Scientists downplay global warming's effect on hurricanes

[babylonsister]

Scientists downplay global warming's effect on hurricanes
Global warming is not the cause of increased hurricane activity, researchers said, but many more busy -- and costly -- seasons are ahead.
Posted on Sat, Apr. 05, 2008

BY MARTIN MERZER


ORLANDO --We're in a busy period of hurricane activity that will inflict unimaginable damage, but global warming is not the cause, leading researchers told the nation's foremost forecasters and other experts Friday.

Chris Landsea, a respected researcher and the National Hurricane Center's science officer, told those at the National Hurricane Conference that there is no conclusive evidence that global warming has significantly enhanced or otherwise affected the number or intensity of hurricanes.

''Any trend we see due to global warming has very little impact, has caused very tiny changes, and might actually be slightly reducing the activity we see in the Atlantic,'' Landsea told the group, which numbered 2,100 earlier in the week, although some left before the global warming session began.

But overall, hurricane seasons will remain relatively active and they will become increasingly costly, researchers said.

Insurance experts warned Friday that the nation soon will absorb a hurricane that causes more than $100 billion in damage, and Landsea has estimated that a Category 5 hurricane could produce at least $140 billion in damage to South Florida.

But that, he and others said, has virtually nothing to do with global warming.

more...

http://www.miamiherald.com/574/story/483890.html

[iamjoy]

1. They Barely Mention One Big Problem

A major reason storms are so destructive and expensive is because of land use. We have damaged and destroyed many of the natural barriers that could help alleviate a storm's affect. Furthermore, we have built up so much, crowded the coast so much with expensive development that it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a storm's property costs could be catastrophic.

[morningglory]

2. A new thing, here in N. Fla. is thunderstorms that rip up crepe myrtle

trees that are 20 years old and have been sideswiped by a great many hurricanes, knock oak trees down, and tear up things that have withstood hurricanes. We had a very damaging windstorm in a rainy front last year, that the Five Alive Sooper Dooper News Radar saw and did not discern tornadic winds. They kept saying it was "straight line" winds that knocked signs down and tore up trees and roofs. Just a little rainstorm, that here in Florida is an every Friday night thing--just enough to aggravate the tourists. This is a new phenomenon. I am 61 years old and I have seen a few things. This is new.

[Fovea]

3. I understand why no one wants this to be

anthropogenic.

If Landsea is somehow right, and we continue dumping CO2 willy nilly into that thin skin of air above us. What happens when the effects actually do kick in?

I am sick of these carefully worded denials.
We have Soviet Science right now.

The rest of the world sees this differently.

[The Straight Story]

4. Well, they are scientists so we have to believe them and their study

Or we have to wait until 20 other scientists agree, even is 100 don't, or...hell it is all confusing.

Like trying to sort through preachers of various denominations trying to tell me what I read in the bible was supposed to 'really' mean.

[BlooInBloo]

5. Obviously they're part of the conspiracy....

... Hilarious how DUers will turn on anyone, just to maximize the conspiracy, truth be damned.

[Junkdrawer]

6. Actually, many around the NHC have been bastions of GW denial....

...

The only inconvenient truth about global warming, contends Colorado State University's Bill Gray, is that a genuine debate has never actually taken place. Hundreds of scientists, many of them prominent in the field, agree.

Gray is perhaps the world's foremost hurricane expert. His Tropical Storm Forecast sets the standard. Yet, his criticism of the global warming "hoax" makes him an outcast.

"They've been brainwashing us for 20 years," Gray says. "Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was."


...

http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_3899807

[BlooInBloo]

7. Yah! There ya go! Forget all about the Union Of Concerned Scientists...

... Because that single schlub from Co St is soooooo much more important than 200,000 UCS. Yes - scientists are part of the problem now, to DUers.

[Junkdrawer]

9. Myself, I go with the Union Of Concerned Scientists...I was simply pointing out...

that, if you want GW deniers, the NHC has more than their share.

I think it may be chalked up to two factors:

1.) Conservative government influence

2.) Big Oil pays for private hurricane forecasts

[leftchick]

8. Chris Landsea?? Lol! What a tool!

http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/2007/02/empire-strikes-back-disputing-global.html

, Congress is considering several pieces of legislation that would impose controls on industrial carbon-dioxide emissions – blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere and contributing to the noticeable warming effect on the earth's climate.

The question is not so much about federal scientists' ability to publish their results in specialized journals that few but their colleagues read, the report's authors say. Instead, the trouble arises when agencies translate "journalese" into language the general public or lawmakers can grasp for use in official government reports or media releases.

Sometimes scientists and career public-affairs officers would send press releases related to global warming up the ladder for review, then never hear back. Or appointees changed the wording in ways that scientists felt distorted the results or their implications, and the researchers weren't given a chance to argue their case. One of the most blatant examples focuses on the issue of hurricanes and global warming. According to the report, in 2005, the White House stepped in to block an interview MSNBC sought with NOAA scientist Thomas Knutson, who a year earlier had published a modeling study on the potential link between hurricanes and global warming. The interview was to focus on new research by other scientists that suggested global warming has contributed to trends toward stronger hurricanes.

Documents GAP obtained showed that instead of approving subsequent interviews with Dr. Knutson, high-level public-affairs officers routed interview requests to NOAA scientist Chris Landsea in Miami, who argued, in part, that the quality of global hurricane data was too poor and inconsistent to draw meaningful conclusions. In another instance, reporters interested in interviewing a NOAA scientist who had coauthored a new research paper concluding that modern warming "is dominated by human influences" were sent instead to then-deputy administrator Jim Mahoney.