymous Coward]

As per the article, they're also planning to look at data from the pre-satellite era, and can use seismic data to fill in any gaps in the satellite network.

Re:well, that's grasping

[Troed]

Here's a graph on total cyclone energy over time. The global warming signal should be easily spotted:

http://policlimate.com/tropical/global_running_ace.png

Re:well, that's grasping

[fustakrakich]

Obviously Clinton's and Bush's (both) fault. Under our wonderful new stewardship it's lower than it was 30 years ago :-/

Re:well, that's grasping

[Hunter Shoptaw]

I'm just glad that we're utilizing the new standardized "storminess" metric to track global warming.

Re:well, that's grasping

[Fesh]

Looks like it fluctuates with the sunspot cycle... Needs to be controlled for that to produce any useful conclusions.

Re:well, that's grasping

[TapeCutter]

There's also more to measuring storms than just counting tropical cyclones. Tropical cyclones need specific sea surface and atmospheric condition to form, warming things up may not necessarily change their numbers or strength, For example if for some reason upper atmosphere turbulence (jet streams) increased more than surface level turbulence you would expect less cyclones since they cannot form when a jet stream "cuts the top off". However, simple thermodynamics says the atmosphere as a whole will become more turbulent as it warms. The idea in TFA is interesting and worth investigating but insurance records of storm damage are probably a better way to detect any meaningful change in storm damage.

Many climate scientists agree with Hassen's view that mid latitudes will see the largest increase in turbulence. This is because the polar caps are melting and driving cold air toward the equator, while at the same time (and for the same reason) the Hadley Cells (convection currents) are becoming more pronounced, driving hot dry air polewards. The mid latitudes is where they meet (steeper thermocline = more storms).

For the inevitable trolls, it doesn't matter what you believe, your insurance company has been including AGW as a risk factor in it's actuary tables for at least a decade now.

Re:well, that's grasping

[Troed]

but insurance records of storm damage are probably a better way to detect any meaningful change in storm damage.

In studying hurricanes, we can make rough comparisons over time by adjusting past losses to account for inflation and the growth of coastal communities. If Sandy causes $20 billion in damage (in 2012 dollars), it would rank as the 17th most damaging hurricane or tropical storm (out of 242) to hit the U.S. since 1900—a significant event, but not close to the top 10. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 tops the list (according to estimates by the catastrophe-insurance provider ICAT), as it would cause $180 billion in damage if it were to strike today. Hurricane Katrina ranks fourth at $85 billion.

To put things into even starker perspective, consider that from August 1954 through August 1955, the East Coast saw three different storms make landfall—Carol, Hazel and Diane—that in 2012 each would have caused about twice as much damage as Sandy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204840504578089413659452702.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Here is one thing the industry agrees is true: The cost from hurricane damages is increasing. That's largely because population density and the cost of coastal property increases every year.

[---]

"Are we really seeing more storms, or are we just recording more storms? That's the big question," says longtime expert Karen Clark, who runs her own risk-management consultancy.

Clark says the problem is that hurricane prediction is a very young science. She notes that records documenting hurricanes go back only about a century, a data set far too small to draw big conclusions.

She says after Hurricane Katrina — the most expensive of all documented storms — some predicted a warming cycle would produce more powerful storms. That forecast did not bear out.

"It just shows you that we just are not that smart, you know, when it comes to what's really going on," Clark says.

Bill Keogh, president of Eqecat, one of the major risk-modeling firms in the U.S., says that despite what it may seem, we are now in a statistically low period of hurricane activity. After Katrina, few powerful hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S.

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/04/164185424/insurance-companies-rethink-business-after-sandy

(Observations trump models. Always)

Please stop

[Whatanut]

Plesae stop calling it "super storm". It was unusual for that area. That is all. It was no where near has large a storm as have been seen in other places.

Re:Please stop

[ackthpt]

Plesae stop calling it "super storm". It was unusual for that area. That is all. It was no where near has large a storm as have been seen in other places.

It wasn't even unusual. Storms like Sany shaped the Eastern Seaboard. Why the continued moronic assumptions history began with European settlers?

I'm an avid hiker and camper, covering considerable area in my exploration. Very often I take the time to examin my surroundings and wonder what forces shaped them. Sometimes the truth is hidden beneath grasses and behind trees, others the truth is fully exposed in rock outcrops, valley floors and mountain ranges. The Earth didn't stop changing, either, it's constantly changing. We're just a bink in the eye of time, though we're doing a marvelous job of paving ground, digging holes and pulling carbon back to the surface.

Enjoy the ride.

