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Last Three Years the Quietest For Tornadoes Ever
schwit1 writes The uncertainty of science: 2014 caps the quietest three year period for tornadoes on record, and scientists really don't understand why. "Harold Brooks, a meteorologist with the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla., said there's no consistent reason for the three-year lull — the calmest stretch since a similar quiet period in the late 1980s — because weather patterns have varied significantly from year to year. While 2012 tornado activity was likely suppressed by the warm, dry conditions in the spring, 2013 was on the cool side for much of the prime storm season before cranking up briefly in late May, especially in Oklahoma, SPC meteorologist Greg Carbin said. Then, activity quickly quieted for the summer of 2013."
It's been a while since a cat 3 made landfall on a US shore, hasn't it?
You seem to have a preconceived opinion about scientists.
That we don't know a whole lot about weather, and meteorology has a long way to go - the complexity and variables that influence any sort of valid prediction make it hard for scientists to say "look at my track record for prediction" and appear any more accurate than a monkey pushing random buttons.
And yet we've had three Sharknado movies.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Because that is all that matters right? 'Merica. And really only the East Coast of 'Merica. Who cares about the typhoons battering Asia?
I blame the ocean currents that are changing due to the salt levels in the ocean changing. This is causing changes to the jet stream which brings storms on the other side of the world, which then shift the jet stream a little, causing it to hot the North Pole region and bring polar vortexes and other weather patterns down into the US. This pattern is stronger now than the African jet stream that produces hurricanes that go towards the East Coast of the US.
Weather patterns change, and when they change back, they will be worse than before.
Since "third calmest since the 1950s" and "we haven't seen conditions like this since the 1980s" doesn't make for as good of a headline. (RTFA)
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Low on tornadoes, high in other big storms by any other name, like Cyclone Phailin, Typhoon Haiyan and Vongfong, Hurricane Marie and others, in the last 2 years.
The lack of tornadoes does not have much to do with climate change. We do not understand how tornadoes form, and no climate scientist has ever predicted that climate change will lead to more tornadoes or larger tornadoes. It's not surprising that we can't find the reason for decreased tornado activity since we don't know where to look really, but it might be that this lull can help us narrow down the possible reasons for tornado formation.
Climate change does not attempt to make predictions about tornadoes. Nobody knows how tornadoes form.
There have been recent changes in the polar vortices, but meteorologists aren't prepared to make definitive statesments until they get better long term data, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P..., but it wouldn't surprise me if these vortices mess around with atmospheric energy equilibria across all the seasons.
Really? Got a cite for that?
Because that was the claim of various alarmist predictions about anthropogenic climate change made after Katrina. If they've made predictions about Asia, I hadn't heard them.
(For those keeping score, since 2005, the year of Katrina, the number of major hurricanes hitting the US mainland stands at zero. No doubt it will go up again at some point, and anthropogenic climate change will be blamed).
So everyone from Al Gore to the IPCC haven't predicted an increase in severe weather events due to AGW? Are you so naïve you don't think these same people would be blaming AWG if there actually had been a increase in severe weather over the last few years?
Since I happen to know Brooks spends most of his life looking at patterns in weather, and analyzing the changes, and, since I happen to know Carbin does, well, pretty much the same thing in his job, I subscribe to the rather odd notion that a pair of really good scientists might just know what they're talking about. Have you a separate set of data you're analyzing that suggest otherwise?
...its just the data is wrong.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Because that was the claim of various alarmist predictions about anthropogenic climate change made after Katrina. If they've made predictions about Asia, I hadn't heard them.
(For those keeping score, since 2005, the year of Katrina, the number of major hurricanes hitting the US mainland stands at zero. No doubt it will go up again at some point, and anthropogenic climate change will be blamed).
I think you are missing the point. Global Warming is the reason we have not been seeing as many hurricanes.
If it rains, it's global warming. If it doesn't rain, it's severe global warming.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
hmm.. A simple google search shows that nobody is a lot of organizations that appear to be somewhat scientific in their approach and presentation.
Also, the new scientis or articles on their site seem to attempt to make predictions about tornadoes
http://www.newscientist.com/ar...
Mother Jones does another story connecting it too.
http://www.motherjones.com/env...
Of course one article is dated march of 2014 and the other august of the same year. But of course politicians have been making claims about the links for a while now. Here is an article presented in october of 2014 which examines political discourse about the global warming tornado threat somewhat.
http://www.americanthinker.com...
Now note, one of those sites is a conservative site. Can you guess which one that might be? Well, it doesn't matter because the information is not inaccurate and came about before this was even on the radar. In fact, it was attempting to impeach the credibility of the political hack appointed to oversee the ebola fiasco and manage political fall out from reported cases reaching American shores.
So lets not ignore the fact that connections have been made.
It's the quite before the storm.
Based on what's been happening lately, the safer bet is that it's the quiet before the placid.
sometimes below average and sometimes above average.
You're missing the point, perhaps intentionally.
Global Climate Change is a change in the global climate, with is a broad, long-term change. The impact on a specific region or time period isn't global climate, it's regional weather, which is only very loosely correlated to the global climate.
