Hurricane Sandy - A Product of Climate Change?

[TeaPotty]

I am starting this thread to collect the gradual evidence released proving what most of us already know: Hurricane Sandy is just a taste of things to come.

I was particularly irked by this:

Hurricane Sandy had little, if anything, to do with climate change. It was a rare weather event that could have occurred with or without climate change. It's possible that climate change has slightly increased the probability of such an event. It's also possible it has decreased the probability. Far worse hurricanes have hit Long Islands before climate change. Such as the Long Islands express in 1938.

That's some really bad logic from AndrewP, and a false argument I hear quite often.

Our climate has already changed, and its rate of change is accelerating. Thats a fact.
So really, there is not a single weather event today that u can clearly say is not effected by climate change.

The Climate HAS changed. Its changed enough that even recent public polls show that people experience it enough to accept it as a part of their reality already.

Also, Sandy has been addressed multiple times, and established that its damage was definitely a product of climate change:

RSL rise will raise the base level for flood heights in New York City and exacerbate flooding caused by future hurricanes

This is without even discussing all other countless possible influences on how storms are shaped now, in our new evolving climate. To imply that expected climate-change induced weather changes are somehow an outrageous suggestion is only an embarrassing show of your true agenda.

How about the fact that near-Sandy level flooding (7-8 ft) will have an 11-17% chance of occurring every year by the 2020s.
Climate Risk Information 2013
http://nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/downloads/pdf/npcc_climate_risk_information_2013_report.pdf (Page 21)

Also just recently:
Mayor Bloomberg Outlines Ambitious Proposal To Protect City Against The Effects of Climate Change To Build A Stronger, More Resiliant New York
http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/2013a/pr201-13.html


So... I beleive the debate of how much worse climate change has made Sandy is an interesting one. But the suggestion that this is business-as-usual, or that climate change is unrelated, is offensive to all those who lost property or loved ones in my hometown of NYC.

[Neven]

I'm fine with this thread, but leave polarizing provocations out of it, please.

---

What I found most interesting about Sandy, was that 90° turn to the left it suddenly took. This was said to be caused by a blocking ridge to the North. If I remember correctly that ridge also fueled Sandy to become a hybrid storm.

If the 2012 melting season - with a semi-permanent high over Greenland and Baffin Bay - had an effect on this blocking ridge (and chances are high that Arctic sea ice loss has something to do with AGW) , then it could be a product of climate change, or  at least be influenced by it.

I don't find this far-fetched, but I can't prove anything. But you know, absence of evidence, etc.

We'll have to wait and see if we get more storms with peculiar, unique features, in the coming two decades.

[AndrewP]

I am starting this thread to collect the gradual evidence released proving what most of us already know: Hurricane Sandy is just a taste of things to come.

I was particularly irked by this:

Hurricane Sandy had little, if anything, to do with climate change. It was a rare weather event that could have occurred with or without climate change. It's possible that climate change has slightly increased the probability of such an event. It's also possible it has decreased the probability. Far worse hurricanes have hit Long Islands before climate change. Such as the Long Islands express in 1938.

That's some really bad logic from AndrewP, and a false argument I hear quite often.

Our climate has already changed, and its rate of change is accelerating. Thats a fact.
So really, there is not a single weather event today that u can clearly say is not effected by climate change.

Saying a weather phenomena is affected by climate change is not the same thing as saying it has been caused by it in the sense that it was made more likely. If a tree falls on my house it was probably affected by a fat man in Japan blowing his nose. But I would never say the fat man caused the tree to fall on my house. The relevant and interesting question from a practical question is did climate change make a Sandy-like event more likely?

The Climate HAS changed. Its changed enough that even recent public polls show that people experience it enough to accept it as a part of their reality already.

Also, Sandy has been addressed multiple times, and established that its damage was definitely a product of climate change:

RSL rise will raise the base level for flood heights in New York City and exacerbate flooding caused by future hurricanes

Sea level rise did indeed exacerbate flooding associated with Sandy. However, damage would only have been slightly less without this sea level rise for a number of reasons:

1. Sea level has only risen 17" or so in NYC over the last 150 years. The difference between 12' and 10'7" is significant but not huge.

2. Of those 13", only ~10" is associated with AGW. 4" are due to glacial rebound from the Laurentide ice sheet. Another 3-4" is associated with natural warming coming out of the little ice age. This is demonstrated by the large amount of sea level rise from 1850-1910 and also the fact that the IPCC blames a significant amount of warming after 1910 due to high solar activity and low volcanic activity relative to the prior period.

3. Much of the infrastructure damaged was built long after much of the sea level rise had already taken place. In other words, damage was not caused by rising seas encroaching upon existing infrastructure, but by new infrastructure being built too close to sea level. If half of the infrastructure damaged was built after 1950, in full knowledge of, and in despite of, the first 6" of sea level rise, then damage was only exacerbated by the remaining 7" of encroachment (of which only 5" was due to AGW). For infrastructure built today, none of the damage can be blamed on SLR encroachment. For infrastructure built 100 years ago, maybe 10" can be blamed on SLR encroachment (of which 8" is associated with AGW)

4. Combining points 1-3, only ~5" of the 12' of surge can be blamed on AGW-associated SLR occurring after infrastructure was built. I doubt that 5" out of 12' made an exceptionally large difference in damage.

This is without even discussing all other countless possible influences on how storms are shaped now, in our new evolving climate. To imply that expected climate-change induced weather changes are somehow an outrageous suggestion is only an embarrassing show of your true agenda.

I never said that climate-change induced weather changes are an outrageous suggestion.

How about the fact that near-Sandy level flooding (7-8 ft) will have an 11-17% chance of occurring every year by the 2020s.
Climate Risk Information 2013
http://nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/downloads/pdf/npcc_climate_risk_information_2013_report.pdf (Page 21)

1. It says 7' not 7-8'.

2. A 7' tide is no where near the 12' tide of Sandy. Gloria produced a total tide of 7' at Battery Park but total damage was only $900 million much of which was not in NY and/or not associated with the surge (rather with the wind gusts and flooding rains). There was probably only a couple hundred million in surge damage with Gloria, which would be perhaps 500 million today.

