In The News

[knocker]

On September 3, 1821, the eye of a hurricane made a direct hit on New York — possibly the only time this has happened in more than 250 years

Only three years ago a conference was held to discuss possiblity of New York being hit by a hurricane and swamped by a storm surge. A system of flood barriers was proposed to protect New York, much as the Thames Barrier defends London from a storm surge.

“We’re going to have to do something,†said the oceanographer Malcolm Bowman at Stony Brook University, New York. Because sea levels are rising particularly fast on the northeast coast of the US, the threat of a storm surge is increasing. New York’s emergency planners expressed interest in a flood barrier, but little more was done.

There are warnings from the past. On September 3, 1821, the eye of a hurricane made a direct hit on New York — possibly the only time this has happened in more than 250 years. The storm crossed Long Island, where JFK Airport now stands, before hitting New York City. The New York Post reported: “We were visited with repeated and copious showers of rain, accompanied by peals of thunder and lightning, and an extreme atmosphere ... throwing down chimneys, unroofing buildings and prostrating trees in various directions. When the gale was at its height it presented the most awful spectacle. The falling of slate from the roofs of buildings, and broken glass from windows, made it unsafe, for anyone to venture into the streets.â€

A 4m (13ft) storm surge inundated wharves, causing the East River to merge into the Hudson. Much of lower Manhattan was swamped, houses were torn apart in the high winds and many boats and other craft were damaged or sunk. A house on Broadway blew down and killed ten cows. In fact, the storm surge flooding might have been much worse had the hurricane not struck at low tide.

Of course, New York in 1821 was a lot smaller. Only about 152,000 people lived there, compared to more than 20 million people currently living in the greater metropolitan region, but the lessons of “The Great September Gale†were largely forgotten.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/weather/article3583309.ece

[laserguy]

Seems a classic case of burying ones head in the sand, no?

Probably - I'm tired of sticking it over the parapet and being bombarded with junk! GW,no - I will not be drawn!

[BornFromTheVoid]

Probably - I'm tired of sticking it over the parapet and being bombarded with junk! GW,no - I will not be drawn!

Haha, fair enough! At least when you dismiss any connections made, I'll know it's not from any evidence based reasoning

[knocker]

I thought the progamme "Operation Iceberg" on BBC2 tonight was excellent. I have posted a couple of papers by Jason Box and others on this subject but this had some quite stunning photography and science. Global warming and increased melt water and increase of fairly deep SST temps causing a deep undercut of the shelves will effect sea level rises is becoming more a 'fact' methinks. If you haven't seen it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...irth_of_a_berg/

Edited October 30, 2012 by knocker

[laserguy]

Haha, fair enough! At least when you dismiss any connections made, I'll know it's not from any evidence based reasoning

Reading anything about our CO2 influencing climate is about as daft,and as pointless as reading articles that say Niburu does the same! Don't go there. Expecting any 'climate scientist' to say otherwise is like expecting Bernard Matthews (RIP) to start a campaign against turkeys.

[jethro]

Energy minister John Hayes says 'No' to any more onshore wind farms:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225531/Minister-signals-end-wind-farm-We-pepper-turbines-country--declares-energy-minister.html

[Methuselah]

Energy minister John Hayes says 'No' to any more onshore wind farms:

http://www.dailymail...y-minister.html

His fingers aren't in the windfarm pie, then...Another fracker, perhaps?

[jethro]

His fingers aren't in the windfarm pie, then...Another fracker, perhaps?

I hope not, but nothing would surprise me when it comes to generating personal income from government policy.

[VillagePlank]

Haha, fair enough! At least when you dismiss any connections made, I'll know it's not from any evidence based reasoning

Perhaps, if was a better term to use especially with the last based part of the sentence. Anyway, that's an exercise is pedantry, not science.

As I understand it the New York gets this sort of stuff all the time, http://en.wikipedia....ork_hurricanes. In this case it collided with a cold-front, which kept it from decaying quite as much as it should have done as it made landfall. Also the high pressure in the north mid-atlantic made it do a sharp left turn - unusual, for sure.