Re:Please stop

[BlackSnake112]

It became super storm when it joined up with other weather systems when it hit the north east. Prior to that it was just hurricane Sandy. Also the media needed to make the storm sound very bad to the average joe. Usually hurricanes are not that strong when they hit the north east. Many people would not and did not leave. Calling it super storm Sandy makes it sound worse to make people listen. Many people did not listen and go to higher ground. I know people who work for the Verizon. They had to go in to restore service. On some coastal towns they plowed the streets to clear the sand. In the plow banks they saw bodies. Well an arm or leg poking out of the sand.

Re:Please stop

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia says it was the largest hurricane (by gale diameter) ever observed in the Atlantic basin.

Apparently there have been larger tropical storms in the Pacific. But that's kind of apples and oranges. You could also compare Jupiter's Great Red Spot, for instance.

Re:Please stop

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

I prefer stormageddon, because everything these days is a 'geddon of some sort.

Re:Please stop

[Runaway1956]

"It wasn't even unusual. Storms like Sany shaped the Eastern Seaboard. Why the continued moronic assumptions history began with European settlers?"

Two thumbs up.

We're supposed to believe that before Europeans arrived, the Americas were an idyllic paradise, that suffered no storms, no earthquakes, no wars, no famine. Ehhh - Europeans brought all those evils here, along with smallpox and polio.

Re:Please stop

[Hunter Shoptaw]

Well they were going to go with "Bigger than average storm for this area, but not quite a hurricane," but then marketing got a hold of it.

Re:Please stop

[ackthpt]

"It wasn't even unusual. Storms like Sany shaped the Eastern Seaboard. Why the continued moronic assumptions history began with European settlers?"

Two thumbs up.

We're supposed to believe that before Europeans arrived, the Americas were an idyllic paradise, that suffered no storms, no earthquakes, no wars, no famine. Ehhh - Europeans brought all those evils here, along with smallpox and polio.

Geocaching has a type of cache called Earthcache, where to log a find the geocacher must read about some feature, observe and report back to the cache owner. These really are some great eye openers in what is present, but in getting the mind working on how a feature came to be, what time was involved, how climate changed during the creation of the feature.

Re:Please stop

[Mindcontrolled]

Well, at least it suffered no hordes of burning strawmen back then... ;)

Re:Please stop

[Holi]

No the whole reason it is considered a super storm is it was th combination of two storm fronts. If they had missed, regardless of the damage it would not be called a super storm. Think of the "Perfect Storm" it wasn't called that because of the amount of damage caused, but because of the potential damage do to the power it produced. And it released an incredible amount of force, just most of it was impacted on empty ocean.

Re:Please stop

[Holi]

See my response and consider that storms are graded on their potential not actual damage.

Re:Please stop

[Holi]

And it combined with a nor'easter but feel free to ignore that part

Re:Please stop

[Holi]

per wikipedia it was the largest hurricane (by gale diameter) ever observed in the Atlantic basin. Kinda makes you look like an ass for your ill informed comment

Re: Please stop

[mkraft]

It was called a Superstorm partially for insurance reasons. Most if not all insurance companies have higher deductibles for a hurricane than for a regular storm. As it wasn't a hurricane when if made landfall, people decided to call it a Superstorm rather than a hurricane to prevent insurance companies from charging the hurricane deductible.

The other reason is that it was actually made up of three different storms by the time it hit land, of which Hurricane Sandy was one. That's why some areas got blizzard conditions.

Re:Please stop

[sexconker]

Plesae stop calling it "super storm". It was unusual for that area. That is all. It was no where near has large a storm as have been seen in other places.

If it had happened in any other place, no one would have given a shit.
But since it happened in New York, the media (and New Yorkers) won't stop talking about it.

It wasn't even a fucking hurricane!

Re:Please stop

[sexconker]

Wikipedia says it was the largest hurricane (by gale diameter) ever observed in the Atlantic basin.

Apparently there have been larger tropical storms in the Pacific. But that's kind of apples and oranges. You could also compare Jupiter's Great Red Spot, for instance.

Then Wikipedia is wrong. It wasn't an actual hurricane. It was a tropical storm.

Re:Please stop

[Mashiki]

We're supposed to believe that before Europeans arrived, the Americas were an idyllic paradise, that suffered no storms, no earthquakes, no wars, no famine. Ehhh - Europeans brought all those evils here, along with smallpox and polio.

Yeah people like to conveniently forget too, that during the original decades that the settlers were landing the storms along the east coast of north america were so severe that half or more of the settlers died out on occasion.

Re:Please stop

[riverat1]

Sorry but when Hurricane Sandy combined with the other storm by definition it was no longer considered a hurricane or tropical storm. Nevertheless there were hurricane force winds spread out over a nearly 1000 mile diameter as it neared the coast and it was the largest storm of the type ever seen in the Atlantic Ocean. So whether you call it a hurricane or not is just a matter of semantics. It still had hurricane force winds as it hit the coast.