Arguing that the weather recently in the east coast of the US is fine, so you don't care about global climate change, is like arguing that your chair is comfortable so you don't care that the house is on fire. Sure, you're fine right now where you are, but it's not going to stay that way forever. And ignoring what's going on around you is a bad long-term plan.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
"More storms, more violent storms, the coasts scoured down to bedrock by hurricanes, the interior a hell of violent weather." The result is Sharknado. Keep looking up people!
The truth is, We Don't Know! While we've made large strides in weather prediction and trends, etc., we are still guessing at a lot of it. Records only go back for a relatively short time, and to be able to truly understand Earth's weather systems you would need data from the last 10,000+ years and computing abilities that we don't have yet. Anyone who claims to "know" exactly why it's been rainier or hotter or more or less catastrophic is selling snake oil to you. They don't know anything for sure, so you can pay for their claims of certainty or me and my magic rock. It equals out about the same.
Your sources don't show a link in the scientific literature between global warming and increased tornado activity. "as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tornado researcher Harold Brooks put it in a 2013 paper summarizing the consensus: "Climate model simulations suggest that CAPE will increase in the future and the wind shear will decrease." So even though higher overall heat might lead to the potential for more explosive storms, the expected decrease in shear meant that potential might not get realized. In other words, it was basically looking like a wash." - http://www.motherjones.com/env...
No, I'm making a point, quite intentionally.
What I said: If all you have to argue for good environmental stewardship is snarky bullshit about "Murrica FUCK YEA" then you deserve to be gang-raped by a bunch of angry whales.
If you want to argue that climate change is something everybody needs to pitch in to help about, then you need to argue as if the ONLY thing that matters is "this place, right here, where you live, is going to get absolutely thrashed by climate change." I don't expect people in Beijing to give a fuck about people in Baltimore. I don't expect people in Baltimore to give a fuck about people in Beijing. If you can't outline, for the citizens of Beijing, what the likely impact TO BEIJING will be as the climate changes, don't expect them to care. Likewise, if you can't outline, for the citizens of Baltimore, what the likely impact to BALTIMORE will be as the climate changes, don't expect them to care.
What I take exception to is this misguided sense that anybody who says "Honestly, don't really give a shit about Beijing," is some sort of horrible jingoistic asshole - they're not, they're human. Trying to "guilt" people into doing something about climate change because "oh if I don't, people will think I voted for George Bush, and hate the blacks," is fucking stupid, and it's going to be the exact problem that leads 50% of the population to say "FUCK YOU" when you try to talk to them about climate change.
Seriously, the "'murrica" meme needs to die in a fire. The only people it says anything about are the idiots who seem to think that George Bush is still in power.
Several things here:
1: I am a scientist, and while I admit I don't know everything ( who does ? ) about climate change I have seen enough data to be concerned, not panicked mind you, but concerned; especially so since anything on a global scale has so many variables as to be be possible to accurately model.
2: While those people you linked may be ranked high in their fields, the pages you linked to don't cite papers published in a reputable journal for peer review... probably because they are not reproducible as science demands.
2.5: It may very well be that tornadic activities will be on the increase, but there are many variables as to why we may see a dip in the generally upwards trendline.
3: your third link is just braindead political bashing.
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
It goes on to explain how this cape and shear will increase tornadoes.
You really should learn to read the entire article and perhaps the links within the article further than just finding what you want it to say when someone points out that it says something other than what you want it to say. The mother jones article does indeed say
And you can follow the same link, that was selectively copied from it. Please, in the future, absorb all the information presented, think about it for a while, then think again before spouting something silly about it.
As opposed to you, insinuating the opposite. The moral high ground, brought to you from the basement.
Learn to love Alaska
I think the problem is that concern is too often turned into political advantage by panicking people. Some of the original scientists came along with political motivations like James Hansen and his support for Jubilee2000 which dispersed with the creation of the Kyoto accords (too long of a connection to make in this short post to why that is suspect).
Actually, they do cite sources. It's those underlined strings of words that look like those annoying popover ads but are actually links. For instance, the mother jones article says the change was from a paper published here http://www.pnas.org/content/11...
The New scientists article actually cites at the bottom of the page. It links to an article called climate dynamics The increasing efficiency of tornado days in the United States.
Did you think you were pointing out something I didn't already know? Or were you answering my challenge to which link was a conservative site? Anyways, I think you completely missed the point even though I spelled it out. It doesn't surprise me seeing how you missed the citations in the articles too. But the point was that political entities have been claiming Climate change does make predictions about tornadoes. So this idea that it is unheard of for claims if climate change or global warming and tornadoes being linked is fabricated. That was the only point, that the claims have been made.
Climate change is an on-going process. More over, this is far too short a time scale to draw conclusions. Every year the weather doesn't meet some prediction we get the deniers screaming blue murder about it, but none of that disproves the long term trend.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Could windmills have an effect? How much energy are windmills taking out of the system? Maybe the windmills interact in a butterfly type effect, short-circuiting some necessary precursor of tornadoes.
As a dyed in the wool denier, I can unequivocally say that windmills remove an immeasurable amount of energy from the planetary system and have no effect on the frequency of tornadoes or any other storms.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Wind Turbines have been popping up in large quantities all over the country. I'm betting that has altered the wind patterns.