3. A 7' tide was already a 10% probability per year 1971-2000. An increase to 11-17% (mean 13-13.5%) is not a huge increase.

4. They rely upon a prediction of 4-8" in SLR from 2000-2004 to the 2020s. Slanger 2012 predicts .6m of SLR from 1980-1999 to the 2090s (105 years) or a linear extrapolated rate of 5.7mm/yr. Over the 23 years from 2000-2004 to the 2020s, this would be 4.7". Of this only 3.5" would be associated with AGW (the other 1.2" would be glacial rebound). Presumably the trend is not linear however, and more of the sea level rise would be weighted towards the late 21st century. Thus inference from Slanger suggests only 2-3" of AGW-associated SLR by the 2020s, not 4-8".

http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~slang101/docs/thesis_slangen_final.pdf

Linear extrapolation of the current trend of 2.77mm/yr yields only 2.5" over the 23 year period, of which only 2" would be AGW.

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/trends/8518750.png

One possible reason for their high estimate is that they rely upon an average scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, which are on the high end of the emissions scenarios (and reality which will probably be close to RCP4.5). Their reliance upon higher emissions scenarios skews all of their estimates for all climate variables higher.

Also just recently:
Mayor Bloomberg Outlines Ambitious Proposal To Protect City Against The Effects of Climate Change To Build A Stronger, More Resiliant New York
http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/2013a/pr201-13.html


So... I beleive the debate of how much worse climate change has made Sandy is an interesting one. But the suggestion that this is business-as-usual, or that climate change is unrelated, is offensive to all those who lost property or loved ones in my hometown of NYC.

I'm fine with this thread, but leave polarizing provocations out of it, please.

---

What I found most interesting about Sandy, was that 90° turn to the left it suddenly took. This was said to be caused by a blocking ridge to the North. If I remember correctly that ridge also fueled Sandy to become a hybrid storm.

If the 2012 melting season - with a semi-permanent high over Greenland and Baffin Bay - had an effect on this blocking ridge (and chances are high that Arctic sea ice loss has something to do with AGW) , then it could be a product of climate change, or  at least be influenced by it.

I don't find this far-fetched, but I can't prove anything. But you know, absence of evidence, etc.

We'll have to wait and see if we get more storms with peculiar, unique features, in the coming two decades.

It is possible that AGW and arctic sea ice loss will cause more blocking. However, the book on this is hardly closed. The 2007 IPCC report suggested that blocking would decrease in a warming world. However, after the string of blocky years recently, newer studies have suggested this may be associated with AGW and sea ice loss. Now 2013 is shaping up to not have much blocking despite the low sea ice. We will see.

However, even if that block was made somewhat more likely by AGW (remember we're talking probability here - such blocks have occurred in the past without AGW), Sandy would still have ended up hitting CT or RI, possibly inundating Providence Harbor as the Hurricane of 1938 did. Or it may have screamed off to the northeast wreaking havoc in Newfoundland.

Track is an irrelevant question in my opinion. It's an interesting oddity of Sandy which may or may not have been made slightly more likely by AGW. More important is whether hurricanes will become more or less likely with AGW. Existing studies suggest they will become slightly less common, but with slightly higher average intensity. Studies to date find no trend, or even declining trends in normalized cyclone damage.

[Neven]

However, even if that block was made somewhat more likely by AGW (remember we're talking probability here - such blocks have occurred in the past without AGW), Sandy would still have ended up hitting CT or RI, possibly inundating Providence Harbor as the Hurricane of 1938 did. Or it may have screamed off to the northeast wreaking havoc in Newfoundland.

I could be wrong, but if it weren't for that unprecedented left turn, I believe that the storm would have turned northeastwards to de-intensify in the North Atlantic.

[wili]

Can't find it right now, but at the time I recall there was a good article by a reputable climate scientists entitled something like "Six Was GW Made Sandy More Likely To Happen"

The list included
1) the blocking that neven mentioned,
2) sea level rise,
3) increased atmospheric warming,
4) increased ocean heat,
5) increased humidity,
6) and one other that I can't remember now.

A lot of this probably boils down to disagreements over language. But surely we can all agree that 2-5 played a role in making Sandy what she became, and that GW exacerbates all of them, can't we?

Meanwhile, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that what will become the first major hurricane of this season just fired up (as yet unnamed) over the Atlantic at about 10 degrees north and 50 degrees west. It popped up right over a particularly hot spot, but it is quite warm all the way in from there, whether it heads in toward the Caribbean, or turns up the East Coast. (Note that I am not predicting whether or where it will make land fall, at this point anyway, if it does become the hurricane that I think it will.)

http://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/atlantic

[AndrewP]

However, even if that block was made somewhat more likely by AGW (remember we're talking probability here - such blocks have occurred in the past without AGW), Sandy would still have ended up hitting CT or RI, possibly inundating Providence Harbor as the Hurricane of 1938 did. Or it may have screamed off to the northeast wreaking havoc in Newfoundland.

I could be wrong, but if it weren't for that unprecedented left turn, I believe that the storm would have turned northeastwards to de-intensify in the North Atlantic.

If there was no block, it was already close enough to the coast that it probably would have hit Newfoundland (which is pretty common for storms that get close to the coast of North Carolina in longitude).

But why would we assume no block? -NAO blocks occurred all the time without AGW - almost every east coast hurricane and tropical storm in history has occurred with a -NAO. I find counterfactuals like this to be completely useless generally. If you change one thing, everything is different. -NAOs do happen without AGW all the time.

The block during Sandy was exceptionally strong which made for a more pronounced WNW turn. Often the block only turns storms to the NNW, N or NNE the latter usually being just enough to hit Cape Cod (as opposed to the usual NE and out to sea).

Let's associate the WNW turn with a 4SD -NAO. NW with a 3SD -NAO, WNW with a 2SD -NAO, N with a 1SD -NAO, and NNE with a neutral -NAO.

