Climate Change and Humongous Storms

The question of whether climate change has to do with storms such as Sandy has been answered so often there isn’t much more to add.

Did Barry Bonds steroid use have to do with a particular over-the-wall-into-the-water blast?

Can’t be answered.  No cause and effect like the cue ball hitting the number 3 ball into the corner pocket.

Simply put, the juice — steroids or CO2– increase the probability of events related to the effect of the juice: muscle mass is related to harder hit balls, but not to hand-eye coordination.  Balls that might have been long outs, hit harder, might become home runs.  There is a relation — but a complex one.

More muscle mass resulting from steroid is more water content and sea water temperature rise from increasing concentrations of CO2.  A storm that may have been big 50 years ago, with more water and higher ocean temperatures, might become a super storm today.  There is a relation — but a complex one.

Not to mention, sea-level rise — which it is, whether you believe it or not.  It could be the great dragon below the earth’s crust is simply inflating his lungs causing the seas to rise, whatever.  When the seas rise, even old-fashioned big storms will push more water inland, and flood what we need and love.  Superstorms will push even more.

No reputable scientist will ever say, ever, Yup!  That’s a CO2 fired super storm.  All reputable scientists have said, the more CO2, the more water, the more ocean temperature rise, the more likely extreme weather events.

All reputable insurance companies will count up the dollars of ruined assets and, seeing those rise, will raise rates or refuse to insure.

All people with common sense will read their experience and understand Sandy, for example, did not pop out of no where and no thing, and will prepare for more, and worse in the years ahead.

The challenge is to get enough people to vote into decision making positions, those who understand the obvious and help draw down the enormous output of the prime-mover in all of this: Agro-Industrial CO2.

More at  Did Climate Change Supersize Hurricane Hurricane Sandy?

And, from Jeff Masters:

In a stunning spectacle of atmospheric violence, Superstorm Sandy roared ashore in New Jersey last night with sustained winds of 90 mph and a devastating storm surge that crippled coastal New Jersey and New York. Sandy’s record size allowed the historic storm to bring extreme weather to over 100 million Americans, from Chicago to Maine and from Michigan to Florida. Sandy’s barometric pressure at landfall was 946 mb, tying the Great Long Island Express Hurricane of 1938 as the most powerful storm ever to hit the Northeast U.S. north of Cape Hatteras, NC. New York City experienced its worst hurricane since its founding in 1624, as Sandy’s 9-foot storm surge rode in on top of a high tide to bring water levels to 13.88′ at The Battery, smashing the record 11.2′ water level recorded during the great hurricane of 1821. Damage from Superstorm Sandy will likely be in the tens of billions, making the storm one of the five most expensive disasters in U.S. history.

Windy America

Very cool representation of winds across the US, here.  Mezmerizing.

Weather Events and Weather Records

Let’s see:

Record Setting Cold in in UK

What looks to be the coldest December on record is causing misery for travelers in the United Kingdom and across Europe. Thousands were forced to sleep at Heathrow and Gatwick airports after hotels filled up when most airplanes were grounded due to the ice and snow. Heathrow was shut down Saturday

Record-Setting Storm in Minnesota

December 10–11, 2010, was unusual. Bringing 17.1 inches of snow to the Twin Cities International Airport, the blizzard was the largest December storm on recordfor the Minneapolis/St. Paul region, and the fifth largest snowstorm on record for any time

Panama Canal Closed from Heavy Rains

The Panama Canal closed for 17 hours in early December 2010, only the third time in its 96-year history. Authorities closed the canal after heavy rains raised two artificial lakes associated with it, Alajuela and Gatun, to unprecedented levels.The heavy rains occurred in a persistent low-pressure area along the Intertropical Convergence Zone where winds from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres meet and fuel strong storms. The canal-closing rains in Panama continued a pattern ofheavy rain in Central and South America from the previous month.

Columbia Flooding Affects Millions

Heavy rains have continued to hit Colombia where two million people have been affected by widespread flooding

[Help Colombianos at UNICEF]

Flooding in Southern Spain

Severe winter weather that coated Great Britain and Ireland with snow also caused flooding in southern Spain in early December 2010. One child was killed when a flash flood overwhelmed the vehicle in which he was riding, according to news reports. Meanwhile, roughly two meters (6 feet) of water submerged parts of the historic center of Écija, forcing authorities to evacuate about 3,000 people.

There’s more but this will remind us all what is going on…

Weather Bomb Hits Midwest

From ClimateProgress

‘Weather bomb’ hits Midwest with power of major hurricane

October 27, 2010

My dad was the biggest Republican that ever walked the earth. He always said: “Actions have consequences.” To pretend that a 38% increase in greenhouse gases isn’t going to have any impact, that we can have our cake and eat it too, and smear it all over our face, and maybe have our grandchildren deal with the hangover, I think it is immoral.

That’s Minnesota meteorologist Paul Douglas in an exclusive interview with Brad Johnson about the “weather bomb” that just hit and the global warming deniers that populate his state.

and the post continues with this:

Here is more of Brad Johnson’s Wonk Room post:

Fueled by fossil fuel pollution, an unprecedented, freak “land hurricane” swept through the continental United States, leaving a path of devastation from Saskatchewan to Texas — while the Republican Party has been taken over by a hurricane of science denial. Our destabilized climate system, supercharged with billions of tons of manmade global warming pollution, is unlike anything in the historical record. “Welcome to the Land of 10,000 Weather Extremes,” Minnesota meteorologist Paul Douglas gasped. “The storm is huge,” Peter Kimbell, emergency preparedness meteorologist for Environment Canada, said. “Much of North America is being affected by this storm. It’s covering millions of square kilometers.” Douglas found intensity of the “weather bomb” something “hard to fathom”:

There is a lot of technical detail in the post. Some of the numbers may come in useful in a room full of know-nothings.  Stuff a few of them into your not-so-trivia part of the brain.  The lowest low pressure reading in a non-hurricane storm in the lower 48 states, ever recorded was 28.10″  That was in 1914.  Pressure readings in Tuesday’s storm were 28.20, 28.23, 28.48 — all record breakers for their area.

Read all

North Carolina Drowning: 2nd 500 Year Rain in 11 Years

As predicted, the whole east coast is soaking in rain.

North Carolina is expecting to see the Ark at any moment.

[Pink is 10″-12″ in 5 days; Blue is 15″ or over.]

Excessive rainfall in the Cape Fear region of North Carolina from a tropical conveyor belt including the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole has broken the total rainfall record from Hurricane Floyd in 1999. The Floyd rainfall has been described by the National Weather Service as a once-in-500-year event. The NWS reported this morning that the 19.66″ at Wilmington in the 3 days ending yesterday is the highest 3-day total precipitation in records that began in 1871.

Climate Progress