2006 Hurricane Season Wrap up

Well this was certainly the year that wasn't. After 2005's record setting season, 2006 was expected to provide a large number of very intense storms. We were expecting that we would be evacuating to the Hill Country at least once and possibly twice during the year. I created this blog with the intention that I would have so much to write about that I would be writing nearly full time and my readership would be high enough to justify turning on ads for an extra penny or two. Instead, I was looking to the western Pacific to find tropical storm information to post on. It is rather ironic in my mind that the worst tropical weather that we've seen here in Texas came from the Pacific across Mexico. The Gulf was quiet this year.

The high expectations for the year were due to fear from last year, the increasing Atlantic multidecadal oscillation, and the potential for Global Warming to cause more intense hurricanes due to warmer tropical waters. The hurricane experts and climatologists were pointing to the MDO while GW alarmists were certain that we would see a massive climate catastrophe right now since we didn't ratify Kyoto.

There have been many articles trying to describe the reasons that the season had so much less activity than predicted. In my limited meteorological mind, three factors overrode all others.

1. First of all, typically during the summer months, a high pressure system becomes centered in the Atlantic near Bermuda. This "Bermuda High" acts as a conveyor that helps to steer hurricanes across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean Sea. Once the storms reach the Caribbean, local highs, lows and pressure gradients between the two steer the storm either up the coast, into central America or into the Gulf of Mexico.

This year, instead of a Bermuda High, a low pressure system and a "cold" front was parked just off the Eastern Coast of the US for much of the early half of the summer. This set up a conveyor that deflected the storms that did form northward into the open waters of the North Atlantic. This kept the activity in the Caribbean and along the US coasts very low with only two tropical storms making landfall all season.

2. The fact that fewer storms developed off the coast of Africa in the first place certainly had a significant effect. From the articles I have read, this was caused by a high level of dust being blown out to sea from the Sahara. I would have thought that the dust particles would have functioned as nucleation sites, acting as a seed bed for rain to form and create stronger storms but that wasn't the case. I am also certain that wind shear off of Africa also hindered the development of storms. Why more storms did not form in the Gulf of Mexico I cannot explain with my limited weather background. The water was certainly as warm as in the past and the few times that a storm did come into the Gulf it just dissipated when I would have expected it to grow.

3. El Nino formed suddenly and early in the Pacific just as the low pressure system along the east coast dissipated. The surprising and unexpected development of El Nino eliminated the potential for any additional storms to develop during the time of year when tropical storm development is usually the greatest. Five storms were predicted for September and October that never developed because of the rise of this weather pattern.

It was certainly a surprising year. Of course one year does not a trend make. Next year could be just as bad as 2005 or it could be normal once again. Based on the MDO, I would expect that we see several years of high tropical storm activity before the we see an overall calming of storm quantity or intensity. Having a single low year anywhere during a 2 - 3 decade period does not ruin the trend, it is just an anomaly. As the MDO declines, then we will see a regular return to low tropical activity - I would guess into the 2020's. Until then we need to be vigilant and watch the skies with a respectful attitude - not panic, but also not be complacent.

Trackbacked to: Dumb Ox News, Woman Honor Thyself, 123 Beta, Don Surber

Supreme Court debates Global Warming

H/T Drudge Report

Some key notes, The court is divided along ideological lines regarding whether global warming is man-made or not and if greenhouse gasses should be regulated or not. It is not the science that is being argued but the response.

Also it is very interesting that climatologists are the scientists who are doubting the effect of greenhouse gasses on climate change. It seems to me that these scientists would be the experts.

Trackbacked to: Dumb Ox News, Woman Honor Thyself, 123 Beta

Use the court to further the agenda

Here we again. Let's just use the courts to force a change in the law regardless of whether the data says we should or not. And of course instead of arguing all of the data and opposing opinion that can demonstrate that CO2 emissions are not the primary issue, the Administration is going to claim that it is not the EPA's job. This coupled with the plans of Barbara Boxer's Senate Environment Committee is guaranteed to lead to car companies being forced to regulate a naturally occurring gas and raise the cost of a car by several thousand dollars.

Why I got a good edykashun

You paid attention during 97% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

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I guess I missed the spelling test that day

When people panic they do stupid things

Back in the 70's I remember looking across the Hudson River and seeing a brownish-gray dome of smog over New York City. I also remember going to the Raritan River in Central Jersey to get a water sample for science class and seeing foam on the river from the phosphates. Realistic environmental laws addressing real problems have cleaned up air and water pollution that presented real health and ecological problems. We still have a long way to go, Los Angeles and Houston regularly trade the title for most polluted city, they each take great pride when the other city takes the lead as the dirtiest. And yes there have been some (many?) screwball laws put in place to protect spotted owls where they are thriving or to maintain wetlands that don't have any water on them all at the expense of people trying to earn a living.

All our environmental laws, even the ones that seem a bit over restrictive, use scientific data to explain real situations that are taking place now, in real time. Until now.

The fears regarding global warming have some people so worried that they are willing to consider outright stupid actions to combat something that the data shows is primarily natural variation and is long term. All of the dire predictions for global warming with any credibility discuss the conditions of the world after 50 or 100 years. In 2050 or in 2100 the Earth will be __________ because of man-made global warming and we have to do XYZ now to stop it. (I am not even considering the scenarios presented by people like Al Gore who say that a major catastrophe will happen the day after tomorrow). We can have several other posts analyzing our ability to predict the climate 50 or 100 years in the future when we cannot predict the weather 5 days in advance with any great deal of accuracy.