Even if we didn't have the 4SD block (which we still could have had without AGW), we could have fallen in any of those other categories (without AGW).

IF and this is a BIG IF in my opinion, AGW is making blocking more likely, the most we can say is that AGW increased a 4SD -NAO from a .01% probability to a .02% probability, and it increased the probability of a 3SD block from a .1% to a .12%, and a 2SD from a 2% to a 2.2%, etc. etc. etc.

So I guess you could argue that AGW, by increasing the probability of a -NAO in fall, is making the track of atlantic hurricanes more likely to make landfall on the east coast of the U.S. or Canada. On the other hand, I've never read anything that suggests AGW will lead to higher landfall frequency on the east coast vs out to sea.

That would be a lot more useful than counterfactuals about a single storm.

[AndrewP]

3) increased atmospheric warming,
4) increased ocean heat,
5) increased humidity,

3-5 should apply to all cyclones. However, studies generally predict a slight decrease in cyclone frequency and a slight increase in intensity.

That's because it's a lot more complex than warming, heat and humidity. For one thing, cyclones aren't just caused by heat, they're caused by atmospheric contrasts that create convection. If the mid and upper troposphere are warming in addition to the surface, those contrasts that create convection are not becoming any more common. In fact, if the mid and upper troposphere warm faster, those contrasts are lessened and convection is weakened. Cyclone frequency and intensity is decreased.

Circulation patterns also are expected to increase atmospheric shear which decreases the frequency and intensity of cyclones.

There are large areas of the earth that are both hot and moist, but don't experience convection.

[wili]

3-5 should apply to all cyclones.

So that includes Sandy, so we agree?

Of course, it's always complicated. But the basic physics says that the things that GW effect also effect the formation of hurricanes like Sandy.

I know, and I have to assume the author of the article I referred to knew, that GW can also increase wind shear that can limit the formation of these forms. But if they escape this hurricane killer, there are all these forces that GW enhances that makes them stronger.

So are completely unwilling to appear to clearly agree with even these obvious points because of some kind of pride, or can we have some level of resolution here?

[Shared Humanity]

Everything I have read suggests it is nearly impossible to attribute climate change as the cause for any weather event. This is certainly the case for Sandy.

Nonetheless, AGW is putting more latent energy into our oceans and atmosphere and that energy needs to go somewhere. Most climatologists argue that AGW will increase the frequency and intensity of weather events globally. Another predicted impact is a trend towards sticky weather as particular weather patterns persist for extended periods. While anecdotal, I can speak personally to having observed this in the midwesten U.S. We are now entering our seventh straight week of abnormally low rainfall in Chicago. This is after an anomalously wet May and June where it rained continuously at times. This sticky weather has been a feature for a number of years.

Will this increased latent energy and sticky weather patterns have an impact on hurricanes? I can't see how it wouldn't. Could it be possible that we see higher intensity and sticky weather with regards to these storms? If so, I would not want to be the region which has to deal with a succession of hurricanes pummeling the coast in a single season. Being in Chicago, I won't although Katrina dumped a ton of rain on Chicago.

[Csnavywx]

However, even if that block was made somewhat more likely by AGW (remember we're talking probability here - such blocks have occurred in the past without AGW), Sandy would still have ended up hitting CT or RI, possibly inundating Providence Harbor as the Hurricane of 1938 did. Or it may have screamed off to the northeast wreaking havoc in Newfoundland.

I could be wrong, but if it weren't for that unprecedented left turn, I believe that the storm would have turned northeastwards to de-intensify in the North Atlantic.

If there was no block, it was already close enough to the coast that it probably would have hit Newfoundland (which is pretty common for storms that get close to the coast of North Carolina in longitude).

But why would we assume no block? -NAO blocks occurred all the time without AGW - almost every east coast hurricane and tropical storm in history has occurred with a -NAO. I find counterfactuals like this to be completely useless generally. If you change one thing, everything is different. -NAOs do happen without AGW all the time.

The block during Sandy was exceptionally strong which made for a more pronounced WNW turn. Often the block only turns storms to the NNW, N or NNE the latter usually being just enough to hit Cape Cod (as opposed to the usual NE and out to sea).

Let's associate the WNW turn with a 4SD -NAO. NW with a 3SD -NAO, WNW with a 2SD -NAO, N with a 1SD -NAO, and NNE with a neutral -NAO.

Even if we didn't have the 4SD block (which we still could have had without AGW), we could have fallen in any of those other categories (without AGW).

IF and this is a BIG IF in my opinion, AGW is making blocking more likely, the most we can say is that AGW increased a 4SD -NAO from a .01% probability to a .02% probability, and it increased the probability of a 3SD block from a .1% to a .12%, and a 2SD from a 2% to a 2.2%, etc. etc. etc.

So I guess you could argue that AGW, by increasing the probability of a -NAO in fall, is making the track of atlantic hurricanes more likely to make landfall on the east coast of the U.S. or Canada. On the other hand, I've never read anything that suggests AGW will lead to higher landfall frequency on the east coast vs out to sea.

That would be a lot more useful than counterfactuals about a single storm.

You're absolutely right in saying that a +4 or +3 sigma ridge in that location can happen without AGW. The only beef I have here is the portrayal of statistical distributions. The change in temperature distributions in this case is far from linear. In fact, what we've seen is a "flattening" of the statistical temperature distribution (more accurately a transition from a more normal distribution towards that of an exponential distribution. The mean increase has been smaller than the increase in variability via a skewing towards positive values.

A 3-sigma temperature event (and by extension, a GPH event) is many more times likely in this type of scenario than the mean would otherwise suggest.

[AndrewP]

3-5 should apply to all cyclones.

So that includes Sandy, so we agree?

Of course, it's always complicated. But the basic physics says that the things that GW effect also effect the formation of hurricanes like Sandy.

I know, and I have to assume the author of the article I referred to knew, that GW can also increase wind shear that can limit the formation of these forms. But if they escape this hurricane killer, there are all these forces that GW enhances that makes them stronger.

