For more evice from MIRT and NOA (the governmenal organization) hardly
radical organizations
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/business/...01054309990002

Global Warming Making Hurricanes Stronger
By JOSEPH B.VERRENGIA, AP

Is global warming making hurricanes more ferocious?
New research suggests the answer is yes. Scientists
call the findings both surprising and "alarming"
because they suggest global warming is influencing
storms now - rather than in the distant future.

However, the research doesn't suggest global warming
is generating more hurricanes and typhoons.

The analysis by climatologist Kerry Emanuel of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows for the
first time that major storms spinning in both the
Atlantic and the Pacific since the 1970s have
increased in duration and intensity by about 50
percent.

These trends are closely linked to increases in the
average temperatures of the ocean surface and also
correspond to increases in global average atmospheric
temperatures during the same period.

"When I look at these results at face value, they are
rather alarming," said research meteorologist Tom
Knutson. "These are very big changes."

Knutson, who wasn't involved in the study, works in
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton,
N.J.

Emanuel reached his conclusions by analyzing data
collected from actual storms rather than using
computer models to predict future storm behavior.

Before this study, most researchers believed global
warming's contribution to powerful hurricanes was too
slight to accurately measure. Most forecasts don't
have climate change making a real difference in
tropical storms until 2050 or later.

But some scientists questioned Emanuel's methods. For
example, the MIT researcher did not consider wind
speed information from some powerful storms in the
1950s and 1960s because the details of those storms
are inconsistent.

Researchers are using new methods to analyze those
storms and others going back as far as 1851. If early
storms turn out to be more powerful than originally
thought, Emmanuel's findings on global warming's
influence on recent tropical storms might not hold up,
they said.

"I'm not convinced that it's happening," said
Christopher W. Landsea, another research meteorologist
with NOAA, who works at a different lab, the Atlantic
Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory in Miami.
Landsea is a director of the historical hurricane
reanalysis.

"His conclusions are contingent on a very large bias
removal that is large or larger than the global
warming signal itself," Landsea said.

Details of Emanuel's study appear Sunday in the online
version of the journal Nature.

Theories and computer simulations indicate that global
warming should generate an increase in storm
intensity, in part because warmer temperatures would
heat up the surface of the oceans. Especially in the
Atlantic and Caribbean basins, pools of warming
seawater provide energy for storms as they swirl and
grow over the open oceans.

Emanuel analyzed records of storm measurements made by
aircraft and satellites since the 1950s. He found the
amount of energy released in these storms in both the
North Atlantic and the North Pacific oceans has
increased, especially since the mid-1970s.

In the Atlantic, the sea surface temperatures show a
pronounced upward trend. The same is true in the North
Pacific, though the data there is more variable, he
said.

"This is the first time I have been convinced we are
seeing a signal in the actual hurricane data," Emanuel
said in an e-mail exchange.

"The total energy dissipated by hurricanes turns out
to be well correlated with tropical sea surface
temperatures," he said. "The large upswing in the past
decade is unprecedented and probably reflects the
effects of global warming."

This year marked the first time on record that the
Atlantic spawned four named storms by early July, as
well as the earliest category 4 storm on record.
Hurricanes are ranked on an intensity scale of 1 to 5.

In the past decade, the southeastern United States and
the Caribbean basin have been pummeled by the most
active hurricane cycle on record. Forecasters expect
the stormy trend to continue for another 20 years or
more.

Even without global warming, hurricane cycles tend to
be a consequence of natural salinity and temperature
changes in the Atlantic's deep current circulation
that shift back and forth every 40 to 60 years.

Since the 1970s, hurricanes have caused more property
damage and casualties. Researchers disagree over
whether this destructiveness is a consequence of the
storms' growing intensity or the population boom along
vulnerable coastlines.

"The damage and casualties produced by more intense
storms could increase considerably in the future,"
Emanuel said.

NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological
Laboratory: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/


Beach Runner wrote:
>
>
> usual suspect wrote:
>
>> Beach Runner wrote:
>>
>>> http://www.commondreams....
>>
>>
>>
>> From their "about us" page:
>>
>> Common Dreams is a national non-profit citizens' organization
>> working to bring *progressive* Americans together to promote
>> *progressive* visions for America's future. Founded in 1997, we
>> are committed to being on the cutting-edge of using the internet
>> as a political organizing tool - and creating new models for
>> internet *activism*.
>>
>> IOW, they admit they're *liberal* activists.
>>
>> <...>
>
> hat is correct. If IF the many models that say global warming are
> correct, and there is no doubt there are many models, than radical
> chance is necessary.
>
> If things were business as usual, it wouldn't matter, but of course, they
> are not business as usual except to the really blind conservative people
> as yourself. We are in the midst of a global change and you can't even
> see it.
>
> So you can correct some spelling or typos when I take medication for
> back pain from a 90 mph car accident (Yes, I was hit on a residential
> street) and make some minor mistake then. It doesn't change the substance.
>



> You've still ignored the vast majority of my quotes from major
> scientific organization or the Republican governor of Alaska who sees
> the effects of global warming while you bury your head in the sand.