The hallmark of a great scientist is the ability to ask great questions. Questions who's pursuit leads to meaningful progress towards understanding.
When it comes to our country's contentious manmade global warming discussion,
it also comes down to how serious one is about asking meaningful questions that allow for meaningful constructive answers
I was told to read this recent article by Judith Curry regarding Hurricane Harvey. I did as requested and was baffled, what was I was supposed to find interesting in it?
Other than watching Judith’s outrageously biased perspective manipulate facts into fantasy. Which is thing worth studying. So with no further ado, lets take a look.
Hurricane Harvey: long-range forecasts
Posted on August 27, 2017
by Judith Curry
“The 12 year drought of major hurricane landfalls in the U.S. is over, with catastrophic impacts in Texas.
Predictions of Hurricane Harvey illustrate the realization of extended- and long-range hurricane forecasts.
This blog post analyzes the forecasts of Hurricane Harvey made by my company Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN),
and also by the National Hurricane Center. …"
CC - Curry does what she promises, but it’s basically a ginned up professorial review of how the models and forecasts unfolded, nothing particularly insightful.
The take-away message, forecasting has improved a great deal and we need to continue improving it.
White bread, nothing nourishing.
But then her true colors show
Curry:
“Harvey in context
I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear people blaming Harvey on global warming. How unusual was Harvey?
Well, it will definitely be in the record books for ending the 12 year drought of major hurricanes striking the U.S."
Here she presents a list of Cat 4-5 landfalling hurricanes by
Phil Klotzbach, the list is based on wind speed and barometric pressure. Like a gymnastics judge who only looks at an athlete's legs to the exclusion of the rest of her body.
Curry: “This list reminds us how awful things were. Apart from the horrendous 2004/2005 years, we have been pretty lucky in recent decades.
Anyone blaming Harvey on global warming doesn’t have a leg to stand on."
Curry seems to think that Wind and Pressure intensity is all we need know. On this list Harvey Ranks tied for 14th place. Judith what about damage inflicted?
Then she continues:
Curry: “Harvey will be in the record books for almost unbelievable amounts of rainfall
(the final tally is not in yet; unfortunately it will still be raining in TX for several more days, with potential doubling of the amount that has already fallen).
While there was a large amount of water vapor ingested into Harvey, the huge amounts of rain are associated with Harvey’s stalled movement,
while still close enough to the Gulf to continue to suck in moisture."
How can such an “acclaimed" climate expert in good conscience leave out the Jet Stream connection
which explains why Hurricane Harvey stalled and did that loop, (as predicted by the experts)?
Climate Change in Our Time: How Slower Jet Streams Make for Weird Weather by Kelsey Simpkins
https://uplightblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/climate-change-in-our-time-how-slower-jet-streams-make-for-weird-weather/
It's a fact: climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly by Michael E Mann
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/28/climate-change-hurricane-harvey-more-deadly
Sadly this is for real, tragically misguided characters such as our Judith Curry continue to grossly misrepresent the full scope of climate science understanding regarding this immensely complex subject. Our global heat and moisture distribution engine follows straight forward and consistent and understandable rules, but it requires curiosity, intellectual honesty and some serious good-faith homework.
Most news stories that I’ve read regarding the AGW Harvey connection are a muddle of partial facts presented through the contrarian script that’s dedicate to distancing, if not ignoring, geophysical connects that actually do clearly explain why all this is happening. Once again, the big four, though the connections certainly don’t stop there.
* Global warming is definitely directly related to that hot Gulf of Mexico waters that fed an explosive intensification of a tropical storm.
* Global warming is definitely directly related to the fact that the atmosphere is holding more moisture and making it available for storm systems such as Harvey to collect and dump.
* Global warming is definitely directly related to the fact that our Jet Stream has gotten weirder and is currently causing the stalling and reversal of Harvey’s northward movement.
* Global warming is definitely directly related to the fact that sea level is rising and thus adding substantially to damaging storm surges.
It all comes down to how serious one is about the questions one wants answered.