So are completely unwilling to appear to clearly agree with even these obvious points because of some kind of pride, or can we have some level of resolution here?

You missed the but.

3-5 should apply to all cyclones. But they don't.

AGW is projected to decrease convective instability over the oceans. The upper troposphere warms faster than the lower. The Walker circulation weakens. This weakens the type of instability required for cyclone genesis and strengthening.

All of these factors were acting to weaken Sandy.

[domen_]

Everything I have read suggests it is nearly impossible to attribute climate change as the cause for any weather event.

You can make some conclusions with statistical analysis. If you empirically observe 5-6 category 3,4 and 5 hurricanes per year before global warming, and then 7-8 hurricanes per year after, that implies that there are additional 1-2 hurricanes due to climate change.

And for Sandy in particular: it happened in the end of october. It was very unlikely that hurricane formed in the end of october before global warming, but new climate conditions may have changed probabilities. If we now observe increased hurricane activity later in year, then hurricane Sandy was much more likely being caused by climate change than not being caused by climate change.

[wili]

So 3-5 don't apply? Or they do apply, but other things apply as well? Just searching for clarity, here.

[AndrewP]

It's all fine and well to point out details and oddities of a specific event which may have been caused by climate change, but when it comes to assessing societal impacts I don't find it relevant.

Just because the exact location, date, or angle of approach may have had something to do with climate change, doesn't mean we can attribute the entire event to climate change.

More interesting and practically relevant questions are how much more common or less common are northeast hurricane landfalls, or even more broadly U.S. landfalls in general, the Atlantic basin, or globally? If one place experiences a decrease and another an increase then that is a wash, or at least a lot better than both places experiencing an increase. And then you have to look at all weather types, not just hurricanes.

All weather is effected by climate change, but nobody thanks climate change for their nice sunny day. Or for diverting Sandy towards NYC instead of Cape Cod or Newfoundland.

We should try and focus on an aggregate cost benefit analysis.

[AndrewP]

So 3-5 don't apply? Or they do apply, but other things apply as well? Just searching for clarity, here.

3-5 are basically cancelled if the mid and upper troposphere are warming at a faster rate. All else being equal, surface warming, moistening and OHC would be conducive for intensity. But all else is not equal. The upper atmosphere is warming even faster, reducing instability necessary for genesis and strengthening.

A more complete list of all the changes happening might look like this, but would be a very serious oversimplification:

In favor of strengthening and genesis
1. Higher SSTs and OHC (greater evaporation)
2. More atmospheric moisture
3. More heat in the lower atmosphere

Against strengthening and genesis:
4. Faster warming of the upper atmosphere than lower
5. Weakened Walker circulation
6. Increased wind shear

In terms of genesis climate models tell us that 4,5,6 may win out slightly. In terms of potential peak intensity, they suggest 1,2,3 may win out slightly.

[wili]

Thanks for the clarification. So when we do get an intense storm, why can't we say that, in that case, your 1-3 seems to have won?

[AndrewP]

Thanks for the clarification. So when we do get an intense storm, why can't we say that, in that case, your 1-3 seems to have won?

Well I guess you can say that, but I don't think it's all that practical. I'd be more interested, if overall, AGW made event X more or less likely. Especially if we can give a broader, rather than narrow definition of X.

[wili]

"I guess you can say that" OK, thanks, AP.

Any predictions for what's left of the hurricane season this year?

[Shared Humanity]

It's all fine and well to point out details and oddities of a specific event which may have been caused by climate change, but when it comes to assessing societal impacts I don't find it relevant.

Just because the exact location, date, or angle of approach may have had something to do with climate change, doesn't mean we can attribute the entire event to climate change.

More interesting and practically relevant questions are how much more common or less common are northeast hurricane landfalls, or even more broadly U.S. landfalls in general, the Atlantic basin, or globally? If one place experiences a decrease and another an increase then that is a wash, or at least a lot better than both places experiencing an increase. And then you have to look at all weather types, not just hurricanes.

All weather is effected by climate change, but nobody thanks climate change for their nice sunny day. Or for diverting Sandy towards NYC instead of Cape Cod or Newfoundland.

We should try and focus on an aggregate cost benefit analysis.

That is my poor understanding as well. If we hope to demonstrate a link between climate change and weather, we need to look at the aggregate and demonstrate statistically significant changes. Are there any studies that have done this?

As far as regional changes where one region might see a statistically significant decrease in landfalls while another sees a statistically significant increase, is this really a wash? Most of my casual reading of the impact of climate changes is that there will be a great deal of variability across the planet. Some areas are predicted to get much drier while others are expected to get significantly more rainfall.

There are some models that have suggested a reduction in hurricanes to make landfall in the U.S. While I don't have the numbers in front of me. Texas depends on tropical depressions for a large percentage of their annual rainfall. If the weather impacts result in no appreciable difference in the number of tropical storms but far more are steered harmlessly into the North Atlantic, the regional impact could be severe.

Are there any studies that have attempted to track trends in regional weather?

[Tor Bejnar]

A new study says man-made global warming may further lessen the likelihood of the freak atmospheric steering currents that last year shoved Superstorm Sandy due west into New Jersey. ... But don't celebrate a rare beneficial climate change prediction just yet. ...
 
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-09-sandy-freaky-path-future.html#jCp

The study will be published today, the very short article says, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  I wonder what the paper really says!

[AndrewP]

Here's a better summary of the findings. It presents strong, but not bullet-proof evidence that storms like Sandy will become less common with AGW, in my opinion.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112937758/climate-change-steer-hurricanes-away-from-east-coast-090313/

The dogmatic assumption that all bad weather events are made more likely be AGW is unjustified and bypasses careful scientific consideration.

[wili]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/05/climate-change-partially-caused-extreme-weather-2012

Study says climate change exacerbated half of recent extreme weather events

A new study links 2012's extreme heatwaves, hurricane Sandy and ice melt to climate change, though not rainfall or cold spells

Half of last year's extreme weather – including the triple-digit temperatures of America's July heatwave – were due in part to climate change, new research said on Thursday.

