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Hurricane Sandy a 1-in-700-Year Event Says NASA Study
Rebecka writes "Hurricane Sandy, which pelted multiple states in Oct. and created billions of dollars in damage, was a freak occurrence and not an indication of future weather patterns, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies via LiveScience. The study (abstract), which calculated a statistical analysis of the storm's trajectory and monitored climate changes' influences on hurricane tracks, claims that the tropical storm was merely a 1-in-700-year event. 'The particular shape of Sandy's trajectory is very peculiar, and that's very rare, on the order of once every 700 years,' said senior scientist at NASA and study co-author, Timothy Hall. According to Hall, the extreme flooding associated with the storm was also due to the storm's trajectory which was described as being 'near perpendicular.' The storm's unusual track was found to have been caused by a high tides associated with a full moon and high pressure that forced the storm to move off the coast of the Western North Atlantic."
That's funny because the year BEFORE Sandy, we had a "Once in a Hundred Year Storm" hit the northeast. And then next year, the exact same thing happened again, but it was worse.
And this year, I expect the weatherman to say the exact same thing....
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Sandy hit at high tide and a full moon
the gravity of the moon raised the water a few feet which is why the storm surge caused all the flooding
we had a more powerful storm hit NYC the year before and it did a lot less damage because it didn't hit at high tide. very minor flooding.
for another hurricane to do as much damage as Sandy, it has to hit the around the 22nd of the month and make landfall close to 8pm
So, if we get another one like these in our lifetime, what then? NASA just says oops and people keep pretending like there isn't climate change happening?
One supposes that with new data the NASA scientists would revise their theories. If NASA's models are broken, then attack the models. Short of that, data-less speculation is just that.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Lets not fall into the Gambler's fallacy, it don't mean that won't happen next year, and the next after it, or that should happen for sure in the next 700, 1000, or 10000 years. Also, odds of taking a certain, specific path are pretty low, as the odds of hitting a particular point of a dartboard, but that don't mean that no point of the dartboard will be hit, and the same for potential paths of destruction.
False. 0.5^1000 == 0.5^1000 no matter how many trials there are
Your right of course. But he's saying the longer you flip a coin, the more likely you will see an occurrence of 1000 heads in a row, and this is true.
Lets look at a smaller set 2 heads in a row:
The odds when flipping a coin twice is 0.5^2. or 1 in 4.
The odds when flipping a coin twice more is again 1 in 4.
repeat ad nauseum, which is your argument.
His observation is that if you flip it 3 times, the odds of two heads coming up in a row increases, and it does. It's now 3 in 8 which is greater than 1 in 4. If you flip it 4 times... its up to 8 in 16 (or 50%), 5 times, and your odds get to 19/32 which is almost 60%, 6 times 51/64 (almost 80%).
That doesn't change the odds of a superstorm happening next year, or next week. Its still a 1 in 700 year probability. But the thing about statistically unlikely things is not only that they can happen, but that they DO happen, and over a long enough period unlikely things are nearly inevitable.
This is not the politically correct answer. You are supposed to blame Sandy on global warming.
Mind you, that may be the scientifically correct answer too. I certainly don't have the background to make that judgment. And I am definitely not a global warming naysayer by any means.
But if you publish a study saying Sandy was due only to various things other than global warming, I think you're in politically dangerous territory, even if the study is an honest one.
Of course, this defines the problem. When science is politicized, no good comes of it.
The NASA paper does not say that Sandy was not influenced by climate change. What they actually calculate is that Sandy-like hurricanes occur once in 700 years under pre-industrial conditions. Here is one of many relevant quotes:
Someone should have RTFA.
it has to hit the around the 22nd of the month and make landfall close to 8pm
That would be valid only for this month, as the tides don't follow a monthly cycle but a ~ 28-day cycle.
Check out IKE (Integrated Kinetic Energy). It is a valuable metric for quantifying potential for storm surge. Sandy was freakishly high on this scale.
This article
Superstorm Sandy packed more total energy than Hurricane Katrina at landfall
does a good job explaining.
Long story short, discount Saffir-Simpson categories and look at IKE when you want to discuss surge.
The number of "100 year" weather events in the past decode or so has sorta turned into a running joke for comedians. At some point, you should probably decide that either the previous methods of estimating such things were wrong, or the weather patterns have changed in recent years.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.