Gulf Stream Shutdown in 3-5 years?

[Guest]

wow, will it ever end out west?

[Stormsfury]

wow, will it ever end out west?

Eventually, but some articles I read states that this is the WORST drought in that region in some 1400 years ... everything about our weather is all operated in cycles ... and that applies to global changes as well ...

SF

[Guest]

yikes. Is the South trending towards more powerful canes in the future? Just wondering..

[Derecho]

yikes. Is the South trending towards more powerful canes in the future? Just wondering..

Well, that would be normal, based on what we know of the long-term historical record.

It's the past 40 years that have been abnormal. There SHOULD have been a lot more Camilles, Andrews, and Charleys.

[WeatherNole]

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

May I refer some of you to the bottom of my post back on page three.

In my opinion, the global warming debate is second only to abortion when it comes to inflaming passions and politicizing the issue.

I like this place (Storm2K) because it's a fun place to discuss weather and relevant topics. Perhaps if you get too uptight with the subject matter and resort to calling names and acting juvenile, then you should post on a different thread. (I am not addressing anyone in particular. I'm actually referring to both sides.)

My two cents.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled argument.

Mike

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[Guest]

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

May I refer some of you to the bottom of my post back on page three.

In my opinion, the global warming debate is second only to abortion when it comes to inflaming passions and politicizing the issue.

I like this place (Storm2K) because it's a fun place to discuss weather and relevant topics. Perhaps if you get too uptight with the subject matter and resort to calling names and acting juvenile, then you should post on a different thread. (I am not addressing anyone in particular. I'm actually referring to both sides.)

My two cents.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled argument.

Mike

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You are right Weather.

[Anonymous]

A huge load of crap! Blaming Bush and America for something that won't happen is pure hogwash. I am sick and tired of hearing all this global warming bull. We have just had 5 consecutive days of record low temps here on the Miss coast. Look, the world has been hotter and colder long before human had any influence at all. So, how can anyone with half a brain conclude humanity is causing global warming and then a rapid cool down into an ice age...........MGC

I could actually kiss you right now ... GREAT POST!

It is ridiculous to assume that the massive changes imposed by the rapid growth in the population of humans and the changes humans make to the surface of the planet will have absolutely no influence on the climate of said planet.

For an isolated local example -> Atlanta, Georgia, is an island unto itself - an "urban heat island" - that can have temperatures up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than surrounding areas, creating its own weather and causing thunderstorms. That's the conclusion of a new NASA-sponsored study. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020 ... nrain.html

With studies like that how can you say global warming is a "A huge load of crap" and say that people who suggest global warming is a possibility only have "half a brain." Most reasonable people would agree that NASA scientists are smart.

[Guest]

In addition to evidence of climate change, remember the first ever hurricane in the South Atlantic? The one that hit Brazil? The hurricane that has never happened in recorded history?

[NorthGaWeather]

That would have nothing to due with global warming. I'm 100% certain hurricanes have occured before in the South Atlantic. They are rare but this isn't the first. Atlanta is a heat island but in the summer Atlanta is one of the cooler cities. Rome, Macon, Columbus, Albany and several other sities are warmer than Atlanta in max heating hrs during most months.

[Lindaloo]

I dont know about all of you and your locations, but down in the deep south we burn up every summer and are cold in the winter. This past week however, we have enjoyed a cool down in AUGUST!! Nothing has changed and it never will.


GREAT POST MGC!

[Derecho]

In the satellite record (which is very short, only about 40 years, and only the last 25 years with real quality pics) it appears there may be additional South Atlantic TCs to the already speculated one off Angola in the (70s?)

Beyond that, looking for South Atlantic TCs requires reading a lot of primary historical records in Portuguese, which is a lot less like Spanish than you'd think, and I suspect nobody who really would have an understanding of TCs has in fact gone back through the original historical records looking for evidence of a TC.

I would suspect someone is doing it now. Wouldn't surprise me to find a dozen or so of them in the 400+ year long history of Brazil.

Extreme weather IS NORMAL and always has been.

Going well back before any of the claims of Global Warming we see repeated instances of really extreme and uprecedented events; the massive heatwave preceeding the Galveston Hurricane, the 1888 NY Blizzard, the incredible series of destructive Carib hurricanes in (1780?), etc.

We don't have valid records long enough to have a good idea of what a truly extreme weather event is. "Recordbreaking" or "unprecedented" really doesn't mean much from a weather perspective, with 100 years or less of accurate weather records for much of the planet, on a planet that's 4 billion+ years old.

[NorthGaWeather]

The NASA study said that rainfall rates 18-36 miles South of Atlanta averaged more rain then North. The rainfall amounts this year say that study is BS, because areas 1-50 miles South of Atlanta have averaged 14-25 inches of rain this year while areas 1-50 miles North of Atlanta averaged 22-40 inches of rain. The yearly averages since 1960 for Georgia is 50-54 inches of rain from Atlanta south and east and 50-70 inches from Atlanta north.

[Janie34]

Well, the thread is also about the article that started all of this...its in the opening post. My criticisms have been directed at the article itself, which is really shoddy work. An article like that would have been thrown out of a basic English 101 class. Its very poor scholarship and the research is non-existant. In no way can it be considered a technical paper of any sort, and certainly not a climatological one.

