Weather Chat Megathread

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, tater said:

That's a new storm being forecast. 

Hurricane season on the Atlantic has begun (usually ~August - October).

In any case the Atlantic is pretty warm this year, almost 30° off the African coast. Should atmospheric currents support further development of these things then they might arrive as pretty nasty hurricanes on the other side. How a specific disturbance develops must be seen. Some just dissolve, some turn north over colder water, and some collect more energy while crossing the pond.

All in all a warmer atmosphere can of course store much more energy and correlates nicely with the number of hurricanes / taifuns in the last years. But how a single one develops and where it goes depends also on specific factors, as has been with Harvey.

The NOAA has pretty nice and (still) unbiased information, but in the moment shows nothing new in the gulf of Mexico ... ?

Edited August 29, 2017 by Green Baron

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

The NOAA has pretty nice and (still) unbiased information, but in the moment shows nothing new in the gulf of Mexico ... ?

Agreed. NOAA/NHS has nothing, and I don't see anything in the Western Gulf that looks like it'll become more than just a good thunderstorm. But who knows - maybe that PhD up in Oklahoma is right. Wouldn't be the first time.

Edited August 29, 2017 by Cydonian Monk

[LordFerret]

6 hours ago, tater said:

It's also important to realize that as cities expand, particularly into low-lying areas where they previously would not have bothered, the areas at risk increase. Dams hold drinking water for the increased population, which then require releases that worsen conditions downstream in areas that would have been creeks/rivers, but are now full of houses.

Sandy (which was certainly not a hurricane at impact, and maybe not even a tropical storm, I'd have to check) did huge damage not because of any unprecedented nature of the storm, but because it hit someplace wall to wall with people. The exact storms 100 years ago would have likely killed more people (almost all due to lack of warning), and simultaneously done less damage, since there would be less TO damage.

This is the thing which always leaves me scratching my head; The allowed expansion (or rebuilding) in areas you know are going to be a problem again. With Sandy, that issue was a topic ad nauseam, even still today... and look where we are, again, with beaches rebuilt, property set-backs increased (as if that's going to prevent anything come next disaster), and new homes rebuilt placed on stilts (as if that's going to prevent anything come next disaster). As for Houston this is a major hit that most aren't even aware of yet; The federal flood insurance program is some 30+ billion in losses already as I type this, and Houston (alone) has the projection at around 50+ billion. You have to wonder where the funding is going to come from. I feel for the Texans who are going to have to wrangle with the Fed in receiving aid; Lessons learned from Sandy.

Sandy was about a Cat 1 when it made landfall. Coming in about 50 miles south of me, I'm about 20 miles inland from the ocean proper... relatively safe (yea, right). I got lucky, minimal damage. Many people I know, friends and such, living right up on the beaches, were not so lucky; Some of them, it took years to recover and rebuild. They did so knowing it will happen again at some point. Living on the beach; it's a thing you know will happen, hope that it won't happen, and just deal with it when it does.

[DarkOwl57]

41 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

I feel for the Texans who are going to have to wrangle with the Fed in receiving aid; Lessons learned from Sandy.

I wish other people were like this. I've seen many a twitter post say "I hope every single of those racist Texans dies in Harvey" or something to that respect. Everyone thinks of only the bad in Texas; not the good! For example: Our sunsets are unrivaled in the Central Time zone. Our mountains + Sunset = OHMYGODIT'SAMIRACLEFROMHEAVEN!!!!! Also, in my region of the state, everyone's (relatively) nice to each other. Sure there's the occasional vulgar joke, but we're all good people! Also, we can open-carry swords. SWORDS!!! Tell me that's not cool. 

<rant over>

 

[tater]

There were no hurricane force winds recorded with sandy at landfall at all I think. Quick google:

Nasty storm, but not even a hurricane at landfall (maybe not even a tropical storm, I thin it was just a tropical depression at landfall). This says nearly squat about the damage it could do over large areas, rain, and even sustained lower winds can down power lines, flood, etc. Powerful hurricanes add tornado like escaping the earth clean to that. Harvey has been all about rain, minus the winds, it's still incredibly nasty.

That's why at the time they switched to "super storm" since the media wanted to play it up (for a number of reasons, including getting people to evacuate). 

Bottom line is that in areas affected by typhoons/hurricanes, building in low-lying areas is inherently dangerous. 