It is absolutely disingenuous and disconnected to ask :
“Is Harvey caused by manmade global warming?"
Of course it isn’t, so what!
It’s the physical characteristics of Harvey that are being intensified by our warming world, and that's going to kick us in the as$.
For me its been demoralizing watching reporters and scientists continuing to soft peddle the clearly understood connections
by posing stupid questions that receive inevitably stupid answers.
Tonight listening to another round I got a vision of people desperately clinging to dreams of yesteryear’s normal,
like a child desperately clinging to her mother as they're being inexorably torn apart.
Unfortunately, what we refuse to comprehend will harm, nay destroy, all we’ve come to love about this world.
Incidentally, about that terminology game. Can we please start being clear: Manmade global warming is what’s driving increasing climate change.
ps.
Must see videos, not only is he clear and focuses on the real issues, but he has a great intro to several climate visualization and ‘reanalyser’ blogs
earth.nullschool.net, cci-reanalyzer.org, and NOAA’s Hurricane Forecast Center
very informative
Horrendous Hurricane Harvey Tutorial A
Paul Beckwith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0-Os6jYtNo
Horrendous Hurricane Harvey Tutorial B
Paul Beck with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPZO1KtZewA
About that Jet Stream:
Jennifer Francis on recent studies of weather blocking patterns
Climate State - Published on Dec 19, 2015 (15:30 min)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jennifer Francis, Crazy Weather and the Arctic Meltdown - 18 February 2016
Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (59:20 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ie5WHSmOTY
fyi-
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2017/08/judithcurry-asks-stupid-questions.html
Mainstream Media Misrepresents Hurricane Harvey’s Climate Change Connection
Mainstream Media Misrepresents Hurricane Harvey's Climate Change Connection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML5kSJeD8os
Thanks for sharing that.
But now you got me pissed at Trenberth. Man, I mean that scientist is among the best of the best yet that interview,
if clarifying what is happening to our weather plus what we have to expect for the future,
and explaining Harvey's global warming connection,
then that interview of Trenberth's doesn't deserve a B.
and now I'm going to piss him off. This whole thing sucks so bad. What the fuck is so difficult about it? Besides keeping their jobs...
(don't worry psik, I'll be back with the details.
Don't get me wrong much was good, but he really dropped the ball in a couple instances.
We need better clarification than that sort of muddle.
Appreciating Earth’s Climate
Who says understanding Earth’s Evolution is irrelevant?
Sadly all too many.
I often hear people, not just the religious with their paper thin understanding, but educated rational people who superficially accept the notion of evolution, but who have never spent anytime really absorbing what Earth’s pageant of evolution has been all about, dismissing the need to learn anything about it.
Its all led to a general apathy that I can’t for the life of me comprehend. Especially considering what an amazingly beautiful, complex, mysterious and absolutely relevant story it is.
This general apathy terrifies me, and compels me to share some of the building blocks that have shaped my own developing basic understanding. I have a head-start since I’ve been fascinated by this Creation I was born into since my earliest days. The wonder of it, and the things I’ve learned makes me want to share some of my experience and perspectives during what time remains for my own, oh so splendid, journey on this wonderful planet.
Tragically, people who never pondered the reality, (that all we have today is the direct product of four and a half billion years of evolution, unfolding one magnificent day after another), lack the foundation to understand what we are doing to our planet and life support system these days. It explains why we have so many profoundly ignorant, self-deluded and disconnected politicians and ‘masters of the universe’ these days.
When I toss out a concept such as, our “Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine,” it’s blank faces all around. Why? I’m fearing listeners have no fundamental conception for the intricate interconnections between our evolving Earth, oceans and land masses. Without that awareness, of course they’ll never get it.
After all, our atmosphere is the direct product of a fantastic evolutionary process that married geology and biology and took billions of years to unfold. Without understanding how it got here, there’s no way one can comprehend what we have,… and what we are doing to “it”,… that is, the only life, and economy, support system we have.
