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Title: Is Global Warming Fueling Katrina?
Source:
Time
URL Source: http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,1099102,00.html
Published: Aug 31, 2005
Author: JEFFREY KLUGER
Post Date: 2005-08-31 20:56:43 by Anonymous Dead Indian
Keywords: Katrina?, Warming, Fueling
Views: 46
Comments: 7
Is Global Warming Fueling Katrina? Warm ocean temperatures are a key ingredient for monster hurricanes, prompting some scientists to believe that global warming is exacerbating our storm troubles By JEFFREY KLUGER The people of New Orleans are surely not thinking about wind vortices, the coriolis effect or the dampness of the troposphere as they hunker down during hurricane Katrina this morning. They’re mostly thinking about the savage rains and 140 mph winds that have driven them from their homes. But it’s that meteorological arcana that’s made such a mess of the bayou, and to hear a lot of people tell it, we have only ourselves—and our global-warming ways—to blame. One thing’s for sure: hurricanes were around a long, long time before human beings began chopping down rainforests and fouling the atmosphere. To get such a tempest going, you don’t need much more than ocean temperatures above 80 degrees Fahrenheit; a cool, wet atmosphere above and a warm, wet one near the surface; and a preexisting weather disturbance with a bit of spin to it far enough from the equator (at least 300 miles) so that the rotation of the Earth amplifies the rotation of the storm. The more intense the storm becomes, the more the temperature of its core climbs, accelerating the spin, exacerbating the storm, and leading to the meteorological violence we call a hurricane. And violent it can be: The heat released in an average hurricane can equal the electricity produced by the U.S. in a single year. So is global warming making the problem worse? Superficially, the numbers say yes—or at least they seem to if you live in the U.S. From 1995 to 1999, a record 33 hurricanes struck the Atlantic basin, and that doesn’t include 1992’s horrific Hurricane Andrew, which clawed its way across south Florida in 1992, causing $27 billion dollars worth of damage. More-frequent hurricanes are part of most global warming models, and as mean temperatures rise worldwide, it’s hard not to make a connection between the two. But hurricane-scale storms occur all over the world, and in some places—including the North Indian ocean and the region near Australia—the number has actually fallen. Even in the U.S., the period from 1991 to 1994 was a time of record hurricane quietude, with the dramatic exception of Andrew. Just why some areas of the world get hit harder than others at different times is impossible to say. Everything from random atmospheric fluctuations to the periodic warming of the Pacific Ocean known as El Nino can be responsible. But even if all these variables have combined to keep the number of hurricanes worldwide about the same, the storms do appear to be more intense. One especially sobering study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that hurricane wind speeds have increased about 50% in the past 50 years. And since warm oceans are such a critical ingredient in hurricane formation, anything that gets the water warming more could get the storms growing worse. Global warming, in theory at least, would be more than sufficient to do that. While the people of New Orleans may not see another hurricane for years, the next one they do see could make even Katrina look mild. NOAA National Hurricane Center New Orleans Web Cams New Orleans Hurricane Impact Study Area
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#1. To: Anonymous Dead Indian (#0)
Two Words. FUCK NO. Weather is cyclical. Everyone who has a fucking brain who can read the farmer's almanac running back 200 years, can see it plain as fucking day. This is why this planet is begging to be destroyed. The people on it are too fucking stupid to think for themselves.
 | So many morons, so few bullets. |
#2. To: TommyTheMadArtist (#1)
Is Global Warming Fueling Katrina? No...global warming is BS. This is why this planet is begging to be destroyed. The people on it are too fucking stupid to think for themselves. I am in complete agreement with this statement, however.
#3. To: TommyTheMadArtist (#1)
Rush logic says it best: 1. Rush's big coporate buggies need this idea derailed to save money; 2. Rush needs this idea derailed to save his reputation. He has been yelping agianst it since 1983; 3. Ford Motor Company is a commie pinko fag for believing the guys at MIT; 4. The people at NRO Online are commie pinko fags for admitting that the Global warming problem was real back in the fall of 2002. 4. The guys at MIT, and especially at Woods Hole, are commie pinko fags for doing objective science. 5. The rest of the world's scientific community are commie pinko fags for doing objective science. 6. The whores hired by GM and Newsmax are the only true scientists as they come up with the conclusions they are told to come up with. QED: The goobers should belive Rush and ignore the peer reviewed scientific community. I have to agree, your logic is compelling.
