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Hurricane Irma Made Worse by Climate Change, Scientists Say

Climate change didn’t cause Hurricane Irma, the most powerful storm to form in the open Atlantic Ocean, but did make it much stronger, scientists in Germany and the U.K. said.

Irma made landfall in the Caribbean early Wednesday and barreled toward Puerto Rico on a path that may bring it ashore in Florida and destroy so much property that damages surpass Hurricane Katrina.

“Unfortunately, the physicality is very clear: Hurricanes get their destructive energy from the warmth of the ocean, and the region’s water temperatures are super elevated,” said Anders Levermann, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

Irma comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Harvey smashed ashore in Texas, knocking offline almost a quarter of U.S. oil refining capacity and causing widespread damage, power outages and flooding. Climate change can “badly exacerbate” the impact of the hurricanes, even if it’s not the initial cause, he said.

“Burning coal, oil and gas warms our planet and that way supplies energy for the build-up of ever more powerful tropical storms,” said Levermann.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in a series of tweets that the hurricane looks like the largest ever recorded in the Atlantic, and that he was “watching it closely”.

Higher than average sea-surface temperatures “are fueling Hurricane Irma, giving additional energy and moisture,” according to an emailed statement from Julian Heming, a hurricane expert at the U.K.’s Met Office.

“A hurricane of this magnitude will have impacts extending far from its center, so it’s important for residents not to focus on the exact forecast track but to consider the system as a whole,” he said. “Intense rainfall, flash floods, extreme winds and a life-threatening storm surge will severely affect communities over a wide area.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...s-made-worse-by-climate-change-scientists-say
 
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a series of tweets that the hurricane looks like the largest ever recorded in the Atlantic, and that he was “watching it closely”.

Thank god. I feel much better knowing that he's watching it.
 

Madness

Member
Newsflash. Every major weather event happening right now is because of climate change. Those BC forests being decimated by a mountain pine beetle because winters aren't cold enoigh to kill them off has been due to climate change. The flooding of parts of Italy and Venice is due to climate change. Increased droughts, more rains, more tropical storms, more extreme winters and hotter summers,is all due to climate change.

The thing we need to get people to understand is that this is currently being caused by man. Increased pesticide use killed and endangered many birds and insects intil we banned them and populations recovered. CFC's and other perspirants were widespread and causing holes in the ozone layer until their use declined and we are seeing recovery. Now,the massive increase in coal burning by China and India which have or are about to surpass the US, the increase in fossil fuel use worldwide is leading to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect. Now it doesn't matter to the fatass driving his F150 in Texas and going home to his centrally air conditioned home if temperatures increase worldwide one or two degrees, but the thousands of people living on the islands in the South Pacific or the Maldives will suffer as increased glacial melting and sea level rise mean more floods and possibly their entire cities and civilizations under water.

The anti climate change crowd has been so effective with planting the seed of doubt that intelligent and educated individuals will deny in the face of all evidence this isn't human caused.
 

Bronx-Man

Banned
Florida is about to get hit with the worst storm to ever touch the Atlantic, but global warming is a Chinese hoax y'all
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The hypercane guy from this morning must feel triumph right now.
 

F34R

Member
So far, Irma is in 5th place for winds and isn't even in the top 10 in pressure. This goes back to 1935 to 2007.
 
I'm always curious how scientific fact is considered political.

I know it's semantics, but I don't think this is a scientific fact for it is not a repeatable feat and confirmed true (at least not yet anyways). There is sure to be dissenting opinions on this within the scientific community as well.

This falls more in line with scientific hypothesis.
 
Same scientists who said Crooked Hilary would win!

On a serious note it's really depressing that the people in power don't care enough to do anything about this until it will be too late.
 

Xe4

Banned
It's difficult to say individual events were or were not affected by climate change unless they are significantly outside the norm. And even then it's difficult. I haven't done the math to check and have no desire to. Mostly because the fact that climate change makes hurricanes stronger should be constantly filed under "No shit Sherlock" news.

Unfortunately, people only react to individual events and only when there's a disaster, so here we are. The path forward on climate change has been and will be paved by the blood and loss of those who are the most vulnerable. It's a sad state of affairs.
 