In urban areas, perhaps the zoning could require high-rise buildings where the bottom X stories can have water move through without problems, leaving the residences above intact (Hong Kong does this with many new buildings, I think).

 

[Green Baron]

An exceptionally intense monsoon in Asia flooded parts of Bangladesh, Nepal and India, killing more than 1500 and effecting more than 16 million, according to the Red Cross. Food shortage and polluted water endanger more.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/30/mumbai-paralysed-by-floods-as-india-and-region-hit-by-worst-monsoon-rains-in-years

Just pasted the first link found ...

 

Edited August 30, 2017 by Green Baron

[tater]

There was a typhoon that hit Bangladesh years ago that killed on the same order as the Boxing Day tsunami did, due to storm surge.

 

[DarkOwl57]

Wait I'm confused.. Doesn't India/Nepal/Bangladesh have monsoons every year?

[cubinator]

42 minutes ago, DarkOwl57 said:

Wait I'm confused.. Doesn't India/Nepal/Bangladesh have monsoons every year?

I wouldn't be surprised that with each passing year it gets worse and worse, with rising ocean temperatures as they are.

[DarkOwl57]

25 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I wouldn't be surprised that with each passing year it gets worse and worse, with rising ocean temperatures as they are.

Ah that's right. Well either way, Good Vibes being sent out to anyone in that area. Stay safe!

[SaturnianBlue]

Potential Tropical Cyclone 14-E has formed in the Pacific, which i'm pretty is the first PTC in that basin. In the Atlantic, tropical storm Irma has formed, and though forecast models are hardly accurate 10 days in the future, a lot of them seem to show a major hurricane off the east coast...

[Green Baron]

2 hours ago, DarkOwl57 said:

Wait I'm confused.. Doesn't India/Nepal/Bangladesh have monsoons every year?

Yes. Monsoons are a seasonal occurrence. The change in surface temperature between the Asian landmass and the ocean causes it.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Green Baron

[LordFerret]

2 hours ago, DarkOwl57 said:

Wait I'm confused.. Doesn't India/Nepal/Bangladesh have monsoons every year?

Yes, as pointed out by Green Baron above.

 

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

I wouldn't be surprised that with each passing year it gets worse and worse, with rising ocean temperatures as they are.

Be wary of this bunk; There is nothing new or unusual about the weather patterns.

[tater]

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6322/276

Quote

Hoffman et al. compiled estimates of sea surface temperatures during the last interglacial period, which lasted from about 129,000 to 116,000 years ago. The global mean annual values were ∼0.5°C warmer than they were 150 years ago and indistinguishable from the 1995–2014 mean. This is a sobering point, because sea levels during the last interglacial period were 6 to 9 m higher than they are now.

So the sea temp right now is basically identical to the last interglacial period.

As we move farther away in time from an ice age, the sea warms, go figure.

[Green Baron]

3 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

Be wary of this bunk; There is nothing new or unusual about the weather patterns.

*Sadly shaking the head* The patterns themselves change as well as their intensities. Connection to Arctic warming and meanwhile Antarctic as well (ice shelf breakups and melting of terrestrial glaciers), ocean temperatures, circulation patterns (like monsoons) has been sufficiently observed over the past decades.

As an entry: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page6.php

A few weeks ago there was an interesting article in Nature about Antarctic glacier melting (land glaciers, not ocean ice breakup). It is being observed that changes in ice covered surface might well come faster than expected.

 

[LordFerret]

Yes yes yes. And while one side of the Antarctic is melting, the other is accumulating ice... why is this not discussed. Same with the Arctic, Greenland's ice cap is growing at a record rate. We're not moving away from an ice age, we're moving towards one. NASA got caught in a lie, as did NOAA, fudged sea data pertaining to 'global warming'. It's politics.

This all depends on who's bunk you want to buy into. Believe what you want... just don't preach it to me.

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, tater said:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6322/276

So the sea temp right now is basically identical to the last interglacial period.

As we move farther away in time from an ice age, the sea warms, go figure.

The text is about OIS-5e, when it was indeed, as we said 15 years ago, a little warmer than 15 years ago, but i haven't heard that word again since then. Direct comparisons of absolute temperatures are not trivial and often very much misleading, i don't go into detail.

