Tim Worstall

Rita, Katrina, Water Temperature and Climate Change.

By: a staff reporter

(We’ll be having more from our staff reporter in the future).

As Rita barrels through the Gulf of
Mexico at Cat 5 we are sure to hear once again that global warming is
causing this hurricane season to be out of control/the worst ever/the
end of the world. Even though this season is nothing out of the
ordinary, let’s play along with the “global warming caused it”
mythology. The latest and greatest cause of Katrina and Rita is
elevated water temperatures in the Gulf. The cause of these elevated
water temperatures, global warming, of course. The hurricane season
lasts from June to October each year. Per NOAA, what are the
historical water temperatures in the Gulf for these months and how is
this “disastrous year” stacking up:

Buoy
42001, location – 180 nautical miles South of
Southwest Pass, LA:

Temp1

All temps, Celsius

August 2005 water temperatures were .41
degrees outside the normal range. Of any consequence? Not yet.

Buoy
42002, location – 240 nautical miles
South-Southeast of Sabine, TX:

Temp2

All temps, Celsius

August 2005 water temperatures were .08
degrees outside the normal range. Is this the global warming
speculation we should hang our hat on? Rational minds would say ‘no’.

The Florida
Keys seem to be the starting point for the
disaster of Katrina and Rita. Surely the water temperature in the
Keys is heavily elevated:

Temp3

All temps, Celsius

August 2005 water temperatures were .09
degrees outside the normal range. Again, end of the world stuff,
highly doubtful. If you say this microscopic deviation in water
temperatures is a sign of global warming, explain the lower than
average water temperatures in June, July, and September.

The sites above were chosen to provide
data from a wide range of the Gulf of Mexico. Buoy 42001 was not even
in the path of Katrina or the now strengthened Rita. Global warming
is a two-way street. If you choose to explain slightly higher
water temperatures in one month as the result of global warming, you
must explain why other months have lower than average
water temperatures. Let me guess, that is cooling caused by the
warming?

 

In

15 responses

  1. POUNCER Avatar
    POUNCER

    As I misunderstand things, a decade ago we knew that bad weather on the US West Coast was cyclical and due to El Nino shifts — the silver lining to those storm clouds being that cycles of bad weather due to El Nino were offset by the fact that where El Nino was strong it sort of pushed back hurricanes farther east.
    Half a decade ago we knew that El Nino was NOT merely a cyclic climate pattern but was unprecedented consequence of global warming. That hurricane activity was down was merely good luck.
    Now that El Nino has ebbed in a pattern which we know is NOT cyclic but is due to Shrub’s failure to ratify the Kyoto Treaty we see that hurricanes are happening in the US East more frequently. This is due to Global Warming, Shrub’s failure to etc etc Kyoto etc.
    Sadly the clear and concise indictments of Shrub in the contemporary press seem to omit his responsiblities over the path of El Nino. Right Wing Conspiracy to suppress the data, I suppose.

    Reply
  2. Dr Victorino de la Vega Avatar
    Dr Victorino de la Vega

    I’m sure Usama Bin Laden loves Rita…and after all why not?
    The lady has always had a healthy penchant for bearded Middle-Eastern religious leaders- she even married one of them: Prince Ali Agha Khan!
    And since the Halcyon days of president F. Delano Roosevelt, Rita has also been the most popular pinup in the Pentagon and aboard US navy warships…
    Talk about a highly consensual pop icon that will finally bridge the Washington-Mecca divide!
    😉

    Reply
  3. Third Avenue Avatar
    Third Avenue

    ‘this season is nothing out of the ordinary’. Hm. On what evidence does your staff writer base this assertion? From everything I’ve read, including from the National Hurricane Center, this season is one of the most extraordinary since records began…
    Tim adds: Umm, no.
    http://eurota.blogspot.com/2005/08/eu-environmentalism-score-another-one.html