The study, edited by scientists from Noaa and the UK Met Office, detected the fingerprints of climate change on about half of the 12 most extreme weather events of 2012.

The researchers said climate change helped raise the temperatures during the run of 100F days in last year's American heat wave; drove the record loss of Arctic sea ice; and fueled the devastating storm surge of hurricane Sandy. "The analyses reveals compelling evidence that human caused climate change was a factor contributing to the extreme events," Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Centre told reporters in a conference call on Thursday.

(My emphases.)

The dogmatic assumption that bad weather events are not made more likely be [sic] AGW is unjustified and bypasses careful scientific consideration.

[domen_]

The dogmatic assumption that all bad weather events are made more likely be AGW is unjustified and bypasses careful scientific consideration.

Now that's a pretty loaded statement. Belief that global warming will significantly worsen bad weather events is based on a fact that there is more energy in a warmer atmosphere than in a cooler. That's a reasonable assumption with good physical justification. And although it may be true that a few weather events such as cold snaps and hurricane frequency may stay steady (or decline), that doesn't mean that a great number of other bad weather events (such as heat waves, droughts, floods, storm surge,..) are to be neglected or that there is some kind of offset between good and bad consequences. There is no offset and there is no balance, bad consequences significantly outweigh any good ones.

[Vergent]

Here's a better summary of the findings. It presents strong, but not bullet-proof evidence that storms like Sandy will become less common with AGW, in my opinion.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112937758/climate-change-steer-hurricanes-away-from-east-coast-090313/

The dogmatic assumption that all bad weather events are made more likely be AGW is unjustified and bypasses careful scientific consideration.

AndrewP,

Did you actually read the article you linked to? It doesn't support your bombastic assertions.

Vergent

[werther]

Meanwhile, SE Asia is in  comparison to the Atlantic Basin, getting into a severe part of the season:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/10/10/india-cyclone-phailin-odisha-andhra-idINDEE99905320131010

Phailin's properties are getting huge. The whole system now has a diameter of about 1300 km, filling a large part of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.
It looks like pretty soon an appeal on our compassion will be made for the population on India's coast...

[wili]

Thanks for the heads up on that. China has already had a pretty good hit from Typhoon Fitow:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/08/2747651/typhoon-fitow-hits-china/

Over Half A Million People Displaced As Typhoon Fitow Hits China


 

   Powerful Typhoon Fitow slammed into southeastern China on Monday, killing at least five people and forcing the evacuation of more than half a million others.

    According to the BBC, officials in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces said the storm wiped out houses, flooded villages and farms, and impacted more than 4.5 million people. The economic damages of the typhoon are already estimated to be more than 21 billion yuan ($3.4 billion).

    The government issued a red alert — its highest warning — on Sunday, prompting the evacuation of residents and recall of over 30,000 fishing boats. Typhoon Fitow struck Fujian province with winds of up to 151 kilometers (94 miles) an hour in the early morning hours, then slowed before weakening to a tropical storm, the Associated Press reported.

    In addition to the high winds, Fitow brought torrential rainfall, dumping more than eight inches of rain in some areas.

[werther]

I copied this impressive pic of TC Phailin from Wunderground.



It seems the storm is getting even stronger aftera n eyewall replacement cycle. It is about as big and probably as powerful as Katrina now? I fear we will witness disaster tomorrow…

[wili]

Thanks for that impressive image, werther.

Here's a link to an article with another satellite view that shows just how big this monster is:

http://qz.com/134028/cyclone-phailin-is-half-the-size-of-india-and-strengthening-quickly-as-it-heads-for-land/

That forecast may, in fact, be conservative. Waters over the Bay of Bengal are exceptionally warm right now—more than 28°C, which is the generally agreed upon threshold above which rapid intensification of tropical cyclones is most likely.
+

The last storm of this magnitude to hit India was the 1999 Odisha cyclone, which killed more than 10,000 people and caused $4.5 billion in damage. That storm hit the same general area that Phailin appears to be headed, at about Phailin’s predicted strength.

[bligh8]

Was Hurricane Sandy a product of AGW,  Na. Maybe in some small part, but generally speaking, no.

Sandy did do something unusual in that it did retrograde and did so suddenly. Not only that, it accelerated and intensified as it approached to coast. Modeling from the UK was nearly 5-7 days earlier than the US in predicting this retrograde. I'm told this retrograde was in part due to the Jet Stream and a complex interaction with a  pressure system to the North.

Sandy hit on the night of the October full moon. Tides are unusually wicked during October.  I'm not sure why this is but I have seen it all my life.  The inlets from the Ocean to the Bays are akin to a raging river, in Shark River NJ the inlet can reach speeds of 5 to 6 knt. during a October full moon. Normally the max tidal flow is about 2.5kts to 3 kts.

The 13foot or so tidal surge of Sandy was driven by the above and the 90knt's of wind. The mass destruction of property was in large part caused by over development. There's a rock in Sea Bright, NJ, marking a base line high tide indicator that has been used for building purposes along the coast for God knows how long, I would guess at least 60 to 100 years. The flood plain maps have not changed in a century. When one combines this with sinking geological implications & Sea Water rise the extreme destructive nature of the storm is easily understood.


So I would think, bad timing, bad luck and stupid played more a part than AGW.

Bligh

[wili]

Bad timing will be ever more likely to create super-catastrophes as GW and its effects exacerbate the conditions that create, intensify and direct them. Exacerbating effects of GW include: warmer water, warmer air, more humid air, more blocking patterns, higher sea levels, and probably a few more that I am forgetting right now.

[bligh8]

Timing? ..  Old age and sickness never come at a convenient time..........Your Point?

[wili]

Not sure how to make it any clearer. There have always been and will always be storms that come at bad times, times that exacerbate their potential for destruction.

But when those storms come in the future (and already), more and more they will have been further enhanced by the various aspects of GW that tend to super-charge storms.

I think Sandy was a golden opportunity for the president to make a Pearl Harbor-like speech to mobilize the country to really start seriously both reducing our carbon print and preparing for the now inevitable sea level rise, increased drought in the West, and increasingly severe storms everywhere that we know are coming down the pike.

