A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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September 16, 2005Katrina/hot water/world hurricane activity/global warming/New OrleansWhen Katrina had finished her run through the gulf I went and looked at the sea surface temperature (SST) graphs. I was kind of stunned by what they showed. No significant cooling had occurred in the gulf! That meant there was a lot of hot water left to power the next round of hurricanes. I would have thought that a storm of Katrina's size and power would have significantly cooled the gulf. However over the next couple of weeks an interesting thing happened, blooms of cold water started appearing at the mouths of the major rivers in Katrina struck areas. Duh! Although Katrina caused some evaporative cooling of the Gulf waters, the real cooling occurred when water was sucked high into the atmosphere, dropped out as cold rain and ran back into the gulf. I don't think the gulf coast is going to see any more cat 5's this year. A couple of 3's maybe, a 4 or 5, probably not. (Just spit balling here, using years of obsessive SST's watching.) However, an interesting article was published in Science magazine today, “Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment” It's an interesting article for what it shows and for what it doesn't show. First off, it doesn't look at effects prior to the widespread use of weather satellites. So it lacks historical context. That is very important when trying to pick out a trend line in a graph. Second it looks at world wide hurricane events, not just the gulf and the North Atlantic. Conditions in the gulf are unique since the water is shallower and kind of bottled up by the Yucatan, Florida and Cuba. If the oceans are heating up, the effect would be more dramatic in the gulf. But the author doesn't break out his data down that far, he includes the Gulf with the North Atlantic. Regardless the graph shows the North Atlantic heating up. The Bottom line is that the author shows that GLOBALLY the NUMBER of storms and “storm days” peaked in the 90's then DECLINED. (This is in contrast to the dramatic increase in the number of storms in the North Atlantic)
New Orleans is a vital port. I don't think the country can survive without it, but it would be foolish to pour Billions into the gulf region just to have it destroyed again next year. As many as will go, should be offered the chance to relocate. Those that remain should be forced to sign a notice that no more federal assistance will be forthcoming after this round of rebuilding. Posted by BobJYoung at September 16, 2005 01:19 PMComments
It seems like a fair number of voices are saying, in one way or another "let's not encourage a bunch of people to come back to living in this uniquely vulnerable place, this is a stupid spot for a port city to host a huge population." But this fair number is really a small minority, though a smart one. I expect this plea to fall on deaf ears. YMMV, but I think it's too soon to ascribe a long term trend to about a decade's worth of data. So I'm not ready to project a sky high trend. But if it is going to happen that the gulf coast keeps getting blasted, it's a huge problem. Not just from the point of view of the people in danger and the huge gateway por purpose of NOLA, but also environmentally. Katrina spilt a shitload of oil, and that can't happen more than what, once every several decades?? or it will turn the GoM into a toxic toilet. Posted by: bk at September 16, 2005 02:41 PMThis account of the levee failures is thought-provoking:
let's not encourage a bunch of people to come back to living in this uniquely vulnerable place, this is a stupid spot for a port city to host a huge population." But this fair number is really a small minority, though a smart one. I expect this plea to fall on deaf ears.Speaker Hastert pondered much the same thing, only to get shot to pieces for daring to question the orthodoxy that what was must be again.
I don't know. I'm undecided about this, but I have to admit, I'm inclined to agree with Brian that maybe rebuilding the city and moving everyone back in as if nothing had happened shouldn't be just assumed as a given. Perhaps before we hasten to take this in our stride, we should pause to contemplate if the fact that we tripped is telling us something. Posted by: Simon at September 16, 2005 05:46 PMYou're not going to see any significant cooling where the Katrina went over. A hurricane that size runs on about 10 to the 19th joules per day. More numbers game - a mere 1 square kilometer 1 kilometer deep holds 1 trillion liters (10^12) of sea water, which has higher heat capacity than plain water. Thats more than 4.2 trillion joules of energy needed to change the temperature by one degree C. There's actually a lot more mixing going on so the ocean has way more heat to deliver to the surface. Somewhere I have my climatology text book by Budyko that cost me 75 bucks in 1979! Fresh from Science magazine (subscription more than a hundred bucks a year but worth it) we may be getting fewer hurricane world wide but they are more intense and there sems to be a lot more northern atlantic storms. Frankly there are some rather simple though long term projects that could help NO. |
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