The article linked to this post regards a "solution" that is being discussed more and more - Pollute the air to prevent global warming and cool the planet. This is nuts!

The fact that a Nobel Laureate proposed the idea does not make it any more credible or reasonable. Only a fraction of the temperature rise can be attributed to human activity by the UN's own data. Proposal's such as these will make our environment far worse without doing anything to resolve the target issue. Increasing particluates in the air to block sunlight in an effort to reduce the level of warming in the atmosphere is guaranted to:

• cause an increase in asthma cases in children and the elderly
• generate a higher volume of acid rain
• The more acid rain causes increased damage to grasses and leaves, dunuding many trees, killing them and reducing the amount of CO2 naturally conumed through photosynthesis.
• Sulphates in the air can attack ozone destroying the ozone layer of the atmosphere
• Reduce ozone in the atmosphere will allow more UV radiation to pass to the ground causing an increase in skin cancer and eye damage

I am certain that if we tried we can continue this list much further. Intentionally polluting the atmosphere after we have done so much to clean it up from past mistakes is stupid and would create a true climate disaster.

Trackbacked to: Dumb Ox News, Woman Honor Thyself, AB Freedom, 123 Beta, Merge Right

Anchorage Daily News articles on Global Warming

The page link above is to a compilation of articles in the Anchprage Daily News regarding the warming of the Arctic. Interestingly, the latest story published discusses, albeit briefly, how the region may be compensating for the warmth with newly discovered cooling currents and winds that may be helping to maintain balance in the area.

Burden of Proof??

Now that Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has declared that laws will be passed to curb so-called greenhouse gas emissions, I thought it was a good time to publish a compilation of the statements Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) regarding the alarmism that has been perpetuated by the media regarding man-made global warming. Sen. Boxer is slated to become the chair of the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee replacing Sen. Inhofe.

The key point in this is my puzzlement over the blind acceptance and defense of the alarmist position and whenever an opposing position is presented, the supposedly neutral (by their own standards) media always brings in someone to rebut the person presenting the opposign view regardless of that person's qualifications.

The following links are a compilation of posts from the speaches made by Senator Inhofe and the rebuttals from both CNN and the New York Times. I think the Senator make a very clear case against alarmism on climate change created by the media but the only responses are attacks and ridicule.

Hot & Cold Media Spin: A Challenge To Journalists Who Cover Global Warming (US Committee on Environment and Public Works)

AMERICA REACTS TO SPEECH DEBUNKING MEDIA GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM (US Committee on Environment and Public Works)

SENATOR INHOFE & CNN ANCHOR IN HEATED EXCHANGE OVER GLOBAL WARMING COVERAGE (US Committee on Environment and Public Works)

CNN's Miles O'Brien even invokes Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" which I think is the height of irony. The global warming alarmists love to point out the "scientific concensus" and how opposing viewpoints are absurd because scientists say... Then they quote Al Gore as an authority on the subject. So I looked up Al Gore's background one day. I was rather surprised to learn that he is a business major who spend most of his career in government. Well that certainly qualifies him as an expert in something as complex as climate change.

Doubting Inhofe ( New York Times)

INHOFE RESPONDS TO CRITICAL NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL (US Committee on Environment and Public Works)

When Dr. William Gray of Colorado State states that hurricanes paaterns we are seeing the past few years are not the result of man-made global warming, the articles typically contain a rebuttal by some other "expert" parrotting the global warming hysteria yet when Dr. James Hanson trumpets his dire predictions even while presenting data that contradicts to some extent his statements, the media takes it as gospel.

Finally, we should not forget the alarmism of the 1970's Remember Global Cooling?(MSNBC/Newsweek) I can clearly remember learning in 7th grade science class how the future of the world was in jeopardy due to the impending ice age.

Boxer pledges shift on global warming policy with new Senate role (Santa Barbara News-Press)

For the past few months we have seen reports of how cosmic radiation, intensity of the sun, natural weather variation and other evidence that shows that carbon dioxide is only a part of the many causes of global warming. Likely a small part. Well now we don't have to worry about the facts getting in the way of action. With the upcoming change in leadership in the Senate, Barbara Boxer will become the chair of the US Senate's environmental committee. She has promised to force federal legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions among other environmental actions. The global warming legilation will be modeled after California's law capping greenhouse emissions and reducing them by 25% by 2020.

''Time is running out, and we need to move forward on this,'' Boxer said of global warming during a conference call with reporters. ''The states are beginning to take steps, and we need to take steps as well.''

Ms. Boxer replaces Jim Inhofe who has publicly challenged the alarmist approach taken by the media to incite fear in the public. Mr. Inhofe has called global warming the "greatest hoax perpetuated on the American people".

We can only hope that the president decides to find his veto pen.

Trackback to: 123 Beta, Woman Honor Thyself, Dumb Ox News, My Republican Blog

In Ancient Fossils, Seeds of a New Debate on Warming

Click here for a rather good article from the New York Times discussing the evidence that is appearing that brings into question the role of carbon dioxide in global warming. I find it interestign the comments that are made by some regarding "hurting the cause" and that certain data is ignored while developing the climate models even thought there is no basis for accepting some data and rejecting other data. This article really shows the bias in the man-made global warming alarmists and that their agenda is obvious. They don't care about any evidence or facts unless it supports their position. At least the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is starting to recognize that the climate is much more complex that the alarmists are claiming and is starting to include data and analysis that may refute the CO2 linkage, and hense the human induced portion, of climate change.