See level rise back then didn't endanger human existence as humans depended mostly on hunting and had no immobile property and population was extremely thin.

And, btw. depending on how far you move back and with what speed you'll get a nice movie about changing landmasses, sea rise and fall, ice shield build-up and melting ... thrilling :-)

Problem today is more and more people are directly affected. The added energy in atmosphere and oceans do have an influence on climate and weather patterns. It is very difficult to quantify but tried and they are getting better. And it is totally in conformity with the models to say that single events may be much stronger and carry much more energy and thus may destroy much more of our beloved property (at times including the proprietaries) than it was the case before, regardless of time scale.

A little outdated already: https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

And you'll find a lot of information on the impact of predicted effects.

 

[LordFerret]

And on that note, back to the weather in TX:

Just now heard on the news the first reports of receding waters; In one area anyway, other areas the problems are only now just starting.

[tater]

Observations are great, but mechanisms and models matter. Are they predictive? Are they falsifiable? How many General Relativity models are there? A simple one, that is universal, or spaghetti code that varies for everyone doing the problems, and that all produce variant results? When climate science comes up with A model that works, is falsifiable, etc, I'll treat it with he same respect I treat GR, Hamiltonian n-body physics, etc. Until then, I remain open to various models.

Regarding humans being affected, it goes back to my point up thread. People are living in places that are threatened by such weather regardless of time period. If you live in a vast plain that is in a typhoon/hurricane zone, and is barely above sea level, you will periodically have a bad time.

 

Impervious (paved, etc) surfaces are a big part of the problem. I bet you could also map average temperature divergence and it would tend to be higher in the impervious areas as well (urban heat island). I know for a fact that a few NOAA stations I drive past daily are completely at odds with their placement standards (they are next to cinderblock walls facing S and W, right next to a sidewalk---basically they are placed as solar ovens. They are supposed to be several meters from any manmade object. The number that don't violate the rules within urban areas is likely smaller than those that follow the placement rules. Such stations consistently report higher temps.

Note that this tells us 2 things. One, that we cannot compare older and newer temp data well, since the new data is potentially very skewed. two, that perhaps urban areas are substantially warming not entirely because of climate, but because the paradigm of urbanism has effectively raised urban temperatures. Perhaps we should consider "green" cities---actually green because of more plants per unit area than our current concrete, steel, and pavement cities. 

Note that such a building (high-rise) in low-lying areas would mitigate flooding damage as well---the bottom floors would be easy to clean/repair public spaces.

[Green Baron]

1 minute ago, LordFerret said:

Yes yes yes. And while one side of the Antarctic is melting, the other is accumulating ice... why is this not discussed. Same with the Arctic, Greenland's ice cap is growing at a record rate. We're not moving away from an ice age, we're moving towards one. NASA got caught in a lie, as did NOAA, fudged sea data pertaining to 'global warming'. It's politics.

This all depends on who's bunk you want to buy into. Believe what you want... just don't preach it to me.

That's actually based on outdated information based on a nasa publication that was based on satellite observation. The mass gain was in the past and might be partly attributed to erroneous data, the study was controversely discussed.

The ice loss in the Antarctic in the last few years is indeed dramatic and accelerating, both marine and land ice, from warmer water and warmer winds, foehn effects, etc.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v547/n7661/full/nature22996.html?foxtrotcallback=true

https://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v7/n8/full/nclimate3335.html

Nasa itself is steering back, just not as loud as they could be:

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/

 

I don't want to fight with you guys ;-)

[tater]

The only relevant question is demonstrating that any such changes can not possibly be natural (where all human causes are defined as "unnatural"). Having done that, then the relative balance of natural/unnatural would also need to be established. I'm open to either, or a mix. I don't find the current models terribly compelling (in terms of their predictive ability). That such a conversation would ever become political, rather than scientific is unfortunate. 

I await a falsifiable climate model that I can respect. It's such a complex system that we might have to wait for AI systems to figure it out, frankly.

Meanwhile, I still think there is a model showing storms in Houston the beginning of next week that could drop a foot of rain. Not a TS or TS, just usual storms.

Edited August 30, 2017 by tater

[Ten Key]

23 hours ago, tater said:

Sandy (which was certainly not a hurricane at impact, and maybe not even a tropical storm, I'd have to check) did huge damage not because of any unprecedented nature of the storm, but because it hit someplace wall to wall with people.

