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Hurricane Irma Reaches 185 MPH, Trailing Only Allen As Strongest Atlantic Storm On Record (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We are quickly running out of adjectives to describe the destructive potential of Hurricane Irma. As of 2pm ET on Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center upgraded the storm's sustained winds to 185mph. This is near-record speed for a storm in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico. Such high, sustained winds tie Irma for the second-strongest storm on record in the Atlantic, along with Hurricane Wilma (2005), Hurricane Gilbert (1998), and the 1935 Florida Keys hurricane. Only Hurricane Allen, which reached 190 mph in 1980 before striking a relatively unpopulated area of Texas, reached a higher wind speed. Globally, the all-time record for hurricanes is held by Patricia, which reached a staggering 215 mph in the Pacific Ocean in 2015. Although sustained winds capture the most public attention, meteorologists generally measure the intensity of a storm based upon central pressures, which are considerably lower than sea-level pressure on Earth, 1,013 millibars. Typhoon Tip, in 1979, holds this record at 870 millibars. For now, at least, Irma has a relatively high central pressure of 927 millibars. Why the storm has such an odd wind-speed-pressure relationship isn't entirely clear. According to the National Hurricane Center, Irma is expected to bring catastrophic winds and potential storm surges to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and the UK territory of Turks and Caicos this week. The Florida Keys could get hit by late Saturday night or Sunday.
...probably reached 200 MPH, but the instruments at Keesler AFB were blown away when Camille hit Biloxi, so they can't count "sustained wind speed."
Uh, that's not quite the way hurricanes work. They don't "slam into" something and stop. Caribbean islands are small compared to hurricanes!
They stop when they traverse a region where they are separated from the warm ocean, which is (in essence) their power source.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I think that the prediction is actually for fewer storms, but greater magnitude..... ....
C. Model simulations of greenhouse warming influence on Atlantic hurricanes
Our regional model projects that Atlantic hurricane and tropical storms are substantially reduced in number, for the average 21st century climate change projected by current models, but have higher rainfall rates, particularly near the storm center."
I guess you will also have an explanation for the fact that there is less ice in the Arctic?
Summary: climate change denier detected.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
What fell flat on its face is your knowledge of history. In fact, scientists did not predict cooling: that was only the media.
Let me suggest that you crawl back under your bridge.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Doctor A: If you don't stop smoking, you'll die within 10 years.
Doctor B: If you don't stop smoking, you'll die within 5 years.
Patient: "Sheesh, I knew all the smoking paranoia was hokum... the doctors can't even agree"
You tell me, how does a scientist describe increased variability in climate changes? Yes, it's still going to rain, it's still going to snow. There will be hurricanes. But long-term trend changes are observable and they are alarming. The highs get higher and severity of events will increase. And even when models are inaccurate, they are consistently inaccurate pointing to the same concern. No, humans can't destroy the earth, but we can make it a pretty damn difficult place for us to live on.
So far this season, we've had 9 named storms, 4 of which have become hurricanes, 2 major hurricanes. While we've still got 3 more months, but the end of September is the end of the peak, with a few storms in October, and almost none in November. Predictions at the start of the season were for about 14 named storms, 6-7 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes. So we're on track for a really boring, average year in terms of Atlantic hurricanes.
The only reason both storms seem unusual is because until Harvey, the U.S. hadn't been hit by a major hurricane since 2005. Contrary to the doom and gloom scenario painted by climate change alarmists after Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, who warned us that 2005 was going to become the new norm for Atlantic hurricanes. Sometimes outliers are nothing more than outliers.
The related links section at the bottom of the page listed "Donald Trump Wins US Presidency".
Perhaps Slashdot's servers are on to something: giant sucking windbags, massive economic damages, and constant media attention. I understand how it could mistake the resemblement.
The only question you need to ask the pseudoskeptics is "Where do you think all the extra energy is going?"
That CO2 absorbs solar radiation and traps it in the lower atmosphere is not debatable. These absorption patterns of CO2 have been known since the 19th century. So, increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, increase the amount of energy (heat) being trapped.
That CO2 interacts with ocean water and alters its pH has been known probably even longer. Increase the amount of CO2 in the lower atmosphere, increase the amount of absorption of CO2 in salt water.
So we can dicker about which storms are being made more powerful by climate change, we can dicker about whether a colder winter in one part of the world or a warmer winter in another part is caused by climate change, but the fact is that the steady increase in CO2 concentration inevitably, by the physical laws of nature, will increase the amount of energy trapped in the lower atmosphere (increase overall surface temperatures as a mean) and increase the acidity of the oceans. There is no questioning this, unless one wishes to throw out well over a century of physics and chemistry.
Now, if these folks have some magic heat sink that blasts all that energy off into space, then by all means, point to where it is, otherwise all we're doing in debating with these liars and idiots is dignifying their fraud and stupidity. They are the Creationists of the 21st century; not pseudoscientists, no pseudoskeptics, just plain old morons and liars.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Who is doing that? We have the entire history of recorded meteorology to draw upon; it's quite easy to identify a single storm as a statistical outlier.