January 6, 2016
{1} Our Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine
What'sUpWithThatWatts, et al.: {1} Our Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine
But now you got me pissed at Trenberth. Man, I mean that scientist is among the best of the best yet that interview,
if clarifying what is happening to our weather plus what we have to expect for the future,
Just accept it. The human population will probably be below 3 billion by 2100 and struggling at that.
We have this image of science being about certainty, not admitting to and exploring the unknown.
Chaotic things like weather and climate have more uncertainty than orbital mechanics.
To me the uncertainty is what makes it even more scary but most people seem to interpret that as, "They don't know what they are talking about so it is OK for me to believe whatever I want."
psik
But now you got me pissed at Trenberth. Man, I mean that scientist is among the best of the best yet that interview,
if clarifying what is happening to our weather plus what we have to expect for the future,
Just accept it. The human population will probably be below 3 billion by 2100 and struggling at that.
We have this image of science being about certainty, not admitting to and exploring the unknown.
Chaotic things like weather and climate have more uncertainty than orbital mechanics.
To me the uncertainty is what makes it even more scary but most people seem to interpret that as, "They don't know what they are talking about so it is OK for me to believe whatever I want."
psikYeah but the uncertainties are around the edges. The fundamentals of what's going on is quite clear. Now regarding my discomfort with Dr. Trenberth's interview, I posted the following comment at the YouTube video:
I understand Dr. Trenberth is one of the foremost experts in climate matters but that doesn't mean his communication skills are beyond reproach. I respectfully submit three errors worth pondering. ~~~ at 7:30 Dr. Trenberth, response to the CBC meteorologist clip from August 28th - was disappointing
A) Why use the sloppy term "weather situation" when the meteorologist specifically called out the Jet Stream pattern. Clarity is needed. As for the Jet Stream's northern position and the blocking high pressure zone over B.C. and north western USA - that weird behavior has a direct global warming (driven by Arctic warming + melting) component - as Jennifer Francis has been reporting on with ever increasing detail. http://e360.yale.edu/features/unusually_warm_arctic_climate_turmoil_jennifer_francis
Dr. Trenberth seems to write off jet stream position as pure coincidence, as though the ice cap and Arctic Ocean changes aren't driving those alterations in historic jet stream behavior - that I found disturbing. Makes no sense why he'd muddle that part of this puzzle.
B) In describing Harvey's unprecedented nature (11:05 ) he spends a great deal of time talking about the dry air coming in from the continent, then the moisture being channeled in from the Gulf, but never alluded to the Brown Ocean Effect, though other scientists have explained how this new aspect of our AGW driven climate change was present to help feed Harvey's fury.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/08/26/how-can-tropical-storms-like-harvey-generate-such-unbelievable-amounts-of-rain/
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/brown-ocean-can-fuel-inland-tropical-cyclones/
C) Dr. Trenberth's constant use of "climate change" became quite irritating.
Climate Change is a result, not a cause!
The cause of our current climate change is manmade, GHG driven, GLOBAL WARMING.
Guess it’s time for another update.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3184/a-force-of-nature-hurricanes-in-a-changing-climate/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=monthly+newsletter
June 1, 2022
A Force of Nature: Hurricanes in a Changing Climate
In Brief:
Due to global warming, global climate models predict hurricanes will likely cause more intense rainfall and have an increased coastal flood risk due to higher storm surge caused by rising seas. Additionally, the global frequency of storms may decrease or remain unchanged, but hurricanes that form are more likely to become intense.
This visualization shows the hurricanes and tropical storms of 2020 as seen by NASA’s Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) which measures rain rates (in mm/hr) overlaid on infrared cloud data from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Cloud Composite dataset together with storm tracks from the NOAA National Hurricane Center (NHC) Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting (ATCF) model. Sea surface temperatures (SST) are also shown over the oceans, derived from the NASA Multi-sensor Ultra-high Resolution (MUR) dataset, which combines data from multiple geostationary and orbiting satellites. Visualizers: Alex Kekesi (lead), Greg Shirah (lead), Horace Mitchell For more information or to download this public domain video, go to https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4884#30824
