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Against the Hurricanes — Warming Link |
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The most common “arguments” against a global warming effect:
1. Bigger storms hit the U.S. in the past.
• Not in dispute.
• Evidence is for more big storms but maximum size has not increased.
2. The Atlantic Ocean has a 40 year cycle and we are in another peak.
• Not in dispute.
• But this peak is bigger than the only previous one we’ve measured.
• How could an Atlantic Ocean cycle explain even stronger upswings in the other five hurricane spawning areas around the world.
3. This started like “flipping a switch” in 1995.
• Yes and then it flipped off two years later. There are lots of ups and downs and global warming just makes it all happen more intensely. The problem is 7 out of the last eleven years have a power index greater than two (2005 not shown). That's unprecedented.
4. Theory only predicts a 5% increase in wind speed for a 1° C increase in temperature. Global warming has only been 0.5° C.
• This theory contradicts 60 years of data on sea temperature and wind speed – data the nay-sayers claim is not even affected by global warming. The problem is most likely with the theory.
5. There are more storms when the climate is cold than when it’s hot.
• No. There are more hurricanes in the summer and more blizzards in the winter.
• No. There were more hurricanes in the 1940s and now, both times when the ocean was warmer.
6. It’s not happening globally.
• It is happening globally.
7. Only the percentage of intense storms is up, not the total number of storms. Global warming would increase all types—something is wrong.
• The same theory that "proves" this statement, "proves" that what's happening in every hurricane basin in the world is impossible for any reason. The theory is just not good enough yet to explain how bigger storms crowd out some smaller ones.
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How they dance around the point.
There is a chorous of officials denying global warming could be part of the story. Here's our director of the National Hurricane Center as quoted in USA Today (9/21/2005)
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Max Mayfield told a congressional panel that he believes the Atlantic Ocean is in a cycle of increased hurricane activity that parallels an increase that started in the 1940s and ended in the 1960s.
The ensuing lull lasted until 1995, then "it's like somebody threw a switch," Mayfield said. The number and power of hurricanes increased dramatically.
Under questioning by members of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on disaster prevention and prediction, he shrugged off the notion that global warming played a role, saying instead it was a natural cycle in the Atlantic Ocean that fluctuates every 25 to 40 years.
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Yes part, perhaps most, of it is a natural cycle, but what's this stuff about "throwing a switch?" And when he says "the Atlantic Ocean fluctuates" what the heck does he think is fluctuating? The sea level? The color of the ocean? Might it be the temperature?! The ocean warms and cools. Those fluctuations are natural. But if he admits that a half degree of ocean warming causes these natural cycles, that opens the door for the question of what effect half a degree of global warming would have.
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James Glassman: Dr. O’Brien, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina ... You are an expert on hurricanes: do you think that global warming has had an affect on the intensity of hurricanes?
Dr. James O’Brien: Absolutely not. All of the people who are hurricane scientists or teach about hurricanes at the graduate level that I’ve talked to agree with me.
Obviously, Dr. O'Brien talks only to those who agree with him. He could check this page on the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration web site to find lots of them. And of course the whole reason for this interview is that they've been been making news.
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Dr. James J. O'Brien is Director of the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies at Florida State University, while James Glassman is an interviewer from TechCentral website, a "Free-Market" site that favors libertarian politics.
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http://zfacts.com/p/223.html | 01/18/12 07:18 GMT
Modified: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 21:58:25 GMT
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