Generally any data point more than 1.5 IQRs above the third quartile is an outlier, and should be a rare bird. Of course you do on occasion run into a rare bird, but if you start seeing them on a regular basis that means either you are having implausibly strange luck or something underlying has changed.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
This is a really difficult forecast for a number of reasons.
Most major hurricanes don't just gradually intensify to a category 3 or 4, let alone well into category 5. They undergo periods of rapid intensification, due to bursts of thunderstorms in the core of the storm with lots of hot towers developing. Harvey did this before making landfall in Texas. Irma has done this twice. However, forecasting when this will happen is generally beyond the current limits of meteorology. The Ships statistical model only called for a gradual intensification of Irma. Some of the dynamical models like the GFS, HWRF, and HMON did predict rapid intensification. However, they have been predicting that it was imminent for days, without actually happening. It's obvious when rapid intensification is occurring because the hot towers show up in infrared satellite imagery. But there's very little skill in predicting rapid intensification before it starts. It's related somewhat to ocean heat content, but it doesn't explain when there's high ocean heat content but rapid intensification doesn't occur. Most major hurricanes do undergo rapid intensification at some point, and it's very hard to predict.
It's very likely that Irma will take a hard right turn in a few days and move north. There is very good agreement among the models that this will occur. However, it's not clear exactly when this will happen. If it happens sooner, Irma could miss Florida entirely and move toward the Carolinas. This isn't especially likely, but it's possible. It could turn north a bit later and move across the Florida Keys into South Florida. There are also model solutions that bring Irma into the eastern Gulf of Mexico. This last situation also isn't especially likely, but is definitely possible. This doesn't include true outlier model forecasts, such as missing the United States entirely. Irma will also get close to Cuba, and moving over mountainous land for an extended period of time could wake Irma substantially. It just isn't clear yet whether this will happen or not. Hurricanes are steered by winds in the upper atmosphere around areas of high pressure (ridges) and low pressure (troughs). There are currently special upper air observations being taken every six hours in the central United States to help with forecasting Irma. There's an upper level trough over its area, that will interact with a ridge to the east, which has an impact on steering Irma. It's not clear whether these extra observations are helping with the forecasting of Irma, but it's definitely possible. Maybe these types of special observations well over a thousand miles from a storm have been taken before, but I don't recall seeing it. It's a very interesting idea for sure, to try to help improve forecasting of the storm's track in the 3-7 day time frame. Even though we know Irma will very likely take a hard turn to the north, relatively small differences in where this occurs will have a big difference on the impacts to the United States. And this is not at all unusual in hurricane forecasting.
Despite running tens of different computer models every six hours, it's really hard to predict where the storm is going to go. And yet the track forecasting has improved quite a bit over the past couple of decades, definitely outpacing intensity forecasts.
After Texas, Florida be like.. Hold my beer!
Yeah, but when the prediction in the late 1990s was "we're going to have several large, Category 4, landfalling hurricanes hit the East Coast each year due to global warming," the relative drought in them for the last decade or so is pretty embarrassing for the people trying to pretend otherwise.
There isn't an upward trend, overall. If anything, we've been seeing fewer such nasty storms than there were during the first half of the 20th century.
Are you willing to go on the PERMANENT record (thanks to the never forgetting Internet) so that people you care about (friends, spouses, children, grandchildren) know that you:
Denied the overwhelming scientific consensus on Climate Change?
Thought Obamacare was a disaster?
Refused to believe in Evolution? (This is my particular interest, I am a genetic engineer. Now that we can see Evolution happening right down to the molecular level, disputing it is laughable. Not to mention "Nothing in Biology makes sense without it").
Or for that matter:
Think the Federal Government was planning to take over Texas in 2015 (The "Jade" something or other exercise)?
Believe that there is a Pizza parlor in Washington D.C. that was a front for Democratic pedophiles?
Think that because Trump criticized Clinton on Goldman Sachs he wouldn't end up in their pocket?
I could go on but you get the picture. How many times do you have to be proven WRONG and been a victim of FAKE NEWS before you learn some critical thinking? Not only are you hurting the republic by voting for idiots (Bush) or frauds (Trump) but you are really hurting yourselves by believing that these leaders will help you (the working class) instead of just making them and their super rich friends richer, and by making stupid decisions like buying waterfront property in places like Texas and Florida.
Anyway, if thinking won't get you to reflect on your positions; maybe shame will. How about you tell the ones you care about the social media accounts like slashdot where you post things? Assuming you at least have the balls to not post Anonymously, tell them your username. Let them see what you really think. (I have, in fact I'm proud to show them).
Of course if Climate Change really is a hoax, and the Republicans come up with a much better replacement to Obamacare and God LITERALLY created the animals in one go (and forever fixed their attributes), then your friends and children and grandchildren will see you as the genius you are!