The Arctic I.Cc.E. Project

It's A Flow News Day

There are times when bad news can, in a way, be good news.  On December 1st, British researchers released a report so unsettling that it might even get Americans, that great environmental Rip-Van-Winkle of a people, to wake up and care about climate change.

The report, published in the journal Nature by scientists from the U.K.'s National Oceanography Center, shows significant slowing of the Atlantic currents that branch off from the Gulf Stream and carry warm water further north.  Those currents are the reason that London doesn't look more like Helsinki or Murmansk.

The research team's leader says they found a "30 percent drop in the flow of warming waters since a similar set of measurements were taken in 1957", according to Reuters.  What's more, they say their findings lead them to believe that a shift in overall Atlantic circulation may be underway.

The notion that the Gulf Stream, which is responsible for the relatively balmy quality of life in the Canadian Maritime provinces and northern Europe, is grinding to an inexorable halt, is not a fait acompli.   It's more like we just learned that one of the canaries is our planetary bird cage has come down with -- say -- Avian flu.  It's a hint that something is amiss in nature's coal mine and that we need to keep digging.

The Debris of Hubris

Given the magnitude of suffering in New Orleans and the Gulf coast region, few people have had time to consider the science of hurricane Katrina. That will come later.  But one question that will undoubtedly be asked is why hurricane Katrina, which came ashore as a category 4 did so much more damage than Camille, which was a category 5 when it struck.  I think there are a number of reasons, all of them are tied to the environmental hubris that has flooded our national psyche in the past 30 years.

One of the factors contributing to Katrina's destructive power is damage to coastal wetlands.  Since 1969, the barrier islands, marshes, reefs and other natural buffers that cushioned some of Camille's blow, have been replaced by condos, oil rigs, shopping malls and casinos. 

Another factor is the proximity of people to the ocean.  There are more people living closer to the Gulf and harms way than there were in the late 60's.

And then there's climate change.  As noted in an earlier entry to this blog, recent MIT research has found a conclusive correlation between warming sea surface temperatures and the destructive power of hurricanes.

This hurricane may be the first major climate change consequence in the continental U.S.  As such, it's turning up the heat on climate change debate in the U.S.  As much as I care about climate change and the Arctic, I never would have wished to cast a spotlight on the problem through the suffering of others.  Yet the increased discussion of global warming may be one of the few silver linings to this unimaginable tragedy.

The hurricane brought one other thought to mind.  Imagine that 9 out of 10 meteorologists warned that a category 5 hurricane was headed straight toward your home.  They warned of deadly consequences and begged you to leave. Then there was that lone dissenter, that 10th meteorologist who said, "At this point we're not sure which direction the storm will take or how strong it will be when it comes ashore."  Now imagine that you ignored the 9 dire warnings and chose only to listen to the equivocal 10th weather cast.

That's what most Americans are doing with respect to climate change. Call it hubris. Call it denial. Call it whatever you want. The devastating results are the same.

Blow Hards

As I write this, meteorologists and news anchors on channel after channel (with satellite TV, I can wear out my thumb on the remote), are warning that Hurricane Katrina could be the worst ever to hit the United States.  This should not come as a surprise to anyone.  Dozens of studies and reports have predicted that 2005 would see bigger and more frequent hurricanes out of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico because of warmer water temperatures.

Two scientific studies have been released this summer indicating that global warming is behind the growing destructive power of hurricanes and typhoons.  One comes from Kerry Emanuel of MIT whose analysis indicates that wind-caused damage has almost doubled since 1975. Emanuel used peak sustained-wind data in his model and then analyzed the destructive power of hurricanes in two of the most effected areas on earth, the north Atlantic and northwest Pacific.  His model goes back to 1950 and shows a strong correlation between storm ferocity and sea surface temperatures.

Hurricanes are fueled by temperature differentials... the difference between temperatures on the sea surface and those in the air above the storm.  The warmer the water, the tougher the storm. Previous models suggested that the half-degree increase in surface temperatures since 1975 would only intensify the storms by 10%.  That's not what Emanuel found. His study shows that the destructive power of north Atlantic hurricanes has more than doubled over that time, while the force of northwest Pacific storms is up a whopping 75%.  He believes that hike in destructive power is caused by longer storms and larger-than-expected increases in wind power.

Chris Landsea of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Research Division in Miami, says Emanuel's research may have uncovered a smoking gun and says it's the first study to show a clear link between climate change hurricane activity.

The results of Emanuel's work were echoed in a study of storms' kinetic energy conducted by Kevin Trenberth of the U.S. National Center of Atmospheric Research located in Boulder, Colorado. 

Look, I'm not saying that these two studies prove without question or doubt that there's a link between climate distortion and hurricanes.   But as Katrina pounds on doors throughout the Gulf coast tonight, threatening lives, homes and the economy of that region, you gotta wonder what it's going to take to convince climate change naysayers that the phenomenon is real. The people who huff that they haven't seen enough research to convince them that global warming is real.  For them, I suggest a new form of research.  We line all the sceptics along the levees of New Orleans tomorrow morning when Katrina hits and see how long they continue to blow hard.