Tying this to any climate phenomena looks to be extremely difficult if not impossible. One needs to show that one or more of the frequency of New York hurricanes, cold fronts, and high pressure in the North Atlantic have increased, and not only that, show that either the position in space or time (ie geographic location, and time of year) of any of the elements have a root in AGW.

Looks pretty difficult to me; especially as this event is not unusual : PDF

Edited October 31, 2012 by Boar Wrinklestorm

[BornFromTheVoid]

Perhaps, if was a better term to use especially with the last based part of the sentence. Anyway, that's an exercise is pedantry, not science.

As I understand it the New York gets this sort of stuff all the time, http://en.wikipedia....ork_hurricanes. In this case it collided with a cold-front, which kept it from decaying quite as much as it should have done as it made landfall. Also the high pressure in the north mid-atlantic made it do a sharp left turn - unusual, for sure.

Tying this to any climate phenomena looks to be extremely difficult if not impossible. One needs to show that one or more of the frequency of New York hurricanes, cold fronts, and high pressure in the North Atlantic have increased, and not only that, show that either the position in space or time (ie geographic location, and time of year) of any of the elements have a root in AGW.

Looks pretty difficult to me; especially as this event is not unusual : PDF

Yep, hurricanes have happened in the past. But none on record have taken the path that Sandy took, turning almost directly west on approach to New York. Other land falls have just skirted along the coast. That's what made Sandy so unique and caused such a large storm surge. The storm got dragged into the jet streak that was headed towards Greenland, and so the storm was pulled to the west and deepened during extra-tropical transitioning. A strong Autumn upper ridge from the NE US to Greenland is associated with low sea ice years I believe, as is a higher amplitude wave pattern due to reduced meridional temperature and thickness gradient.

Of course, it is impossible to confirm anything with absolute certainty. What I would think, is that the state of the Arctic sea ice, due to it's jet stream influence being strongest in Autumn, may be considered, like many other things, when forecasting hurricane seasons, especially Autumn storms.

Of the hurricanes ranked Category 2 or greater that have moved within 200 nautical miles of New York City since the 1850s, none are known to have taken a westward hook of the type indicated for Sandy

A projected path I realise, but pretty close to the eventual scenario.

[Gray-Wolf]

I think that a very important point BFTV. If we are getting a clearer pattern of where the anomalies form as Autumn progresses then the weather forecasters in general need to take this into account.

We are being told that we can now expect more frequent 'stuck' weather patterns (like the Russian H.P. 2010 or the U.S. one this year) and so the seasonal forecasts might benefit from such 'tweaks' to their modelling?

[Interitus]

Perhaps, if was a better term to use especially with the last based part of the sentence. Anyway, that's an exercise is pedantry, not science.

As I understand it the New York gets this sort of stuff all the time, http://en.wikipedia....ork_hurricanes. In this case it collided with a cold-front, which kept it from decaying quite as much as it should have done as it made landfall. Also the high pressure in the north mid-atlantic made it do a sharp left turn - unusual, for sure.

Tying this to any climate phenomena looks to be extremely difficult if not impossible. One needs to show that one or more of the frequency of New York hurricanes, cold fronts, and high pressure in the North Atlantic have increased, and not only that, show that either the position in space or time (ie geographic location, and time of year) of any of the elements have a root in AGW.

Looks pretty difficult to me; especially as this event is not unusual : PDF

The scale and severity of the event is unusual - but it may or may not have a root in AGW and precedents do not prove it one way or another.

[knocker]

US shale gas drives up coal exports

US CO2 emissions from domestic energy have declined by 8.6% since a peak in 2005, the equivalent of 1.4% per year.

However, the researchers warn that more than half of the recent emissions reductions in the power sector may be displaced overseas by the trade in coal.

Dr John Broderick, lead author on the report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, comments: "Research papers and newspaper column inches have focussed on the relative emissions from coal and gas.

"However, it is the total quantity of CO2 from the energy system that matters to the climate. Despite lower-carbon rhetoric, shale gas is still a carbon intensive energy source. We must seriously consider whether a so-called "golden age" would be little more than a gilded cage, locking us into a high-carbon future."

Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre notes: "Since 2008 when the shale gas supply became significant, there has been a large increase in US coal exports. This increases global emissions as the UK, Europe and Asia are burning the coal instead. Earlier Tyndall analysis suggests that the role for gas in a low carbon transition is extremely limited, with shale gas potentially diverting substantial funds away from genuinely low and zero carbon alternatives"

This Co-operative commissioned report "Has US Shale Gas Reduced CO2 Emissions?" is the third on shale gas from the Tyndall Centre – and builds on several years of research and submissions to the UK and European Parliaments as well as the International Energy Agency.

Chris Shearlock, Sustainable Development Manager at The Co-operative, said: "The proponents of shale gas have always claimed that it is a lower carbon alternative to coal. However, this is only true if the coal it displaces remains in the ground and isn't just burnt elsewhere. Without a cap on global carbon emissions, shale gas is burnt in addition to other fossil fuels, increasing total emissions."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/uom-usg102612.php

[Coast]

Plan to merge British Antarctic Survey comes under fire

Opponents of the plan say the merger with an oceanography centre would irreparably damage the research institution

Politicians, scientists and environmentalists have turned up the heat on ministers and officials planning to merge the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) with an oceanography centre, before a meeting to decide its fate on Thursday.

Opponents of the plan, which is intended to save money, say the merger would irreparably damage the institution which discovered the ozone hole and is considered a world leader in polar research. The plan attracted further controversy when the Guardian revealed the merger would require BAS to use its skills to help "de-risk" investment for UK oil companies exploring the polar regions.

"Only a few years ago prime minister David Cameron was photographed hugging huskies in the Arctic in an effort to stress his green credentials; I hope he can now reassure us that his government would not be so cynical as to refocus the UK's Arctic research on opening up the region to greater resource extraction," said Joan Walley, the Labour MP who chairs the environmental audit select committee. The proposed merger should be abandoned, Walley wrote on Wednesday in a letter to a parliamentary inquiry into the issue.

Four of the UK's biggest green NGOs – Greenpeace, the RSPB, WWF-UK and Friends of the Earth – also signalled their strong opposition to the merger. "Those who want to dismantle this leading scientific centre should hang their heads in shame. It is a grave mistake to take apart BAS when it is needed now more than ever," said Vicky Wyatt, Greenpeace arctic campaigner. "Politicians should be working to help our scientists understand and look after these areas, which are under threat from the effects of climate change, not rush through daft plans to undermine them."

The NGOs wrote to Prof Duncan Wingham, chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), which runs BAS and will decide BAS's fate on Thursday. The decision was to have been taken in December but was brought forward. That forced MPs on the commons science and technology select committee, which is investigating the issue, to call Wingham before them on Wednesday, along with David Willetts, the minister for universities and science. Willetts wants a 10% cut in NERC expenditure and a 45% reduction in its capital spending by 2015. Polar research, which is costly, has been chosen to take a major hit.

The planned BAS merger has prompted widespread outrage, with the former US vice-president Al Gore defending BAS as a "globally significant institution". The Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, chairman of the polar regions cross-party parliamentary group said the proposal was "utterly foolish", while Jonathan Shanklin, one of the scientists who discovered the ozone hole in 1985, said: "BAS is almost synonymous with the Antarctic ozone hole. Losing it would create a comparable hole in British science."

NERC's merger consultation document stated: "The oceans and the polar regions (particularly the Arctic) are 'frontier' environments where, of necessity, there will be increasing economic activity in the coming decades – not least because of increasing pressures on natural resources … A long-term vision is needed … to equip UK business and UK investors with the edge needed for de-risking major investment decisions in hostile, unfamiliar environments."

Wingham said previously that all scientific institutes were under pressure to provide value to the UK economy. But he denied that a more business-focused approach meant the council necessarily supported drilling in the Arctic, although he said future work would provide relevant information to oil companies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/31/merge-british-antarctic-survey

[knocker]

Stanford University scientists have built the first solar cell made entirely of carbon, a promising alternative to the expensive materials used in photovoltaic devices today.

The results are published in the Oct. 31 online edition of the journal ACS Nano.

"Carbon has the potential to deliver high performance at a low cost," said study senior author Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a working solar cell that has all of the components made of carbon. This study builds on previous work done in our lab."