    Reply
  4. Joel Shore Avatar
    Joel Shore

    Tim:
    NASA seems to disagree with you that the departures of sea surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico are insignificant (see http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/hurricane_record.html). Here’s a quote: Sea surface temperatures (SST) in the tropical Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico easily surpassed the “hurricane threshold” beginning in July 2005 and continued to climb into the mid- to high 80’s through August. These sea surface temperatures are 1 to 3 degrees F above normal. “Hurricane-wise, we are in an incendiary situation,” said Bill Patzert, oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “These toasty SSTs are high octane fuel for September’s hurricanes.”
    And, if you read the forecast discussions for both Katrina and Rita, the high sea surface temperatures have played an important role in their predictions of these hurricanes strengthening.
    Admittedly, these warmer than average sea surface temperatures cannot be definitively attributed to global warming. However, I think most scientists would venture to hypothesize that at least part of the deviation is attributable to that…And, certainly that such deviations will become more common as anthropogenic global warming effects continue to grow.

    Reply
  5. Joel Shore Avatar
    Joel Shore

    Also Tim, your link in response Dr. Victorio de la Vega does not address the point there at all. Indeed, this hurricane season has been quite extraordinary in many ways, including having strong hurricanes form unusually early in the season to having an unusually large number reach the strongest intensity categories.
    And, note that the plots in your link are extremely deceiving since the last data point refers to a 4-year period rather than a full decade (as the author admits in the text but presumably hopes people won’t notice)…and the author hasn’t even bothered to update to include the additional strikes that have already occurred this season (which would substantially alter the bottom plot). How curious!
    Furthermore, data for hurricane strikes that actually hit the U.S…and particularly those that are Category 3 or higher (which is what the debate is about, i.e., hurricane intensities increasing, not frequencies)…are too noisy to conclude anything. [You could get somewhat better statistics by looking at all hurricanes and not just ones that strike the U.S.]

    Reply
  6. Third Avenue Avatar
    Third Avenue

    Tim – yes, the figures you refer to are for the US. But, as hurricanes are not subject to visa regimes or passport controls, your figures are at best misleading. All in all, this season seems set to be one of the worst ever (over a month to go). One can, of course, argue about the reasons.

    Reply
  7. George Adair Avatar
    George Adair

    Tim,
    Thanks for the link to my old blog. I do enjoy numbers, both in making the case for or against something.
    As it relates to the comments:
    Joel, has there ever been a year in which the water temps in the Gulf did not surpass the “hurricane threshold” in July and continue to climb in August? How many and which years did this phenomenon not happen?
    As far as the differences in degrees, do you have complete listings going back to 1975, etc for comparison as Tim’s post does?
    Can you explain the lower than average water temps recorded by NOAA in certain months?
    As it relates to the graphs on my blog, had I wanted people not to notice that the last category was not a full decade, why did i immediately point it out below the graph? Take out the last category, are the number of overall and large hurricanes striking the US up or down from 1851 to 2000?
    As it relates to the number of hurricanes vs. the number of hurricane landings, what are the numbers to back up the assertion of “All in all, this season seems set to be one of the worst ever” 3rd Avenue?
    Open to seeing alternative views backed by actual data over an extended period of time. Context counts…

    Reply
  8. Third Avenue Avatar
    Third Avenue

    George. I have no particular axe to grind on this issue, but I have found plenty of sources claiming that this ‘seems set to be one of the worst seasons ever’. Take, for example, the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University which stated on September 2 (ie, well before Rita) that:
    “Following a record amount of June-July tropical cyclone activity and an active August in which Hurricane Katrina caused the greatest economic loss ever inflicted by a hurricane on the United States, we are continuing the bad news by predicting above-average activity for September and October. This year should be one of the most active and is already the most destructive hurricane season on record.”

    Reply
  9. George Adair Avatar
    George Adair

    3rd, no axe here either. When it comes to quantifiable assertions I appreciate quantifiable data. Like I said, I am open to whatever actual facts/data leads to. The data I have seen from NOAA shows no unprecedented increase in activity or temps is all.
    Each year is different. Some high, some low. On average this year is not spectacular.
    As far as the economic destruction, wouldn’t it reason that this is due to the development and # of people living in hurricane target areas?
    All in good cheer here.