#4. To: TommyTheMadArtist (#1)
Hannity and Newsmax didn't have your best interest at heart when they filled your head up with this garbage. You should look at what the vast, very vast, majority of the world's scientific community is saying about this. And no, the world's scientific community part of a vast conspiracy to make Rush and George W. Bush look foolish or to use a mind control ray to impose world communism. They are, in fact, more objective and less driven by ideology that the proponents of your viewpoint, i.e., Rush, Hannity and Newsmax.
Weather is cyclical. Everyone who has a fucking brain who can read the farmer's almanac running back 200 years, can see it plain as fucking day.
#5. To: who knows what evil (#2)
Over the last 100 years, the Earth has warmed by about .6 degrees C, according to the 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international scientific body that studies the relationship between human activity and global warming. The IPCC report was based on research by more than 2,500 scientists from about 100 countries who determined that emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide act as a blanket that prevents much of the sun's energy from dissipating into space. The rest of the world's peer reviewed scientific community agrees with this assessment almost wholeheartedly, e.g., it is considered to be an established scientfic fact. The only people who seem to be opposed are those who would profit from having this accepted scientific fact discredited, e.g., GM, the oil companies and their shills - Rush, Hannity and Newsmax. NRO and Ford Moter Company left this camp as the evidence became overwhelming and they didn't want to get caught on the wrong side of the fence. Upon whose research do you base your opinion? On Rush's or upon Hannity's?
No...global warming is BS.
#6. To: crack monkey (#4)
Wow, you are truly a fucking moron. As a guy who has studied history, and the kind of history going back to the Pre-Cambrian Period, there's one thing I do know about, is CLIMATE. Now, since you're a fucking idiot, I'll clarify things for you. The average mean temperature in the Cretaceous Period, this is when Tyrannosaurus roamed the Earth, was roughly 125, to 130 Degrees Farenheit. There was nearly 3 times the oxygen levels that there are now, which is why it was so fucking hot, not to mention the fact that the deciduous vegetation kept the humidity at 100%. It was a hot goddamned planet, and at the poles, it froze, but not to the point to where there were ANY polar ice caps. Now, given that the earth was that temperature for well over 450 million years PRIOR TO THE CRETACEOUS PERIOD, what makes you think that our meager temps are how the Earth SHOULD BE???? Now with all that said, we didn't actually see cooler temps until the asteroid hit the Earth, causing the dinosaurs to be wiped out, temperatures to drop, and of course, ice to be formed, which there has been more than ONE ice age, as the interior temps of the earth rise and fall periodically, and the sunlight we receive is hardly consistent. There is only localized warming due to the fact that every goddamned city in America, and the rest of the known world uses concrete, or asphalt for their roads, and buildings. This creates Skewed Results, as the temperature in NYC will consistently be higher than it will be in the rural countryside of let's say Pennsylvania. Here in Minneapolis, where our temperatures fluctuate from year to year, never two years with the same kind of weather, there's no more clear picture of how weather is cyclical. Now, go read your farmer's almanac retard, and you'll see definitively that weather is cyclical. Even Alex Jones, Mr. Conspiracy Theory will tell you the same thing.
| So many morons, so few bullets. |
#7. To: crack monkey (#5)
No need for cheap shots...my background is in meteorology, and I have been fascinated by climate for nearly fifty years. Hysterics don't interest me, nor does the research of scientists who may have a hidden agenda. We get cycles of intense hurricanes, and we get cycles with very little hurricane activity. Personally, I see no evidence of "global warming". Give it a few years, and we will enter another cycle of stagnant huricane activity. I'm not sure we will be around in a few years to experience that cycle, but those are for numerous reasons outside "global warming".
Upon whose research do you base your opinion? On Rush's or upon Hannity's?
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