Sandy had sustained winds of about 80 mph at landfall-- the change in the color of the track on that map you linked denotes a transition to an extratropical cyclone, not a downgrade to a tropical depression. 

The problem with Sandy was its large wind field and high rate of speed leading up to landfall. The position markers on the image below are at six hour intervals.

 

 

You can see how the storm picked up speed in the 24 hours prior to landfall. This, combined with landfall coming near high tide, produced significant storm surge across a wide area of coast line.  

[Green Baron]

26 minutes ago, tater said:

Observations are great, but mechanisms and models matter. Are they predictive?

They are getting better. Right now it seems as if predictions have been too conservative ...

Quote

Are they falsifiable?

Yeah. Through observation :-)

Quote

How many General Relativity models are there? A simple one, that is universal, or spaghetti code that varies for everyone doing the problems, and that all produce variant results? When climate science comes up with A model that works, is falsifiable, etc, I'll treat it with he same respect I treat GR, Hamiltonian n-body physics, etc. Until then, I remain open to various models.

That is not possible. GR is a relatively easy thing compared to planetary dynamics. All the climate and even weather models are simplifications. You can't even predict tehe occurance of a single thunderstorm, but you can name probabilities depending on terrain, temperature, moisture, etc.

"Exogene dynamics"(*) never becomes as firm a theory as GR, but it consists of a huge number of theories and hypothesisses and observations. And people that discuss their findings. And that is the is a basic difference: GR can be described mathematically, climate not, or only very coarsely. It simply is too complicated.

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Regarding humans being affected, it goes back to my point up thread. People are living in places that are threatened by such weather regardless of time period. If you live in a vast plain that is in a typhoon/hurricane zone, and is barely above sea level, you will periodically have a bad time.

Sure. And it'll be more and more of a bad time over time. I am not a prophet, i only read the papers.

Quote

Impervious (paved, etc) surfaces are a big part of the problem. I bet you could also map average temperature divergence and it would tend to be higher in the impervious areas as well (urban heat island). I know for a fact that a few NOAA stations I drive past daily are completely at odds with their placement standards (they are next to cinderblock walls facing S and W, right next to a sidewalk---basically they are placed as solar ovens. They are supposed to be several meters from any manmade object. The number that don't violate the rules within urban areas is likely smaller than those that follow the placement rules. Such stations consistently report higher temps.

Well, there are of course worldwide standards as how and were to take data and how to calibrate it. You can trust official measurements roughly when they were taken ~1950.

Quote

Note that this tells us 2 things. One, that we cannot compare older and newer temp data well

True. But we can compare them sometimes. I had read the case of temp. measurements from a monastery over 200 years, where the monks wrote exactly when they took data and what was the weather, the ground, the sun insolation, etc.

Quote

, since the new data is potentially very skewed. two, that perhaps urban areas are substantially warming not entirely because of climate, but because the paradigm of urbanism has effectively raised urban temperatures. Perhaps we should consider "green" cities---actually green because of more plants per unit area than our current concrete, steel, and pavement cities. 

Well, you can securely assume that meteorologists know that and account for it ;-) Edit: but it indeed was a problem in the past and shoudn't be trusted unquestioned if long term (100s of years) charts are being looked at.

(*)Edit: that's a German word. It means the part of geoscience that deals with the earths surface and above. Very roughly.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Green Baron
reading makes clever

[DarkOwl57]

When you start a war over global warming on accident 

[tater]

One, I don't know they account for it, and there is also the fact that the urban areas are in fact hotter than the countryside. The trouble of course is that most temps are in fact calculated, not measured (dunno what the cell size is for a climate model, but they don't have stations everywhere, so much is interpolated, and if it it based upon urban areas giving false highs compared to the vast countryside that is rural, it's pretty easy to have things off by fractions of a degree---where the signal is supposedly a fraction of a degree.

It also looks like they don't seem to propagate error and uncertainty well. Seems like any graph of average temp over long time stretches should become a cloud of uncertainty even a few decades in the past compared to the 0.1 degree or less changes they are hunting for. Proxy studies for paleoclimate should probably have even larger uncertainty, perhaps a few degrees at best.

ObWeather:

it's hazy in ABQ today, there must be a fire someplace (forest fire).