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Climate Change Drives Bigger, Wetter Storms -- Storms Like Florence (npr.org)
Rebecca Hersher, reporting for NPR: Hurricane Florence is moving relentlessly toward the Southeastern U.S. It's a large, powerful cyclone that will likely bring storm surge and high winds to coastal communities. But climate scientists say one of the biggest threats posed by Florence is rain. "Freshwater flooding poses the greatest risk to life," explains James Kossin, an atmospheric scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. And Florence could cause extensive freshwater flooding for two reasons. First, Florence is moving slowly, and could all but stop when it reaches land. "The storm could be over North Carolina and traveling incredibly slowly -- on the order of just a few miles per hour," explains Kossin, who says an official from the city of Charlotte, N.C., contacted him about rainfall projections for that city.
If Florence stalls over the Southeast, it would be reminiscent of Hurricane Harvey, which spent days dumping rain on the Houston region last year. Some areas ended up with more than 60 inches, a catastrophic amount of water that shut down the entire region and resulted in at least 93 deaths. Slow-moving storms like Harvey are getting more common. A study published earlier this year by Kossin found that tropical cyclones around the world have slowed down 10 percent in the last 70 years. "We're seeing that in every ocean basin except the northern Indian Ocean," says Kossin, possibly because climate change is causing the wind currents that hurricanes ride to slow down. If Florence slows down and stalls when it hits land, it will the latest example of that trend. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., says global warming also affects the size and intensity of storms like Florence.
If Florence stalls over the Southeast, it would be reminiscent of Hurricane Harvey, which spent days dumping rain on the Houston region last year. Some areas ended up with more than 60 inches, a catastrophic amount of water that shut down the entire region and resulted in at least 93 deaths. Slow-moving storms like Harvey are getting more common. A study published earlier this year by Kossin found that tropical cyclones around the world have slowed down 10 percent in the last 70 years. "We're seeing that in every ocean basin except the northern Indian Ocean," says Kossin, possibly because climate change is causing the wind currents that hurricanes ride to slow down. If Florence slows down and stalls when it hits land, it will the latest example of that trend. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., says global warming also affects the size and intensity of storms like Florence.
Models should stick to looking pretty and walking down the runway.
Weatherbug was pretty careful not to make the leap that Florence is a result of climate change. They had an article speculating that the reason Florence became so strong is the result of a Bermuda high which is in an unusual position for the year.
How do they/you square that belief with the report from Accuweather about Climate Change Impacting the Bermuda High, causing it "intensify"?
A short play with a metaphor for how climate discussions will look for the near future:
Person A: "The house is flooding because of the rain pouring in".
Person B:"Think it's because of the hole in the roof?"
Person A:"I can't speculate on that."
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
slow moving and steady storms? C'mon climate "science" purveyors, get your shit straight and stop attributing EVERY weather event to 'climate change.' Want to know why intelligent people outside of your funding....er... "science" circles don't believe? (Just in case your science doesn't work out, that is called a rhetorical question).
Science needs to be repeatable and provable, but nothing being trotted about as climate science is anything but half-assed theories and wild fear mongering. I genuinely want to know what are and are not effects of climate change, but I haven't seen anything beyond awful correlations based on fudged data. Call me when you have something based in, well, science.