Why Hurricanes Like Milton In The Us And Cyclones In Australia Are Becoming More Intense And Harder
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Tropical cyclones, known as hurricanes and typhoons in other parts of the world, have caused huge damage in many places recently. The United States has just been hit by Hurricane Milton, within two weeks of Hurricane Helene. Climate change likely made their impacts worse.
[...] The bureau's forecast is consistent with scientific evidence suggesting climate change is likely to result in fewer but more severe tropical cyclones. They are now more likely to bring stronger winds and more intense rain and flooding.
Our knowledge of tropical cyclones and climate change is based on multiple lines of evidence globally and for the Australian region. This work includes our studies based on observations and modeling.
[...] Many ocean heat records have been set recently. This means we have been in "uncharted waters" from a temperature perspective. It adds further uncertainty if relying on what occurred in the past when making predictions for the current climate.
The science makes it clear we need to plan for tropical cyclone impacts in a different way from what might have worked in the past. This includes being prepared for potentially fewer tropical cyclones overall, but with those that do occur being more likely to cause more damage. This means there are higher risks of damaging winds, flooding and coastal erosion.
Eyeing The Damage Of Hurricane Season
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
In the aftermath of hurricanes like Helene and Milton, the damaging effects of these natural disasters are the center of national conversations, including questions about the long-term impact to infrastructure. However, current methods for damage assessment don't offer clear and timely answers to these questions.
That's where AI and engineering can help. Researchers from Texas A&M University are pioneering the use of AI and machine learning to create faster methods to assess damages caused by hurricanes.
[...] Using this dataset, Manzini and fellow graduate student Priya Perali trained an AI system to recognize building and road damage caused by disasters. Learning these models took hours of high-performance computing but have resulted in a damage assessment system that can sort through the building and road damages of a large neighborhood after a disaster in only four minutes using a laptop.
"AI offers tremendous value for rural counties which do not have the budget or workforce to conduct physical damage assessments but do have inexpensive drones," said Murphy, a Raytheon Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
(Score: 4, Informative) by day of the dalek on Monday October 21, @08:54AM (14 children)
In some basins, including the north Atlantic, both vertical wind shear and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are projected to increase because of climate change. Vertical wind shear is the magnitude of the vector difference between winds in the lower troposphere and the upper troposphere. Strong vertical wind shear weakens tropical cyclones and can inhibit their development. Warmer SSTs, of course, are favorable for tropical cyclones. Abnormally warm SSTs can persist for weeks or months while vertical wind shear is highly variable on shorter weather timescales of days. The result is that the strong shear can inhibit the formation of tropical cyclones, but when the shear abates, tropical cyclones that are able to develop can rapidly intensify. Most major hurricanes undergo at least one cycle of rapid intensification, but the intensification of Hurricane Milton was especially rapid and quite unusual. But this is not altogether unexpected when SSTs are anomalously warm.
At least for now, the north Atlantic basin is well below the predicted number of tropical cyclones this year [soylentnews.org]. In some particularly active seasons, the waters are warm enough and the shear sufficiently weak to allow tropical cyclones beyond the official November 30 end of hurricane season. It's possible that we'll still see a fair amount of activity, over the next month or two, but that's far from certain since we're already well past the September 10 peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. We may be seeing a similar issue in the Atlantic where there aren't as many tropical cyclones as we might predict over the course of the season, but that more of the tropical cyclones that develop end up becoming major hurricanes.
One more thing is that the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has a big impact on vertical wind shear in other basins like the north Atlantic, and this year's forecast was based on heading into La Niña conditions. While the Oceanic Niño Index [noaa.gov] shows that we're out of the strong El Niño conditions from last winter (positive numbers, red color), La Niña (negative numbers, blue color) hadn't developed yet during July/August/September and we were really in ENSO-neutral conditions. El Niño increases the vertical wind shear in the North Atlantic while La Niña decreases it. In the North Atlantic, the most active hurricane seasons in terms of the number of named storms tend to be associated with La Niña conditions. The article seems to be suggesting that the links between ENSO and hurricane activity aren't as strong as they have been historically, which might imply that other factors might have a greater role in influencing the vertical wind shear, though it's not immediately obvious to me what these factors are. Perhaps it would be more useful to look at something like accumulated cyclone energy [wikipedia.org] (ACE), which is shown in reports like this NCEI report for 2023 [noaa.gov], instead of just the number of tropical cyclones or major hurricanes.
SUCK IT TREBEK [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 21, @11:23AM (13 children)
Worth mentioning: it wasn't so long ago (maybe 2001?) when November 1 was the official end of Hurricane season in the Atlantic basin. Before then, hurricanes didn't form in November.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Tuesday October 22, @04:34AM (3 children)
Nonsense. It depends where you track them. Did you know there are overland hurricanes? Siberia gets several every winter (on average about 5x the size of those that hit Florida). If you look up the wind/pressure maps for the Great Blizzard of 1949 that buried Nebraska and Wyoming, it was clearly a hurricane, a very large one, even if you call it a blizzard. (Same with the big blows that hit NYC every decade or so.) The cyclone that hit southern China this fall is a regular pattern that usually sits off the Philippines, but this year it shrank, which might be what let it wander north.
