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For Overstated Claims, Gore, Tesla Upbraided By NWS, NHTSA Respectively
barlevg writes "In a recent interview, former Vice President and environmental activist Al Gore made a bold claim, that man-made global warming was causing hurricanes to be formed of such severity that 'they're adding a 6' to the hurricane scale, going on to say that 'The fingerprint of man-made global warming is all over these storms and extreme weather events.' In response, the National Weather Service has responded that they have no plans to add a 'doomsday Category 6' to their rating scale: 'No, we're not pursuing any such change. I'm also not sure who VP Gore means by "they,"' also noting that 'Category 5 has no ceiling: it includes hurricanes with top sustained winds of 157 mph and higher.'
Furthermore, a recently leaked United Nations climate assessment claims only 'low confidence' of a link between human activity and increased hurricane severity and that this is likely due to increased human settlement in coastal areas and other regions vulnerable to natural disasters."
Along similar lines, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that Tesla's Model S, no matter how safe it is, doesn't get any special grade inflation: there's no "5.4" score (as the company did in a press release this week), because that's just not how the NHTSA keeps score. (Hat tip to reader cartechboy.)
I'm surprised that the inventor of The Internet would make such erroneous claims.
-=You might be a geek if your computer is worth more than your car=-
My category scale goes to 11
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
The Category system only measures wind speed, not storm surge, track, or the velocity of the storm system, or even how much rain it will dump. A Category 1 coming ashore during a full-moon high tide can do a lot more damage than a hurricane with higher winds.Arguably, Sandy was not even a hurricane when it came ashore. And a year before there was Irene that deluged inland areas of New York and North Jersey with amazing amounts of rainfall. It came ashore with winds similar to Sandy in almost the same part of NJ, but did very little damage to that area.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yes, there can be bigger hurricanes and they should have a higher Cat 6 level.
Yes, Cat6. More twists per inch and you can't strip back as far when you punch one down into a patch block.
If a Hurricane is strong enough to tip over a Tesla model S, then it should get a Category 6 rating . . .
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
Apparently, it's capped at 5. However, that doesn't mean a car can't score higher, it's just it's reported as 5.
The reason for the "5.4" is that they keep the raw scores - they occasionally have to reset all the scores because cars were basically passing the current criteria. So they reset the meanings to make 5 a harder goal still. Of course, since you can't compare a 5 from the past to a 5 today, they reassess all the scores and give them new ratings based on what the current rating system is. So yesterday's 5 might be today's 4.
They keep raw values because you can't obviously re-test obsolete vehicles, but you still need to be able to compare.
The other way, of course, is to add further ratings - so 5 stars today is 5 stars tomorrow - you see this with some ranking systems, e.g., Windows Experience Index where the max value is raised (5 in Vista, 7.9 in 7, I don't know what 8 has).
It's just that today, Tesla's Model S exceeds current safety ratings (they had to "cheat" to get it to roll over because there was no standard test maneuver they could do to roll it over, and I think on the roof crush test, it broke the machine).
Of course, tomorrow when people make even safer cars, the Model S might score a 4 with the new criteria.
OP here. And my Ph.D and career take issue with your "non-scientist" characterization. My point in submitting the story (based on articles written by meteorologists) was not to "gratify" climate change deniers. On the contrary. It was to call out a man making stupid (and blatantly false) assertions. When climate change supporters exaggerate claims (like with that arctic methane bomb a few weeks back) or falsify data, it HURTS their (OUR) case rather than helping it. One of the biggest criticisms I (and other liberals) have of many conservatives is that they make shit up, bend "facts" to serve political agendas and completely ignore reality even it's staring them in the face. When Al Gore says that man is causing "category six" hurricanes when a UN report says there's no conclusive evidence that man is causing stronger hurricanes, and the NWS says there's nothing past Category Five, he's being alarmist, irrational and no better than the "deniers" he's giving ammunition to.