Heroman

Banned
okp66FD.gif
 

pr0cs

Member
So far, Irma is in 5th place for winds and isn't even in the top 10 in pressure. This goes back to 1935 to 2007.
Yes but it's in the news right now and fits the bill for the sounding board we're looking for so it's fair game
 

Sunster

Member
whether or not you believe the OP, waters are warming. hurricanes draw their power from warm water. that means more hurricanes.
 

JordanN

Banned
Doesn't Drumpf regularly go golfing at his Mar a Lago or whatever the fuck it's called?

The ignorance to continue denying climate change when it even affects your own businesses/property is too much for my head to handle.
 
Thank god. I feel much better knowing that he's watching it.

He means furiously masturbating to the amount of lives about to be ruined and / or lost.

I know it's semantics, but I don't think this is a scientific fact for it is not a repeatable feat and confirmed true (at least not yet anyways). There is sure to be dissenting opinions on this within the scientific community as well.

This falls more in line with scientific hypothesis.

We have been measuring climate data for 150 years, making it one of the longest on-going data collections in academic terms, and the hypothesis of human caused global warming came from seeing observations changing towards higher averages, combined with the first viable readings of our 'sister planet' Venus, a literal hell of a world. Greenhouse effects have also been well-known (as used in agriculture) for a long time, and combining three separate sets of observations into a 'oh shit' moment didn't take long.

There are no semantics involved, and you're repeating a 'merchant of doubt' talking point here. Even if you didn't mean to, you just aided in spreading bullshit that is part of a campaign to destabilize efforts to stop what everyone else already considers to be scientific fact. Even by the very people who started and reinforced these campaigns, which tends to be oil companies.
 

Wild Card

Member
I know it's semantics, but I don't think this is a scientific fact for it is not a repeatable feat and confirmed true (at least not yet anyways). There is sure to be dissenting opinions on this within the scientific community as well.

This falls more in line with scientific hypothesis.

It's a hypothesis like gravity's a hypothesis, sure.
 
Newsflash. Every major weather event happening right now is because of climate change. Those BC forests being decimated by a mountain pine beetle because winters aren't cold enoigh to kill them off has been due to climate change. The flooding of parts of Italy and Venice is due to climate change. Increased droughts, more rains, more tropical storms, more extreme winters and hotter summers,is all due to climate change.

The thing we need to get people to understand is that this is currently being caused by man. Increased pesticide use killed and endangered many birds and insects intil we banned them and populations recovered. CFC's and other perspirants were widespread and causing holes in the ozone layer until their use declined and we are seeing recovery. Now,the massive increase in coal burning by China and India which have or are about to surpass the US, the increase in fossil fuel use worldwide is leading to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect. Now it doesn't matter to the fatass driving his F150 in Texas and going home to his centrally air conditioned home if temperatures increase worldwide one or two degrees, but the thousands of people living on the islands in the South Pacific or the Maldives will suffer as increased glacial melting and sea level rise mean more floods and possibly their entire cities and civilizations under water.

The anti climate change crowd has been so effective with planting the seed of doubt that intelligent and educated individuals will deny in the face of all evidence this isn't human caused.

Climate change didn’t cause Hurricane Irma,

Hmm..
 
It makes my blood boil to know that Rick Scott will come after any government or news agency in Florida that even talks about climate change.
 

WaterAstro

Member
Well, Climate Change hasn't changed for a very long time.

Hurricane Katrina was already the signal. Now, we have two devastating hurricanes in a row.
 

Xe4

Banned
I know it's semantics, but I don't think this is a scientific fact for it is not a repeatable feat and confirmed true (at least not yet anyways). There is sure to be dissenting opinions on this within the scientific community as well.

This falls more in line with scientific hypothesis.

It's a scientific fact that global warming is happening.
It's a scientific fact that humans by in large are disposable.
It's a scientific fact that global warming is making the oceans warmer.
It's a scientific fact that warmer oceans create stronger hurricanes.
It's likely that Irma has been strengthened by AGW.

The first four have had numerous studies done on them and a strong scientific consensus. The fifth is an inference drawn by observation. If you would like, there are studies showing the distribution of increase in wind speeds and rainfall of hurricanes over the next century, and the costs related to that.