And some unmassaged data from a former programmer for NOAA:
https://realclimatescience.com/2023/05/us-hurricane-decline/#gsc.tab=0 [realclimatescience.com]
Note that it's cyclic, like the rest of the climate, but slowly declining.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 22, @11:35AM
I stand corrected.
NOAA extended the season from November 15 to November 30 in 1965. I am either misremembering or my local weatherman misspoke when we started seeing several November tropical systems in the early 2000s.
This frequency chart is pretty easy to read for the whole year:
https://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/index.php?arch&loc=northatlantic [colostate.edu]
Haven't found a convenient one that splits it out by month, November does historically have a lot of zeros. Here's some data: 19 total November hurricanes reached land since 1950, three in 2022:
https://www.wfla.com/weather/tracking-the-tropics/tracking-the-tropics-how-common-are-november-hurricanes/ [wfla.com]
Being sensationalist news, they don't say how many of those 3 struck land, but do point out that one struck twice.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 22, @11:42AM (1 child)
Oh, also worth mentioning: your source is Tony Heller, self labeled "independent thinker and considered a heretic by the establishment."
Any time I have run "the establishment's" data to ground truth, it checks out. Establishment predictions of storm tracks skew toward sooner than actual landfall and other psy-ops to drive the population towards safer behavior, but their after the fact reports and records have been 100% consistent with my nearly 60 years of on site observations.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday October 22, @02:52PM
You need to look through Tony Heller's data presentations (hard data unmassaged for television). You may become very disillusioned about what is being presented to the public by the 'official' sources.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 22, @02:24PM (8 children)
I heard from Marjorie Taylor Green (so it must be true!) that the hurricanes are being created by Democrats using some kind of technology in order to harm red states.
Yes, this was in the news recently.
People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 22, @02:49PM (7 children)
Wasn't it Jewish controlled space lasers?
I mean, if the Jews have powerful space lasers, that sure would short-cut a lot of effort in their current conflict.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday October 22, @02:55PM (2 children)
I thought it was space aliens! Or maybe whirling dervishes that got out of hand.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 22, @03:12PM (1 child)
Well, if it's the Jews and the Jews control everything, they sure are giving themselves a hard time with hurricanes on Miami Beach over the years.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday October 23, @03:27AM
Must be some serious masochism goin' on there....
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 22, @04:42PM (3 children)
The secret Jewish space lasers were the cause of the California wildfires -- according to Marjorie Taylor Green.
The hurricanes are caused by a Democrat scheme to use technology to cause hurricanes to hurt red states. -- According to Marjorie Taylor Green.
People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 22, @05:15PM (2 children)
I'm sorry, MTG just operates on a whole different plane, I can't really comprehend her brilliance, and I can't comprehend why anyone would vote for such a blinding pile of BS.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 23, @05:54PM (1 child)
It is astonishing that a district in Georgia would elect her. It also says something about that district.
People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 23, @07:27PM
My father taught at Barry University, Rome GA heart of MTG land for a long long time. The townsfolk are... not like the imported academics.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday October 21, @03:02PM (5 children)
Remember when Al Gore and G.W. Bush were running for president? Al Gore made a film called An Inconvenient Truth about climate change. I think he about nailed it. Made predictions of things to come in a few decades if we didn't implement policies to make changes.
Of course, the usual response was:
briberycampaign contribution sourcesPeople who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 21, @03:11PM (2 children)
Al and his daddy gave up tobacco farming, A) because tobacco was politically unpopular at the time, and B)ecause it was "the right thing to do" for people's health.
More money in being Vice President than Tobacco farming, anyway.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday October 21, @04:00PM (1 child)
Keep in mind that Tobacco is also a losing industry over the long term. Sure, he probably stopped farming it before the profit evaporated, but with states like the ones out west having extreme taxes on the product, the age to legally buy going up and just generally people not being as likely to start as they used to, tobacco farmers are going to have to eventually switch to something anyways.
Around here you're looking at nearly $10 a pack before taxes and you have to be at least 21 years old to buy with a photo ID no matter how old you look. And, you're not allowed to smoke in most places other than at home and some outdoors areas that are far enough from doors, windows and vents. And, landlords are not required to allow people to smoke in apartments. The HOA for the building I live in doesn't even allow owners to smoke indoors.