Re:Please stop

[Hunter Shoptaw]

Probably because I was being an ass with my comment by making light of the fact that the name of it means absolutely nothing in reality.

Re:Please stop

[sexconker]

Sorry, but when that particular tropical storm hit the coast it was no longer a hurricane.
Sorry, but there were no hurricane force winds when it hit the coast.
Sorry, but when we classify storms for the landfall event, for insurance, etc., we use the landfall event, not what it was days earlier out in the ocean.
Sorry, but when a storm collides with another storm nothing magical happens, the resulting storm front is reclassified.
Sorry, but it doesn't matter if it's the biggest storm to hit New York in a long time, that doesn't change the definition.
Sorry, but it wasn't a hurricane.

Also

[sunking2]

Scientists can now detect the vibrations from an ant walking. Ants must be becoming larger, more powerful, and are on the brink of world domination.

Re:Also

[bluefoxlucid]

There is much truthiness to this storminess.

Re:Also

[antdude]

Muahahahaha! >:)

Re:Wierd Weather

[TemporalBeing]

This is more of the AGW bullshit, look at recent historical record, Sandy wasn't unusual, the MSM response was as the AGW meme die, much to their discomfort!

MFG, omb

While I agree the AGW folks will say that the "recent historical record" was just a build up as predicted by AGW...again complete BS as we just don't have the requisite information to even confirm/deny it one way or another; but most likely it's now AGW, just a natural cycle.

Re:Jeremiah Cornelius: Grow up

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up, Paul.

Seriously,

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll never understand the people that are so hell bent against the possibility the global warming is real, man made, and a huge problem that we are facing today.

Say for a moment that global warming isn't real, say it's all a hoax. Would you argue our movements toward a cleaner, more energy efficient way of life is a bad thing?

Global warming is a real measurable fact. There are significant quantities of carbon in the atmosphere that we humans released by burning oil made from carbon based lifeforms that were removed from the active carbon cycle millions of years ago. For millions of years the carbon cycle was burying carbon and removing it slowly from the cycle. Then we came along and released a shit ton of it in a very short period of a couple hundred years. Yes, WE DID THIS, and we can prove it.

Re:Seriously,

[GameboyRMH]

It's the same old fight against environmental regulations that's been going on at least since American cities were choking on coal smog in the late 1800s/early 1900s and the companies doing the polluting said that breathing it was good for your health.

Re:Seriously,

[fredrated]

the companies doing the polluting said that breathing it was good for your health.

You mean it's not good for my health?

Re:Seriously,

[Anonymous Coward]

"Global warming is a real measurable fact"

No, it is not. First - where have you been the last 10 years? Hiding the decline like "Big Academia"?

" For millions of years the carbon cycle was burying carbon and removing it slowly from the cycle"

You don't know this. If it was being removed (and not replenished in this ambiguous guess of a time period), it should probably be gone by now, and by the 'sound' argument that a trace gas is somehow responsible for most of the heat retention of the planet, we should by all accounts be a frozen ball of ice.

Re:Seriously,

[Mindcontrolled]

Why do flat out lies and/or pure ignorance get modded informative these days?

Re:Seriously,

[riverat1]

Well, if you want to ask some current people who are experiencing the same thing you could travel to Beijing. I read an article recently that said over 1 million people in China have suffered premature deaths due to fine particle pollution, primarily soot from coal burning.

Re:Seriously,

[riverat1]

In climatological terms 10 or even 15 years is pretty meaningless. Natural variation is enough to override a global warming signal in such a short time period. Get back with me in 2025 and we'll talk.

All you have to do is look at how CO2 levels in the atmosphere has changed over those millions of years to see that the level has been slowly dropping over that time period. It's in the data.

Without that "trace" gas the planet would be a frozen ball of ice. The main thing that supports the high levels of water vapor responsible for most of the greenhouse effect is the 15-20% of warming that is caused by CO2. Without it the atmosphere would get so cold most of the water vapor would precipitate out.

I don't know who modded your post +1 Informative, it should be modded -1 Ignorant.

Re:This

[rwise2112]

I came here to say the same thing. EVERYTHING shakes the world. My typing is doing it right now. Stop saying garbage like that to hype things.

Can you please stop typing? I'm trying to pour a glass of water!

sensationalism

[Anonymous Coward]

next thing you know, they'll start saying the explosion in west, tx and the two bombs in boston were supercastastrophic uber detonations that japanese people could feel!

Agreed...

[emag]

Sandy sure rocked my world...