Text 21430, 104 rader
Skriven 2006-07-29 21:53:38 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 21429 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: More hurricanes
=======================
Jeff Binkley -> All wrote:
 JB> http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-
 JB> 0729globalwarming,0,3801546.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

 JB> Global warming's effect on hurricane strength disputed in new report

 JB> The Associated Press
 JB> Posted July 28 2006, 4:09 PM EDT

 JB> MIAMI -- Scientists linking the increased strength of hurricanes over
 JB> recent years to global warming have not accounted for outdated
 JB> technology that may have underestimated storms' power decades ago,
 JB> researchers said in a report published Friday.

 JB> The research by Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center
 JB> challenges two studies published last year by other respected
 JB> climatologists.


 JB> One of the studies, by Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of
 JB> Technology, was considered the first major research to challenge the
 JB> belief that global warming's affect on hurricanes was too slight to
 JB> accurately measure and that climate change likely won't substantially
 JB> change tropical storms for decades.

 JB> And, if Landsea and his three co-authors are correct, it was
 JB> fundamentally flawed.

 JB> ``The methodology is fine. There's no problem with the way they analyzed
 JB> the data,'' said Landsea, who is science and operations officer at the
 JB> hurricane center. ``The problem is with the data itself.''

 JB> The study claims historical storm data has been rendered out-of-date by
 JB> new technology that better estimates the strength of hurricanes. He
 JB> pointed to advancements in the quality of satellite imagery that is used
 JB> to estimate a storm's strength when it can't be directly measured by
 JB> aircraft or on land.

 JB> In short, Landsea said, there were far more Category 4 and 5 storms in
 JB> decades past than previously thought, because satellite imagery has
 JB> improved so greatly.

 JB> The article was published in the journal Science. It is co-authored by
 JB> Bruce Harper, an Australian engineer who is an expert on Pacific
 JB> cyclones; Karl Hoarau, a professor at Cergy-Pontoise University in
 JB> France; and John Knaff, a researcher at the National Oceanic and
 JB> Atmospheric Administration. It looks at only a small sampling of
 JB> historical storm data, though the authors plan to examine further
 JB> hurricane information they believe will further prove their thesis.

 JB> Emanuel discounted the Science piece and said he put considerable effort
 JB> into accounting for changes in estimating storm strength.

 JB> ``They ignore the most significant finding from my Nature paper _ that
 JB> Atlantic hurricane activity is highly correlated with sea surface
 JB> temperature, which is comparatively well-measured,'' Emanuel said by e-
 JB> mail from the Queen Mary 2, where he is lecturing on storms. ``This
 JB> cannot be explained away by invoking rather qualitative arguments about
 JB> data quality.''

 JB> Emanuel analyzed records of storm measurements made by aircraft and
 JB> satellites since the 1950s. He found the amount of energy released in
 JB> these storms in both the North Atlantic and the North Pacific oceans
 JB> increased, especially since the mid-1970s.

 JB> His study was published last year, along with another Science piece that
 JB> linked a double in Category 4 and 5 hurricanes since 1970 to the rise of
 JB> ocean surface temperatures.

 JB> Landsea said he did not dispute global warming was occurring or that it
 JB> could influence hurricanes; he said it simply was not proven by the
 JB> storm information available.

 JB> The studies did not address fluctuation in the number of hurricanes,
 JB> only in their intensity. But researchers agree that the Atlantic basin
 JB> is in a period of higher hurricane activity that could last decades.

I find it really laughable that otherwise serious scientific types are running
around like Chicken Little screaming the sky is falling over all this global
warming stuff.  Even with NASA satellites and huge computer models we are
working with data that barely scratches the surface with regard to temperature,
storm trends, etc.

We've only been keeping accurate records for a couple hundred years at best,
and as these articles show, we haven't even done a very good job of that. 
Geologic cycles that affect the weather take thousands of years, maybe
millions.  The little snapshot of data we have accumulated covers about a
second and half of one of those cycles.

I remember back in the early 70's all the climatologists panicked because of
what they believed was a sudden spike in temperatures around human population
centers.  They ran around for several years predicting the end of life on Earth
and all that.  When cooler heads finally prevailed and reevaluated the data,
they discovered that it was because most of the sensors they used to gather
data were around those zones and they were reading a localized heat spike
because of the heat reflected from concrete and asphalt in the big cities.  The
actual temperature overall had actually gone done a hair when the entire
countryside was factored in.

We simply don't have enough knowledge to either understand the intricacies of
the process, or make accurate assumptions based on what we do know.

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