Almost 12 years without a major hurricane making landfall on the continental U.S., well, that meant nothing. This was actually blamed on ‘climate change’, as Warmists proclaimed that anthropogenic climate change driven wind sheer was knocking down the anthropogenic climate change hurricanes.
Now, though, because we’ve had a few, which we all knew was going to happen sooner or later, because Nature does what Nature does, and there tends to be a cyclical period of hurricane action, we are in a situation of future doom
Hurricane Harvey: A fluke or the future?
In the midst of recent powerful storms, Scott Pelley looks at Hurricane Harvey’s destruction to better understand what the future may hold for coastal cities
Like rounds of artillery, hurricanes are coming in a salvo the likes of which we haven’t seen in more than a decade. Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico this past week, was the first Category Four to make a direct hit on the island in 85 years. Last month, Hurricane Harvey was the most ferocious rainstorm ever recorded in the continental U.S. The number of storms is higher than usual but its their intensity that is extremely rare with two Category Fours and two Category Fives making landfall in a month. The question facing America’s coastal cities is this: Is the ferocity of these storms a fluke or the future?
In all fairness, Pelley plays this pretty square, rather than jamming an Agenda down the throats of those watching 60 Minutes. Also, there are many interviewed who did not buy into the Cult of Climastrology talking points. Then he tracks down nutter Katherine Hayhoe
Was the world capital of fossil fuels brought low by climate change? We asked Katherine Hayhoe, a leading atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University.
Katherine Hayhoe: It’s too early to tell. The postmortem will take years so to speak because climate science is all about the long term statistics we can say, absolutely without a doubt, that this hurricane took place over altered background conditions. Our planet is very different today than it would have been 50 or 100 years ago.
To early to tell? She should tell all her Warmist brethren, who are Blamestorming. And, yes, the planet is slightly different. It was much different 200 years ago, during the Little Ice Age. And back before that, during the Global Climate Optimum. Etc.
By “altered background” she means that the oceans of 2017 are on track to be the third warmest on record. Warmer water intensifies hurricanes three ways.
Katherine Hayhoe: First of all, in a warmer world more water evaporates into the atmosphere and so when a storm like a hurricane comes along there is so much more water vapor sitting up there for the hurricane to sweep up and dump on us. The second reason is sea level rise.
Interestingly, the hurricanes developed over cooler than normal water. Sea level rise is below what one would expect during a Holocene warm period, as I’ve written ad nauseum.
Scott Pelley: Water expands when it’s heated.
Katherine Hayhoe: And that means when a hurricanes come along the storm surges on average will be stronger because there is more water behind them. And then the third way that we expect climate change to affect hurricanes is through warmer ocean waters. More energy, more power will be available to hurricanes in the future enabling them to intensify faster if conditions are right, as well as become more intense.
Many scientists were proclaiming that the storm surge from Harvey and Irma, and especially Harvey, was lower than expected. Huh.
Anyhow, this is all about making scary prognostications without evidence that it is caused by Mankind. A warmer world is nothing new. Sooner or later the atmosphere will flip to cooling.