Republicans have been popping up in large quantities all over the country. I'm betting that has altered the wind patterns.
It's Bush's fault!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
In one sense, global is the sum of local over all places. You can't have one without the other.
In another sense, global means everywhere. In this sense, if each and every place warms then there's global warming. If even one place doesn't warm, there's no global warming.
Sorry, that's just the language. If the meaning of words isn't satisfactory to you, your choice to use them as if they were satisfactory to you is a lie.
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The consensus position (as stated in your linked article) is that an increase in CAPE and a decrease in wind shear will mean little change in the trend. Three years with little tornado activity hardly overthrows this consensus. Nor does a paper finding "a possible increase in the number of days supportive of tornadic storms."
Not sure about Al Gore, but the IPCC did not predict an increase in tornadoes over the last three years. General consensus is that we will have an increase in CAPE and a decrease in wind shear which will mean little or no change in the overall trend.
Then take it up with the several articled snd scientific research they cite. And no, it is not just one article, it is several that say the same things.
And i do not believe any of these articles address three years of tornados. They are linking global warming to them which is opposite of yhr premise originally replied to.
It's not surprising that the number of tornadoes are down. I live in tornado alley and we've been in a drought for several years. Up until June of this year the ground has basically been powder down more than three feet. Can't have many storms without moisture. Even now there hasn't been a real rain in months and just a dusting of snow once so far and the rains this year have barely made a dent in this years deficit never mind the deficits of the last several years. Few storms in the primary yearly tornado zone and you get low tornado numbers, regardless of readings anywhere else, got that? Remember climate change models didn't just talk about more bad weather it also talked about severity. How many towns in the last several years have been nearly wiped out by tornadoes of record size, multiplicity, or severity? It's been more than a few. Let's hear it for a non-story.
For those keeping score, since 2005, the year of Katrina, the number of major hurricanes hitting the US mainland stands at zero.
NOAA has that number at 7, certainly a nonzero number.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/h...
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Lisa, I would like to purchase your rock
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
...now my senator (fucktard Tom Coburn) is going to start claiming climate change is a good thing, even while birds explode midflight in August from the heat.
Furries make the internet go.
It's Global Warming's fault!
BEWARE!!!!
"Climate Stasis"....
Umm, no.
NOAA has the number of hurricanes hitting the US mainland since 2005 at seven. Note OP's use of the phrase "major hurricane", it's important.
The seven that have hit the USA since 2005 were CAT 1 or 2, and "major hurricane" is defined as CAT3+....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Well, three years is not a really long stretch of time. If you read the article you'll note that casualties from tornadoes have remained stable around 50 per year, down from the over 500 in 2011. So it sounds like there was increased activity in 2011, but we've had afew slow years.
It's moronic to equate that to, "so much for climate change..."
Cheap storage VM.
I think that the GP was just making a point that many of the global warming proponents have oversold their agenda.
I agree. It would be nice to be accurate about what we know, and how well we know it.
To a very large extent, the problem is exacerbated by the news media: the more extreme a statement is, the more newsworthy; and the more immediate it is, also the more newsworthy. "Some models indicate that hurricanes could be 10% more powerful by the year 2100, but we need to do some more modelling work to verify how well this number holds up under different scenarios" just doesn't play well in the media. They'll interview that scientist, but the headline is from the scientist who says "killer hurricanes ahead!"
Usually the more detailed kind of statement is toward the middle or end of news articles: the sensational stuff first, and the more cautiously-worded part later ("most scientists don't think we will see a noticeable increase in storm intensity until the next century") toward the end.
Take-home lessons: 1. don't get your science information from the popular press. 2. When you do read the popular press science articles, the important part is outside the headlines.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
And relevant to the discussion, here's a nice article on 538 today, talking about the current California drought, and saying (with detailed discussion) that even though climate warming may exacerbate drought, it's nearly impossible to attribute this particular drought to climate warming:
The complex, dynamic nature of our atmosphere and oceans makes it extremely difficult to link any particular weather event to climate change. That’s because of the intermingling of natural variations with human-caused ones.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea...
And a link to a (2 year old) Nature editorial saying the same thing about extreme weather: http://www.nature.com/news/ext...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Not but a few hours after this hit Slashdot did Oklahoma have a storm system go through that produced at least 2 small tornadoes (incredibly rare for December, I might add).
Where are you when every month they scream bloody global warming because of a 0.001 C increase over the same month last year with an error margin of 0.1+\- ?????
This goes both ways.
I will remain skeptical of the sincerity of those who claim the earth is getting warmer and it's due to human activity until significant numbers of them are willing to bet a modest amount of money on the accuracy of those climate models.
Someone who is eager to have government impose significant costs on billions of people for years and years but isn't willing to risk the cost of dinner for two at a chain restaurant with cloth napkins of their own money one time strikes me as inconsistent. (To put it gently.)
I'm not sure what would be "significant numbers" but it's certainly greater than zero, which is number I've found so far.
http://duckduckgo.com/?q=allison's.precept . http://www.murphyslaws.net/edi...
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.