What I've learned is people don't listen to the first four. Too abstract or some shit. They will listen to the fact that Irma has been strengthened because that's personal, even if it is difficult to prove unless the storm lies far outside the normal probabilistic distribution of hurricanes.

I understand that it's important to be precise when discussing science, and especially with regarding to climate change. I do research in atmospheric physics after all. However, I also understand that it is important to convey the importance of global warming, and that using science speak can make that difficult.
 
I know it's semantics, but I don't think this is a scientific fact for it is not a repeatable feat and confirmed true (at least not yet anyways). There is sure to be dissenting opinions on this within the scientific community as well.

This falls more in line with scientific hypothesis.

Scientific facts or theories can never be proven true, only falsified.

Scientific theories != proofs.
 

devilhawk

Member
We can make statements like "On average hurricanes are more prevalent and/or more intense due to climate change." We should not make statements like "This specific hurricane exists/is stronger/directs this way due to climate change." It's not testable and isn't something that should be stated as fact.
 
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Hurricane looks like largest ever recorded in the Atlantic!
3:53 AM · Sep 6, 2017

Yes, I had to include that time.
 
The real issue here is that scientist and the former campaigners against it already agree on it, it's just that the GOP has made denial into a political tribal statement of sorts.

And even they seem to know that's a bad idea, but the actual current president isn't on board with reason or reality.

We can make statements like "On average hurricanes are more prevalent and/or more intense due to climate change." We should not make statements like "This specific hurricane exists/is stronger/directs this way due to climate change." It's not testable and isn't something that should be stated as fact.

Testability and falsifiability are ways of testing the tenability of a thesis, NOT the actual core body of the pursuit knowledge. I don't know why you guys keep using this old and outdated concept, but Karl Popper was kind of a required idiot of his day (due to the institutions of the social world, like the love of Freud and other quacks), not someone you'd want to believe as having any real answers to anything. By his model of what makes science, evolution, complexity, climate change, archaeology, computing and AI research, and many other fields requiring fuzzy or probabilistic causality would not be science. All his students seemed to have realized that and nobody actually liked the man or followed in his rigid ways. The only person who tried to get him to see through his own error was Imre Lakatos, and it may have killed him, as he died relatively young for an academic. Since then, nobody is interested in any kind of rigid system of defining science from not-science, instead preferring to let critical thinking, inspection, accountability, and the hands of time to do the work of allowing people to distinguish them.
 

Dazza

Member
So far, Irma is in 5th place for winds and isn't even in the top 10 in pressure. This goes back to 1935 to 2007.

You might want to look at the more recent peak measurements and check again. Unless you're comparing different regions, then that is just plain daft.

You can tell if climate change is having an effect by the weakening or strengthening of a hurricane as it progresses compared to events in the past
 

F34R

Member
You might want to look at the more recent peak measurements and check again. Unless you're comparing different regions, then that is just plain daft.

You can tell if climate change is having an effect by the weakening or strengthening of a hurricane as it progresses compared to events in the past

I was giving information that was available when I posted it. If there is something showing different, then update what I posted.
 

devilhawk

Member
Testability and falsifiability are ways of testing the tenability of a thesis, NOT the actual core body of the pursuit knowledge. I don't know why you guys keep using this old and outdated concept, but Karl Popper was kind of a required idiot of his day (due to the institutions of the social world, like the love of Freud and other quacks), not someone you'd want to believe as having any real answers to anything. By his model of what makes science, evolution, complexity, climate change, archaeology, computing and AI research, and many other fields requiring fuzzy or probabilistic causality would not be science. All his students seemed to have realized that and nobody actually liked the man or followed in his rigid ways. The only person who tried to get him to see through his own error was Imre Lakatos, and it may have killed him, as he died relatively young for an academic. Since then, nobody is interested in any kind of rigid system of defining science from not-science, instead preferring to let critical thinking, inspection, accountability, and the hands of time to do the work of allowing people to distinguish them.
Well, this all is certainly something. I say this as an actual scientist too.
 
Fun fact: members of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection are not allowed to use the term "climate change" or "global warming" in any official communications, emails, or reports.
 

Dazza

Member
I was giving information that was available when I posted it. If there is something showing different, then update what I posted.

The OP itself says it is the most powerful storm formed in the Alantic Ocean.

What are your sources?
 
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