    Reply
  10. Joel Shore Avatar
    Joel Shore

    George: I have no idea how you can say that “On average this year is not spectacular” at least for the Atlantic basin. In fact, we have already set records for tropical cyclone activity in June & July and we are already at 17 named storms for the season…which means we may be on track to tie or break the record (since record-keeping began in 1856) of 21 set back in 1933. I also believe we might have records concerning the number of storms that have reached Category 4 or 5 status although I haven’t found a direct source on that.
    I agree that the NASA page did not put those numbers of 1-3 deg F deviations in SSTs in the Gulf in the context of what the standard deviation is. It would have been nice if they had. However, picking a few buoys is hardly the way to make a convincing case. The NASA info is based on satellite data, I believe, and is thus much more extensive.
    And, unless the second half of this decade is real sparse in activity, your graph of major hurricanes striking the U.S. is likely to show quite a rise over the last 30 years. In fact, just eyeballing that graph, it looks to be somewhat similar to the graph of global average temperatures in its general ups-and-downs. But, like I said, the statistics are terrible and it is hard to prove much. Much better are the statistics on the intensity of all hurricanes…And the evidence on that (e.g., from K. Emmanuel’s 2005 paper in Nature and another very recent paper…see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=181 for discussion) is that there has been a worldwide trend toward higher intensities in the last ~30 years (which closer matches a trend in higher SSTs).
    Like I said above, attributing this increase in intensities definitively to global warming is not easy to do and it is premature to say that it has been done. However, the pieces are beginning to come together…We know that global warming should lead to higher SSTs and simple physics and the climate models predict this should lead to higher intensity for hurricanes. And, we now have some evidence that we are seeing a trend of higher SSTs and higher intensities although it is a bit early to distinguish what part of this trend is cyclical and what part is due to climate change.

    Reply
  11. Joel Shore Avatar
    Joel Shore

    Oh, in terms of intensity records, the NASA site I linked to says: “On July 8, just south of central Cuba, Dennis became the earliest category 4 hurricane on record with 150 mph winds.” So far, we have also had at least four Category 4 or 5 hurricanes (Dennis, Emily, Katrina, and Rita) which I believe is above average although I don’t know how it compares to records. Finally, last night Rita’s central pressure dropped to the 3rd lowest ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin. [Admittedly, the lack of as much measuring in the pre-satellite & reconnaisance mission days would also be a factor here.]

    Reply
  12. Monjo Avatar
    Monjo

    A fact about water: it flows. There are vast rivers in the world’s oceans, so the fact the water temperature is lower at some times of the year and higher at others compared with the normal really just means that the water flow pattern has probably been altered.
    The most famous fear along these lines is arctic ice melting and affecting the Atlantic Gulf stream.
    Other factors that affect water temperature are the Earth’s axis, clouds etc. Global warming should lead to more clouds – so less direct ground/surface heating – but in the summer when there is enough sunlight the clouds are cleared and the surface gets more heating than normal.
    HOWEVER
    To attribute this hurricane season and having two big hurricanes to Global Warming is silly. Why would it suddenly start in 2004 and escalate in 2005? We’ve had warming for years now.
    A Tampa Bay resident I used to speak to told me in 2003 how during the 1990s a decade of drought had made Florida a great place to live, but how now they were starting to get a proper rainy season again, 4PM every day.
    Maybe another decade from now there’ll be another period of drought and few storms?

    Reply
  13. dave heasman Avatar
    dave heasman

    Nice one Victorio, but Ali Khan was only the son of the Agha Khan and didn’t become a religious leader. And he was clean-shaven.
    His religion seemed to be pleasure. Ou sont les playboys d’antan?

    Reply
  14. Matt Avatar
    Matt

    A meteorologist on O’Reilly back in early August I think said that this year was unusually warm, and compared to 1954 I think and one year in the 30’s, both years had really bad storms. It’s cyclical, like everything else.

    Reply
  15. myles Avatar
    myles

    i hate you guys. you sound like you are really stupid and it’s retarded. stop posting all this stuff and takin up space on the internet with your gayness. PLEASE! 😐
    a person who isn’t gay like you,
    myles cornell.

    Reply

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