Thats not the same thing as saying that none of these problems exist, because they do. My point is that if people are going to write such things as that article, they should fully expect to have that article dissected and analysed. That particular piece is woefully lacking in anything resembling good research. If you want people to sit up and take notice, do it correctly and cut out the fearmongering. Articles like that do all of us a disservice.

[Janie34]

We don't have valid records long enough to have a good idea of what a truly extreme weather event is. "Recordbreaking" or "unprecedented" really doesn't mean much from a weather perspective, with 100 years or less of accurate weather records for much of the planet, on a planet that's 4 billion+ years old.

exactly.

[Blown Away]

Supposing this event will happen, what effect would it have on hurricanes/ tracks?

[x-y-no]

Extreme weather IS NORMAL and always has been.

Going well back before any of the claims of Global Warming we see repeated instances of really extreme and uprecedented events; the massive heatwave preceeding the Galveston Hurricane, the 1888 NY Blizzard, the incredible series of destructive Carib hurricanes in (1780?), etc.

We don't have valid records long enough to have a good idea of what a truly extreme weather event is. "Recordbreaking" or "unprecedented" really doesn't mean much from a weather perspective, with 100 years or less of accurate weather records for much of the planet, on a planet that's 4 billion+ years old.

I'll certainly agree that extreme weather is normal ,and I'll go further and say that even regional climate is subject to substantial variability. That's why I'm never willing to buy into the anecdotal stuff offered by either side - i.e. "we've had the coldest summer in a century here in ___." My answer to all such anecdotes is that no local effect considered in isolation can tell us anything one way or the other regarding global warming.

But there certaintly are some things which are unprecedented at least in the last half million years or so. The Vostock ice core goes back about that far, and our current atmospheric carbon dioxide level is well above any found in that core. The Greenland cores, which only go back to the Eemian, but which have substantially better resolution (a decade or less as opposed to a century or greater) show that the current rate of increase is unprecedented in the last 135,000 years. (The Vostock core can't eliminate the possibility of short-term strong variations, but no one has proposed a mechanism which would have obtained earlier and now, but not in the period covered by the Greenland cores.

It is also known from these ice core studies that Antarctic temperature correlates well with atmospheric CO2 levels, and it is known from tree ring studies that the same is true for many regions. It's my recollection that there have been some sea-bottom sedimentation studies which support this as well, but for the life of me I can't recall where I saw that.

---

Now addressing the "natural variability is so great we can't know that man is causing any of this" argument, I would apply Occam's razor:

We know that the current rate of atmospheric CO2 increase is far greater than any which has occurred in at least 135,000 years. We know that the current absolute level is substantially higher than any which has occurred in nearly half a million years. We know that man's contribution of (formerly) fossil carbon to the atmosphere is large enough to account for this difference. The "greenhouse" mechanism of trapping infrared radiation, as well as the feedback mechanisms of relased CO2 from warmer surface waters, increased water vapor, etc. are reasonably well understood. Furthermore, we have strong hypotheses regarding a number af rather severe derivative effects, such as the possibility of dramatic change in the Atlantic basin circulation (although as I've said earlier in this thread I don't see that this is anywhere near as close as the original piece suggests), large releases of carbon from melting permafrost in the tundra, etc.

In light of all of this, is it reasonable to think that we aren't intruducing a forcing mechanism which will lead to subtantial and problematic climate change? Is it reasonable to say that we shouldn't be putting enormous resources into transitioning away from our dependence on fossil carbon?

I'm leaving out a significant geopolitical/geomilitary argument here as well, but for completeness I will mention that the actual cost of oil is much greater than the market cost - since we engage in a lot of very expensive military and diplomatic activity which would not be neccesary did we not need to secure the world oil supply.

[x-y-no]

Supposing this event will happen, what effect would it have on hurricanes/ tracks?

I don't think anyone has any objective clue about that. It's been suggested that to the extent that SSTs are higher in the mean, we'll have more severe storms, but while that's a reasonable qualitative argument I haven't seen any convincing research to back it up.

[califas]

I dont know about all of you and your locations, but down in the deep south we burn up every summer and are cold in the winter. This past week however, we have enjoyed a cool down in AUGUST!! Nothing has changed and it never will.


GREAT POST MGC!

There is always change.

[PurdueWx80]

The NASA study said that rainfall rates 18-36 miles South of Atlanta averaged more rain then North. The rainfall amounts this year say that study is BS, because areas 1-50 miles South of Atlanta have averaged 14-25 inches of rain this year while areas 1-50 miles North of Atlanta averaged 22-40 inches of rain. The yearly averages since 1960 for Georgia is 50-54 inches of rain from Atlanta south and east and 50-70 inches from Atlanta north.

They are talking about rainfall RATES, not pure rainfall. Higher rainfall rate implies stronger/deeper convection when it does occur. Nothing about it is BS if you consider that.

[Lindaloo]

I dont know about all of you and your locations, but down in the deep south we burn up every summer and are cold in the winter. This past week however, we have enjoyed a cool down in AUGUST!! Nothing has changed and it never will.


GREAT POST MGC!

There is always change.

Well when?? It has been this way since the day I was born. LOL!!