Any individual storm, of course, can be seen as a solitary event, unconnected to GW. But the fact is that now all weather is affected by GW. And long-term developments already show strong fingerprints of GW and its effects. If patterns won't mobilize us, and we refuse to see any catastrophe, no matter how great and no matter how obviously made worse by elements of GW, as a call to get serious, we are left with no trigger for the major initiatives that have to be instituted immediately to have any chance of keeping anywhere close to the 2 degree limit that almost surely too high anyway.

Welcome to the forum, by the way. Long time lurker? Or have you just stumbled across our humble jumble of comments, inquiries and insights?

[ccgwebmaster]

Not sure how to make it any clearer. There have always been and will always be storms that come at bad times, times that exacerbate their potential for destruction.

But there will also be non climate change related factors as he enumerated? He wasn't arguing against some element of climate change input - even if he didn't enumerate the factors that might have contributed that can be laid at the door of climate change.

Sandy could have happened without climate change, though it's possible it might not have been quite as destructive (one factor coming to mind is the anomalously warm ocean for that time of year).

Because of where it happened, it's still being talked about long after the fact - where storms hitting other parts of the world (now) are barely being talked about at all even as they happen (despite being just as serious).

[bligh8]

QUOTE

"Not sure how to make it any clearer. There have always been and will always be storms that come at bad times, times that exacerbate their potential for destruction."

Thank You for the welcome....Yes I've been lurking for awhile, even more I've been looking for a web-site that has reasonable discussions about AGW, it seems I've found one.  There is just so much denylist crap on the web it's difficult at times to sift through the garbage.

About Sandy...the timing issue could not have been worse, of the 6 month hurricane season, with September 15th being the height.. this one rolls in at high tide on the full moon in Oct.
There have been 84 hurricanes that hit the NY area since the 17th century. Some category three, Sandy, a category one, did so much destruction because we chose to build homes that face the Ocean, with little or no protection or homes that lie in a area below or at Sea level,  it's a population thing.

Your right about gw/Sandy and I did mention the possibility.  Actually the question at hand is the wrong question.  Of course, all weather event's are affected by G/warming. I would have been more intrigued by a question about the hurricane of 2011...Irene, which was in my opinion a much clearer example of that relationship.  Hurricane Irene traveled inland, north to New England where it destroyed homes, buildings and bridges that had been there for a century.
Hurricanes, historically do not travel that far north, with that kind of destruction. Or hurricane Catrina(SP) which formed in the S. Atlantic in 2004, the first in recorded history, to form in the S.Atlantic.

Politically, our leaders our doing next to nothing, even worse they bend to the fossil fuel industry like they were the population instead of us. In other countries, like the UK where there are plans in effect today for that country to be carbon neutral by 2050 and  there not alone in their efforts, other countries are reaching towards that end.

Hurricanes/Global warming is of particular interest to me, as I'm a Global Sailor, a blue collar worker that has been lucky enough to put that kind of thing together. In the past and future I've plans to stay out of the parts of the world at the time of hurricane season. I recently purchased a set of Satellite generated Pilot charts...their remarkably different from the older observation based charts. Pilot charts are weather charts, predicting weather in 5deg increments globally, these charts allow for route planning and other pertinent weather information. So, I've been studding weather and global climate driven weather for decades all in a effort to gallivant across some Ocean in a 32ft sailboat.

Now with the obvious GW, weather patterns are changing, and it's scary to think that Humanity is being threatened and our leaders are just stirring the pot.

Best,
Bligh

[wili]

Yeah, I'm not wild about the wording of the title either. But then, I guess it did generate a lot of discussion! 

Anyway, I look forward to more of your thoughtful comments. Keep in mind that half the time, I could be taking the other side of whatever discussion I'm in with equal fervor. Certainly if someone said that Sandy was completely impossible without GW, I would be objecting for many of the reasons you give.

But it is important to remember that in increase by some 5% global average humidity, plus a nearly 1 degree C increase in average atmospheric heat, plus increases in ocean temps and height...all those can't help but have some effect on nearly every storm. (And yes, as discussed above, one of those effects is increased wind shear that tends to cut these storms apart before they get going.)

So, again, welcome to the fray. Blog on, Bligh!

[bligh8]

The front page of yesterdays paper included a article "Sandy, a indicator of change" However, their was hardly a mention of gw. The main thrust of the article was changing the base line (that rock I mentioned in Sea Bright) for construction in the future, the article went on to say that base line construction should be higher by one or two feet. I understand the economics of today's construction industry, that said, without meaningful change in our leaders thinking to address gw, In my opinion there will no longer be construction along a rapidly changing coastline.

Thanks Wili for the Welcome

Best,
Bligh

[wili]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/28/2843871/superstorm-sandy-climate-change/

Superstorm Sandy’s Link To Climate Change: ‘The Case Has Strengthened’ Says Researcher

...a recent study by NOAA researchers found, “climate-change related increases in sea level have nearly doubled today’s annual probability of a Sandy-level flood recurrence as compared to 1950.” On our current CO2 emissions path, the Jersey shore from Atlantic City to Cape May could see Sandy-level storm surges yearly by mid-century!

Dr. Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences is one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between climate change and extreme weather (see here and here). She has also written about the many ways global warming made Sandy so unusually destructive.

I asked Dr. Francis for her latest thoughts on the link between human-caused climate change and the superstorm. She replied:

    I think the case has strengthened. I’ve done a bit more research into the linkage with the very warm Arctic following the record 2012 ice loss, and it appears that the heat released from the Arctic Ocean in the fall created a substantial positive anomaly in the upper-level atmospheric heights in the North Atlantic. This likely contributed to the strong ridge and blocking high that existed when Sandy came along, and that ultimately not only steered Sandy westward but also set up the strong pressure gradient between Sandy and the blocking high that caused the enormous expanse of tropical-storm-force winds from Delaware to Nova Scotia.

