Climate Change and Hurricane Sandy

[GIGObuster]

@Chief_Pedant

I believe this season we’ve had one major hurricane (less than predicted) and ten regular ones.
From the standpoint of assessing “climate change” we should remember that the amount of property damage is not a particularly good measure of any particular storm’s intensity. I’d be a titchy bit more nervous if we had a dozen Cat 3 + storms, even if they took tracks which caused no damage.

It does make me chuckle when a storm is particularly damaging and someone comes out and lets me know it’s a harbinger of global warming, stupid. In 1950 we had 8 major hurricanes…had AGW been popular back then, we woulda been really getting the heebie jeebies.

Of course this only shows that you did not read the links posted here.

[DSeid]

@jasg

Agreed, although the more general anti-science stand may be worse.

BusinessWeek just weighed in with a rather shocking cover. Article (but not cover) here - titled “It’s Global Warming Stupid”.

That’s a pretty well written bit. This quote may help some understand:

“We can’t say that steroids caused any one home run by Barry Bonds, but steroids sure helped him hit more and hit them farther. Now we have weather on steroids.”

Of note for years climate models have discussed how sea levels will rise especially along the Eastern seaboard of the United States.

New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C., area seas will rise 14 to 20 inches (36 to 51 centimeters) by 2100, according to the study, published online today in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Other U.S. cities, such as Miami and San Francisco, are expected to see only half as big an increase in sea levels.

Gulf Stream Forces to Weaken?

The reason U.S. Northeast seas are expected to rise disproportionately is because the forces that generate the North Atlantic’s Gulf Stream ocean current are projected to weaken in the coming decades.

These changes have already been measured and confirmed.

Climate warming does not force sea-level rise (SLR) at the same rate everywhere. Rather, there are spatial variations of SLR superimposed on a global average rise. These variations are forced by dynamic processes1, 2, 3, 4, arising from circulation and variations in temperature and/or salinity, and by static equilibrium processes5, arising from mass redistributions changing gravity and the Earth’s rotation and shape. These sea-level variations form unique spatial patterns, yet there are very few observations verifying predicted patterns or fingerprints6. Here, we present evidence of recently accelerated SLR in a unique 1,000-km-long hotspot on the highly populated North American Atlantic coast north of Cape Hatteras and show that it is consistent with a modelled fingerprint of dynamic SLR. Between 1950–1979 and 1980–2009, SLR rate increases in this northeast hotspot were ~ 3–4 times higher than the global average.

(Bolding mine.)

So the “new normal”? No.

More storms like this and worse more often and more flooding to be expected than in previous decades? You have to have your head buried in the sand (you know, the sand that used to be the beach dunes but is now scattered into the streets and basements) to not realize that.

[Voyager]

@Sam_Stone

The other thing that could be done, but which won’t be, would be to stop giving out federally-funded flood insurance to wealthy homeowners which incentivizes them to build mansions in coastal flood areas. At the very least, such flood insurance should be priced appropriately, and global warming should cause that price to increase as the risks of flooding increase.

What an amazing demonstration of ignorance. When I lived in NJ we would often rent a house in or around Seaside Heights for the week. As you can easily see from the pictures, the houses there are not mansions, and as far as I can tell the people living there are not wealthy. The Jersey Shore looks nothing like Malibu.

The house we rented was on the Bay, which I understand was hit really hard.
Of course to avoid actually do anything about the problem we can just get out of low lying areas. Hardly would bother anyone - except maybe lower Manhattan.

[Chief_Pedant]

@GIGObuster

Of course that points out at what should be going on, and it is part of what the OP is dealing with, virtually all Republicans now are even denying that there is a problem that will get worse if nothing is done, the politicization of this issue remains one of the most irresponsible acts made by a political party in recent memory.

I don’t follow politics much, but my sense is that the skepticism is shifting to the notion that if there is a problem (and I agree the right remains skeptical), it will get better even if something is done.

That is, the skepticism that counts is the skepticism that says, “OK, AGW enthusiasts: show me a workable plan with some numbers that does not create TEOTWAWKI.”

I think you have about as much chance of create real change as President Johnson did in fixing poverty or the next President will have in getting people to get the hell off the coast.

[GIGObuster]

It figures when you are not following politics, in a nutshell the IPCC and many others settled on an already compromised position, already acknowledging the difficulty on making that change, so the target of preventing going over 2 degrees of increase in temperature was agreed as the limit of what humanity could tolerate or deal with in the future.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5992

Unfortunately very powerful groups have intervening and just like the tobacco companies did with the media and politicians before, FUD is the order of the day and thanks to those powerful groups most of the Republicans in the house are in the pockets of the polluters, and have prevented any significant action from taking place.

It is sad, but right now, many republicans that do recognize that there is a problem are not realizing how out of whack their representatives are and currently voting to even prevent the EPA for even doing some small efforts to prevent a future where even the 2 degree increase is not avoided.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/14/851501/house-republicans-voted-against-the-environment-more-than-300-times-since-2011/

Here is a breakdown of some of Republicans’ votes against clean energy and in favor of oil:

– 133 votes targeting the Environmental Protection Agency
– 54 target the Department of Energy
– 128 block measures preventing pollution
– 55 to defund or repeal clean energy initiatives
– 47 votes to promote offshore drilling

The latest vote today had little to do with Solyndra, and even less to do with smart investments in clean energy. After spending $1 million of taxpayer money, holding 12 hearings, and 300,000 pages of documents, House Republicans have found “no evidence” of wrongdoing. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) has admitted the ploy is political, and would likely stop on election day.

As the House’s anti-environment record grows, oil, gas and coal’s political spending has reached record levels. In addition to the $153 million in TV ads from fossil fuel groups this election, oil, gas and coal have contributed 88 percent of its $45 million to Republican candidates. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the coal mining and oil and gas industries have contributed 89-90 percent of their $12.6 million donations to House Republicans.