I personally voted against the restrictions on where people could smoke because it seemed stupid to still sell the product, but make it virtually impossible for people to actually use it. And, while I still believe that, I can't say that it isn't nice to be able to go most places and not be around smoking in a confined area or exposed to 3rd hand smoke via the residue it leaves on the surfaces.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 21, @04:12PM
The big shift against public smoking in Florida in the 1990s was "a breath of fresh air." Sure, if people want to kill themselves that way that should be their right, although I would argue that they should have completely separate health insurance pools... Florida has a lot of European tourists, and when I last spent significant time in Europe (1997) smoking was still much more entrenched in the culture there (Swiss Alps)... So, Florida still allows our European hard currency sources to do as they please outdoors, but just getting it banned in restaurants and offices was huge.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by day of the dalek on Tuesday October 22, @06:06AM
There was a time when the Republican Party understood that emissions from human activity could cause climate change and other serious environmental damage, then supported policies to avoid the consequences of unregulated emissions. Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush certainly were skeptical of scientists who said that emissions were depleting the ozone layer and causing global warming. Neither liked the idea of regulation to reduce emissions because it was contrary to their desire for small government and believed it would harm business. But Reagan and Bush also understood an economic argument that even if there was a small chance that the scientists were right, the cost of taking action during their presidencies would be far less than it would cost to clean up the environmental damage later.
With strong support from Reagan and Bush, the United States had a large role in negotiating a treaty to curb CFC emissions. This treaty, known as the Montreal Protocol, has been very successful at both reducing CFC emissions and allowing the ozone layer to recover from the damage that occurred. Reagan's primary concern was ozone layer depletion, but Bush wanted to continue this by negotiating more international agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address other types of environmental damage. Ultimately, Bush backed away from these policies because of political resistance and opposition from big businesses that opposed more regulation. But Reagan and Bush did implement a cap-and-trade scheme domestically for CFCs and were very supportive of international treaties to prevent environmental damage.
There was a time when conservatives took strong actions to curb emissions and prevent environmental damage. It wasn't that long ago. If you go back farther, the Environmental Protection Agency was established under Richard Nixon. Republicans have a history of addressing environmental issues, but those priorities certainly have changed in the past 20-30 years.
Here are some sources:
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/climate-change-transparency-project/2024-08-01/ronald-reagan-climate-hero [gwu.edu]
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB536-Reagan-Bush-Recognized-Need-for-US-Leadership-on-Climate-Change-in-1980s/ [gwu.edu]
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/green-life/2013/12/why-did-ronald-reagan-save-world [sierraclub.org]
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/opinion/sunday/climate-change-lessons-from-ronald-reagan.html [nytimes.com]
SUCK IT TREBEK [youtube.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by day of the dalek on Tuesday October 22, @06:18AM
Whoops, I hit "Submit" instead of "Preview" and intended to add a bit more to my comment.
There are still a few Republicans who support strong action on climate change. Take it from this gentleman [johnmccollister.com], who is a former state senator from a very red state. The logic he uses is the same Reagan and Bush used to justify strong action on environmental issues in the 80s and 90s. The political polarization about climate change can make it seem like there will never be any real action in the US, but there's a bit of hope that at least people like this Republican are still active in politics.
SUCK IT TREBEK [youtube.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 21, @09:56PM (4 children)
The great thing about the hurricanes is that it tricked the insurrectionists into tipping their hand and trying to act out the rebellion prematurely.
The readiness is all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22, @02:28AM (3 children)
No. Just no.
Were all 225 people who died in Hurricane Helene and the 27 people still missing also insurrectionists? Were all the people whose towns were flooded, whose homes, schools, and workplaces were severely damaged or destroyed, also all insurrectionists? What sort of collateral damage is acceptable to achieve your political objectives?
I strongly criticized the disinformation about FEMA [soylentnews.org]. I posted the first AC comment in that journal, so I most certainly didn't give that sort of thing a free pass. But your comment is just as offensive. Couldn't you find something better to post about in this story than the political flamebait filth in your comment?
You know, if there used to be one redeeming thing about a natural disaster, it's that it when people saw the aftermath, it tended to bring out the best in humanity. People put aside their differences, showing tremendous generosity and working together to try to rebuild from the destruction and assist the people in need. Have we reached a point where we despise our fellow humans so much that it instead brings out some of our ugliest behavior like the contents of that journal and your comment?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22, @04:32AM (2 children)
I made no comment about who was an insurrectionist - aside from those hunting FEMA, nor did I suggest that the dead and missing and property destruction from the storms was not tragic.
Half a million people died in the first US Civil War. Some clowns are itching to start another one. My post was to warn against that. If my warning saves one life, maybe it will have been worth it. That is the only reason I bothered to post.
Grow up... and learn to read.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22, @05:33AM (1 child)
There isn't a "great thing" about two major hurricanes hitting the US, which directly killed at least 258 people and caused at least $75 billion in damages. Yes, there genuinely can actually be positive effects from tropical cyclones when several inches of rain can bust a drought. Droughts can be very harmful to people, but they give the illusion of not being as serious as other disasters because they unfold in relatively slow motion. But I don't think I've ever heard anyone even say that the "great thing about _______ major hurricane" that killed a lot of people is that it busted a drought, because a comment like that would be really insensitive. Your comment was offensive, and your attempt to rationalize it shows a complete lack of decency. If you really must post offensive stuff like this, at least post it in your own journal instead of in science articles on the front page.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22, @05:47AM
If we could keep half a million people from dying by having advanced warning about an impending insurrection...
...that would be great.
To imagine otherwise is offensive and indecent.