    In addition to the Arctic connection, the abnormally high sea-surface temperatures all along the eastern seaboard at the time, which must have some component associated with globally warming oceans, likely helped Sandy maintain tropical characteristics longer and allowed the storm to travel farther northward than would be expected in late October. Warmer ocean waters would also increase evaporation rates, adding to the moisture and latent heat available to the storm.

[wili]

More on Sandy at CC:

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/1-year-later-experts-say-hurricane-sandy-showed-limits-of-an-accurate-forecast-16648

Experts Say Sandy Showed Limits of an Accurate Forecast

Sandy also demonstrated the frustrating limitations of an accurate forecast. Despite the advanced notice and the huge threat it posed everywhere from Massachusetts to Maryland, the storm still killed 159 people, including 44 within New York City alone. Most of the New York victims drowned from coastal flooding.

Even now, nearly a year after Sandy helped reshape the weather enterprise in the U.S., a gap is growing between the capabilities of weather forecasters and the state of risk communications and emergency preparedness in the country.

And:

One Year Later: The Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sandy-anniversary-coverage-16618

[bligh8]

wili

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States_blizzard_of_1978#External_links

The Northeastern United States blizzard of 1978

The storm's power was made apparent by its sustained hurricane-force winds of approximately 86 mph (138 km/h) with gusts to 111 mph (179 km/h) and the formation of an eye-like structure in the middle. While a typical nor'easter brings steady snow for six to twelve hours, the Blizzard of '78 brought heavy snow for an unprecedented full 33 hours as it was blocked from heading into the North Atlantic by the strong Canadian high pressure area.

Note the meteorological similarities to Sandy.

Weather forecasting in the 70s is not what it is today. At the time of this storm I lived in the same neighborhood as I do today but closer to the East facing shoreline of the bay.  Well into the storm two men came to my front door in a BOAT wanting to know if I wished to be evacuated.  There were ice bergs the size of Volkswagen's driven by the wind, storming down the street in front of my home.

My neighbors, who lived in a ranch style home directly behind me, as we waded through thigh high water, handed their small children over the fence to me seeking refuge from the storm, my home was slightly elevated and a two story home. Before this storm was over there was the same scattering of boats from the three marina's dotting the west side of shark river as there was with Sandy. A 35ft cabin cruiser (big boat) eventually was driven through the front picture window of my neighbors home while they safely huddle together in my house.

With Sandy two men came to my front door a full 36 hours before the storm and suggested my family leave the area, therein lies the difference in forecasting abilities from the 70 to now. The loss of life is tragic, people were adequately warned, circumstance and stupid plays a big part in the loss of life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_New_England_hurricane

The storm was first analyzed by ship data south of the Cape Verde Islands on September 9. Over the next ten days, it steadily gathered strength and slowly tracked to the west-northwest. By September 20, while centered east of the Bahamas, the hurricane is estimated to have reached Category 5 intensity. In response to a deep trough over Appalachia, the hurricane veered northward, sparing the Bahamas, Florida, the Carolinas, and the Mid-Atlantic. At the same time, a high pressure system was centered north of Bermuda, preventing the hurricane from making an eastward turn out to sea. Thus, the hurricane was effectively squeezed to the north between the two weather systems.

In the storm of 38 over 600 folks lost their lives.
Again, Note the meteorological similarities to Sandy.

The high water temperatures referred to in your linked article are not uncommon that time of year, as the meandering eddies of the Gulf Stream Often reach the NJ coast line. I have seen this tropical water while diving, normally there was 10 to 30 ft of vis. In tropical water I have witnessed 150ft of vis. I used to catch (suck) using a designed device, small tropical fish, cowering within the inlet rocks(these fish were hatched from eggs that rode the Sargasso sea weed North within the Gulf Stream) and sell them to the Tropical aquarium type fish stores. There was mentioned a 5-6degF higher than normal water temp., one degree may be attributed to gw.

In conclusion I would suggest that Sandy was enhanced by (some small degree) but not caused by gw.

Best,
bligh

[wili]

Yes, I think we've agreed that "caused by" or "product of" is not the right way to think about these things. In a few more years we will start to see more and more storms that are outside of anything in the historical record.

[bligh8]

Hurricanes have always  been like that Wili.....over the decades I've witnessed year after year of "yearly missed forecast" and missed badly, where they'll predict 11 storms and we get 2 or they'll predict 4 and we'll get 7.  It's only after they've fully formed that we can normally predict several days worth of forecast travel direction and intensity.

It seems almost weekly now the front page of the local rag (a gannet production) where there is just terrible economic hardship of small communities along the coast from the devastation of Sandy, where some large corporation has come in and offered a plan to build highrise luxury condo's w/marinas and swimming pools at the same construction codes that existed before Sandy....

From Hoboken to Cape May nobody is considering the consequences of future intensified storms, and sea level rise all due to global warming and the geological implications of building 63 story high rise condos on a unstable substrate, right on the coast.

Further consequences?
Starfish Melting
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20131102/articles/131109902?title=Wasting-disease-devastating-starfish-along-Sonoma-Coast#page=0
or
Sardine fish population collapses
http://enenews.com/sardine-population-plummets-along-west-coast-of-u-s-ap-collapse-of-species-feared

Best,
Bligh

[Bruce Steele]

Bligh8, sardine and anchovy populations have alternated in abundance for thousands of years along the west coast. Sardines prefer warmer conditions and anchovy prefer cooler waters. Canada is the extreme edge of the sardine population even in warm years/decades. We have been in a Cold water PDO regime for ~15 years and sardines might be expected to shift south.

http://www.pfeg.noaa.gov/research/climatemarine/cmffish/cmffishery4.html

The starfish die-off is news to me but in the waters of southern calif. where I dive there apparently haven't been starfish die-offs reported of late. I did see the starfish die-off in both the 82-83 ENSO and the 97-98 event. A researcher at the time isolated a vibrio in the diseased starfish.
 I noticed you anecdotally thought the ocean was sick/dead but there isn't science to back up such a claim. I have been called chicken little , Cassandra and maybe a little nuts over my soapbox positions on ocean acidification but I try very hard to source good science to back me up. The most dire effects of acidification are still decades away , coral beaching is a large current problem in the tropics and you have more experience in tropical waters than I.  I would love to hear more about your adventures in the roaring forties and anecdote certainly has a place on this forum so long as it is clear it is anecdotal. Careful though, correlation is not necessarily causation. 