Unlike rigid silicon solar panels that adorn many rooftops, Stanford's thin film prototype is made of carbon materials that can be coated from solution. "Perhaps in the future we can look at alternative markets where flexible carbon solar cells are coated on the surface of buildings, on windows or on cars to generate electricity," Bao said.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/su-ssb103112.php

[knocker]

News Story - Scientists discover new mechanism at work breaking-up icebergs

Findings to be featured on BBC Two series Operation Iceberg airing this week

An international team of scientists has discovered a previously unknown mechanism by which large tabular icebergs break up out at sea as part of a study carried out on the Peterman Iceberg in Baffin Bay over the summer. Scientists observed that the gradual creation of a huge underwater ice foot produced so much buoyancy that it broke large chunks off the main iceberg thus causing the iceberg to slowly disintegrate. This discovery was captured on camera as a film crew followed the expedition for Operation Iceberg, a two part BBC Two series going out this week.

Scientists have long assumed the decay of icebergs was either caused by wave action physically splitting them apart, or by warmer sea water gradually melting them. The truth now appears to be an interesting combination of factors. During the arctic expedition, scientists found that warm surface water, aided by wave action, erodes a deep notch around the edge of the iceberg. This notch is at water level, and the unsupported ice above the notch quickly sloughs away. Over time this creates a large underwater “ram†or ice foot sticking out which is protected by colder, deeper water. This underwater ram creates so much buoyant upwards pressure that it finds a weak point within the iceberg which then snaps off. This can be a sizeable chunk of ice. During filming for Operation Iceberg, camera crews and scientists were aboard the iceberg when a chunk of ice, 200m by 50m, broke off in this way.

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_bas/news/news_story.php?id=1956

[knocker]

Ice sheet retreat controlled by the landscape

Ice-sheet retreat can halt temporarily during long phases of climate warming, according to scientists.

A UK team led by Durham University has found that the geometry of channels beneath the ice can be a strong control on ice behaviour, temporarily hiding the signals of retreat.

The findings, which provide the first simulation of past ice-sheet retreat and collapse over a ten thousand year period in Antarctica, shed new light on what makes ice stable or unstable and will help refine predictions of future ice extent and global sea-level rise, the researchers say.

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=1947

[BornFromTheVoid]

Will Hurricane Sandy Convince Congress To Form a U.S. Weather Commission?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/10/31/hurricane_sandy_and_the_proposed_u_s_weather_commission.html?tid=sm_tw_button_toolbar

[Methuselah]

http://www.telegraph...-minister.html#

Much better to be beholden to multinational companies, that can hike-up prices whenever the price of crude either rises or falls?

It'll indeed be difficult for companies (stuffed full of ex-ministers!) to claim that air is getting too dear!

I think the motive behind this (money!) is clear for all to see?

Edited November 1, 2012 by Rybris Ponce

[pottyprof]

I don't know what to think about the wind turbine thing. The impracticality is starting to raise its head I think. Personally, I think they are a good idea and have been supportive of local plans but they're not suitable for everywhere. Maybe they've seen potential for new energy sources which were mentioned higher up in this thread? Maybe the moon really is made of cheese?

[laserguy]

I don't know what to think about the wind turbine thing.

Surely they'd make good scarecrows - assuming you could get the damn things to turn in the first place?

[BornFromTheVoid]

Talk from MIT being streamed at the moment: Predicting Climate in a Chaotic World: How Certain Can We Be?

http://news.neaq.org/2012/10/special-aquarium-lecture-webcast.html

[laserguy]

Talk from MIT being streamed at the moment: Predicting Climate in a Chaotic World: How Certain Can We Be?

http://news.neaq.org...re-webcast.html

Stuff that - South Park is on! Anyone see the episode with Al Gore on? Class!!

[pottyprof]

Surely they'd make good scarecrows - assuming you could get the damn things to turn in the first place?

They work better when they don't get hit by UFO's.... or fall to bits in the breeze due to the wrong type of wind....

[Gray-Wolf]

Interesting Natter BFTV. Poor Mr Fish!

Maybe , as mentioned on the other thread, if folk are more careful with the wording of statements then the folk who have no truck with AGW are robbed of their normal Troll food and are maybe forced to discuss the probabilities of impacts?