You know, this is totally your fault for driving your fossil fueled vehicle and going back in time to create monster hurricanes like the Great Galveston Hurricane on 1900, which killed somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people
How climate change is ‘loading the dice’ for more perilous hurricanes
As Hurricane Florence was closing in on the Carolina coast this week, the role of climate change in intensifying weather was back in the national conversation. Amna Nawaz talks with Radley Horton of Columbia University about the link between climate change and sea level rise and rising temperatures.
Amna Nawaz: The question is a vital one, with more and more people living along the coast and the seaboard, which many say is a problem in and of itself.
And there is certainly some debate among scientists about how climate change impacts a storm. But, increasingly, researchers are trying to explain the connections immediately after a storm hits. And they say climate change is definitely associated with both sea level rise and rising temperatures. (snip)
Let’s start with the million-dollar question we face every hurricane season. What is it we can say definitively about the link between climate change and these kinds of hurricane?
Radley Horton: Well, there’s a very clear link.
And there’s really three dimensions to it, to the way that human activities have increased the risks associated with these types of storms. The first is because climate change and warming has increased sea levels. And, as a result, whenever any storm hits, water levels are that much higher, just by virtue of that baseline having been raised, that gradual change in sea level. (slight snip)
The second component is the amount of rainfall associated with a given storm. As we have warmed the atmosphere, as we have warmed the upper ocean, it can now hold more moisture. So, for a storm of a given strength, there’s that much more moisture available to fall out in the types of catastrophic rains that we’re seeing here.
The third element, which is a little less certain than those first two, is that the storms themselves can become stronger with climate change, the actual strength of the winds, the depth of the low pressure.
These same people were claiming that human caused climate change was causing massive wind sheer that were killing off hurricanes, as well as upper level winds that steered them away from land during the period of 13 years without a landfalling major hurricane on U.S. soil. Notice where Amna states “explain the connections immediately after a storm hits.” This is not science, it’s retroactively attempting to Blamestorm and prop up your cult. They can’t future predict, but, damned if they won’t find a human caused link afterwards.
Remember, less than a week ago they were wondering if this would hit Category 6 status (which doesn’t exist). It was like they were hoping Florence would hit NC/SC as a monster major hurricane.
And, yes, climatic changes could be having an effect on systems, but, there’s no reason to assign witchcraft to it: the climate has always changed.