[bligh8]

Thanks for your reply Bruce…My observations are not scientific, more of a causal/naturalist point of view. I do feel, without reservation, that, a great deal of the Oceans is incapable of supporting life.
Those were not my word’s…..well, in a sort they were, however it was the late, great,
Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s whose interest in protecting the ocean environment grew stronger over time. In the 60's he talked about the sea as an exploitable resource; by 1970 he was warning that life in the oceans had diminished 40 percent in just 20 years: ''The oceans are in danger of dying.''
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/26/world/jacques-cousteau-oceans-impresario-dies.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
I simply clarified his remarks to suit today’s environment, in-that “The Oceans are dying”
After 4 decades of life outside, most of it out on the Oceans or under the Oceans. I feel to some extent I have earned the right to transit correlation to causation.

From the Pacific Garbage Patch
Estimates of size range from 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) to more than 15,000,000 square kilometres (5,800,000 sq mi) (0.41% to 8.1% of the size of the Pacific Ocean), or, in some media reports, up to "twice the size of the continental United States"
It’s not really the visible stuff, it’s plastics reduced to polymers floating in the top several feet.
These garbage patches exist in all Oceans, trapped within the ocean’s Gyre.
To the Oceans dead zones.    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ocean-dead-zones
Over 400 such dead zones have been identified…several large areas in the N. Pacific
What caught my eye in the Starfish report was the remark “They seem to be melting right before our eyes…
The other remark about the Sardines was “a sufficient reduction (in the gene Pool) would prevent a rebound of the species.
I read your link with great interest…there were references to decline with future warming waters in association with gw. 
It’s just not all of this…. My experience was, that when ever I approached a major contentment, hundreds of miles or more out, the water would change from the normal Ice blue to an ugly greenish brown full of jelly fish….Of course this varied greatly with the Ocean currents running along side the continent. That and those f***ing Helium filled balloons saying Happy B/Day to a 5yr old. That everyone eventually lets float skyward.
I have seen these things many hundred’s off miles from shore…they group with a piece of wood attracting fish (fish seek shelter under floating debris) in turn other baby animals are attracted to this scene, including baby turtles who eat the ribbons attached to the  balloon thinking there worms and die. Over the years I’ve visited everyone in this area who sells this junk…constructed mailing list…all in an effort to stop the carnage.(that’s a pet peeve).

Best, Bligh

[Bruce Steele]

Bligh8,  It is a sure sign you have  spent your time out there.. Damned Mylar balloons.
 I do respect your experience , the ocean has a way of making any boat( or man ) feel small. My experience at sea is more limited geographically than yours. Just because the West Coast of North America is relatively healthy ( for now ) doesn't mean the whole ocean is healthy...it isn't. I am a politician though and part of my task is to let people know their actions on land can have a profound effect on ocean health. Your dead zone link makes the point that the dead zones can
recover when terrestrial inputs are reduced or eliminated. They list several examples. Maybe it's just a pet peeve but I don't like to hear "the ocean is dead" because people then assume all is lost. That isn't  from my experience the case. The ocean is still an amazingly beautiful place . We need to convince people their actions do matter and showing the great wealth of the oceans we are trying to protect goes father than showing them those cesspools that most assuredly are there also.
 I called a scientist friend about the starfish die off earlier today. He has tissue samples from the earlier starfish mortality events. We should be able to see if the causative agent is the same. I would add more but scientists get kinda pissed when you leak results before a paper gets published. There a good scientists working on this .

[bligh8]

Thanks Bruce for looking into the StarFish matter.....It's just curiosity & a mild concern. These normally hardy and defenseless animals are truly among the most beautiful of creatures. I did note your mention of the roaring 40s & the tropics. However, in your last post you mentioned how one must feel out there in such vast surroundings. It's different.... real different.
There was a book written a while back titled "A World onto itself" about sailing....I have not read this book but, could strongly identify with the title. Something happens out there.. it is a place like no other, a place where one's mind shifts down and down under the constant bombardment of nothingness, all that is there, is the entire universe and me. The machine is not there... no phones, no cars zooming around at the speed of light blowing there horns to go faster still, just the sky, the stars, the Ocean, the fish&birds, just all of humanity and me. The porpoise, the dolphin, the shark, the tuna, the fish and birds all come to play...to sing their song.
I watch and smile, Horizon sails on. Time has no meaning, each day is like the last and yet different.  It's the quiet contemplation amongst the waves I seek where I can delve into a World onto itself.
bligh

[TeaPotty]

Ken Caldeira:

"There is no longer any weather that humans do not influence. Characterizing human influence in particular events is hard."

https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira/status/399938245124845568

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Caldeira

[TeaPotty]

Michael Mann:

"It is very disappointing to see veteran science journalist Dick Kerr buy into many of the common fallacies regarding the impact of climate change on extreme weather. Chief among these is the notion that just because somebody hasn’t done a formal attribution study of a particular event, that event somehow must not have been influenced by climate change. Kerr is wrong when he claims that climate change didn’t influence the characteristics and impacts of hurricane Sandy. He is wrong when he implies that climate change has not worsened drought in North America in recent years. And he is wrong when he implies that climate change has not played a role in the increasingly widespread and devastating forest fires in the US in recent years."

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/08/2917281/science-magazine-extreme-weather-story/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann

[bligh8]

Yep, it's disturbing when one reads such nonsense.....recently in a Gannett published paper Charles Krauthammer, a nationally recognized columnist with a vast political background said "GW is an unproven Science" I'm sure I read it right as it really irked me.

Yet, within weeks the paper ran an article outlining the effects and consequences of unchecked GW which I thought were quite accurate. I guess it's on any given day.