is this The Big One?

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Irvine511

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[Q]Wilma Now Most Intense Atlantic Storm Ever
Oct 19 8:53 AM US/Eastern
By FREDDY CUEVAS
Associated Press Writer

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras

Gathering strength at a fierce pace, Hurricane Wilma swirled into the most intense Atlantic storm ever recorded Wednesday, a Category 5 monster packing 175 mph wind that forecasters warned was "extremely dangerous."

Wilma was dumping rain on Central America and Mexico. A hurricane watch was in effect for the east coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, parts of Cuba and the Cayman Islands, and forecasters warned of a "significant threat" to Florida by the weekend.

"All interests in the Florida Keys and the Florida peninsula should closely monitor the progress of extremely dangerous Hurricane Wilma," the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Wilma's top sustained winds reached 175 mph early Wednesday in the most rapid strengthening ever recorded in a hurricane, said meteorologist Hugh Cobb of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. At the same time Tuesday, Wilma was only a tropical storm with winds of 70 mph.

Its confirmed pressure readings Wednesday morning dropped to 882 millibars _ the lowest ever measured in a hurricane in the Atlantic basin, according to the hurricane center. The strongest on record based on the lowest pressure reading is Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, which dipped to 888 millibars.

Typically, the lower the pressure, the faster the air speeds. But because the pressure around each storm is different, lower pressure doesn't always correspond to a specific wind speed.

Forecasters said Wilma was more powerful than the devastating September 1935 hurricane that hit the Florida Keys, the strongest Atlantic hurricane to make landfall on record. But Wilma wasn't expected to keep its record strength for long, as higher disruptive atmospheric winds in the Gulf of Mexico around the hurricane should weaken it before landfall, Cobb said.

At 8 a.m., the hurricane was centered about 340 miles southeast of Cozumel, Mexico. Maximum sustained wind remained at 175 mph, forecasters said. It was moving west-northwest at nearly 8 mph and was expected to turn northwest.

The storm may dump up to 25 inches of rain in mountainous areas of Cuba through Friday, and as much as 15 inches in the Caymans and Jamaica through Thursday. Up to 12 inches was possible from Honduras through the Yucatan peninsula, the U.S. weather service said.

Jamaica, Cuba, Nicaragua and Honduras were getting heavy rain from the storm, though it wasn't likely to make landfall in any of those countries. Forecasts showed it would likely turn toward the narrow Yucatan Channel between Cuba and Mexico's Cancun region _ then move into the storm-weary gulf.

[...]

The hurricane is the record-tying 12th of the season, the same number reached in 1969. That is the most for one season since record-keeping began in 1851.

On Monday, Wilma became the Atlantic hurricane season's 21st named storm, tying the record set in 1933 and exhausting the list of names for this year.

The six-month hurricane season does not end until Nov. 30. Any new storms would be named with letters from the Greek alphabet, starting with Alpha.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/19/D8DB43VG3.html

[/Q]
 
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Yeah.......jumped from Cat 2 to Cat 5 almost immediately.........no wonder everyone was talking about Alaska this morning on the radio.

Makes one wonder.......it certainly doesn't help those caught in the path......but the news networks will have something to talk about the next few days.....{like vultures they circle}

Living in Florida we are always prepared for the worst.......when you live in paradise you never know what to expect.

:|
 
Irvine, excuses for what? The majority of scientists do not associate the recent storms with global warming - it is widely accepted to be a cyclical event.

I know its fun and exciting to think of this as some sort of end times, with Mother Nature fighting back, but, really, they probably thought the same thing back in 1969 or the late 1800s, or during any other "active periods".
 
MumblingBono said:
Irvine, excuses for what? The majority of scientists do not associate the recent storms with global warming - it is widely accepted to be a cyclical event.

I know its fun and exciting to think of this as some sort of end times, with Mother Nature fighting back, but, really, they probably thought the same thing back in 1969 or the late 1800s, or during any other "active periods".



nope.

every agrees that as the water temperature goes up, so does the strength and intensity of hurricanse. the water temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is as high as it's been in recorded history. global warming doesn't create hurricanes, but it makes them much worse. right now, it looks like we've got the worst of both worlds -- an upswing in the cycle combined with rising ocean temperatures.

but continue to ignore the consequences of global warming.
 
MumblingBono said:
The majority of scientists do not associate the recent storms with global warming - it is widely accepted to be a cyclical event.

What kind of scientists are you talking to here? Sociologists?

Any legitimate scientist with a vested interest in the environment will tell you that there is a warming pattern going on right now.
 
Irvine511 said:
nope.

every agrees that as the water temperature goes up, so does the strength and intensity of hurricanse. the water temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is as high as it's been in recorded history. global warming doesn't create hurricanes, but it makes them much worse. right now, it looks like we've got the worst of both worlds -- an upswing in the cycle combined with rising ocean temperatures.

but continue to ignore the consequences of global warming.

This is the same process by which we believe horoscopes are true.
 
nbcrusader said:
This is the same process by which we believe horoscopes are true.

Er, no. It's not.

But I agree that once the hurricane season is over someone leads to step back and look at the evidence in an objective way.
 
financeguy said:


Er, no. It's not.

But I agree that once the hurricane season is over someone leads to step back and look at the evidence in an objective way.

Er, yes, actually it is. Drawing simple lines between largely separated event may help you reinforce an idea you want to believe, but it is not supported by science.

That is how horoscopes work.
 
not really looking forward to this weekend down here:( I'm so sick of Hurricane's:madspit: :mad:
 
nbcrusader said:


Er, yes, actually it is. Drawing simple lines between largely separated event may help you reinforce an idea you want to believe, but it is not supported by science.

That is how horoscopes work.


garbage.

the scientific process is as follows:

· Observations form the basis of understanding.
· Understanding grows from recognizing patterns in observations and validly characterizing and explaining such patterns.
· A generalization from observations is a conjecture, that provides a basis for testing that eventually can support (or disprove, and possibly modify) the generalization.
· Testing can be in terms of known facts that relate to the conjecture – supporting or disproving it – or of proposed observations or experiments that bear on the conjecture’s validity.

you're ignoring the mountains of testing and evidence that have been complied that allows little organizations like, say, NOAA to release findings like the following:

[Q]Overview
The strongest hurricanes in the present climate may be upstaged by even more intense hurricanes over the next century as the earth's climate is warmed by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Although we cannot say at present whether more or fewer hurricane will occur in the future with global warming, the hurricanes that do occur near the end of the 21st century are expected to be stronger and have significantly more intense rainfall than under present day climate conditions. This expectation (Figure 1) is based on an anticipated enhancement of energy available to the storms due to higher tropical sea surface temperatures.

[...]

New Observational Evidence

Recently, two studies have been published which provide new observational evidence that hurricane intensities may have already increased markedly in recent decades as the tropical oceans have warmed. Emanuel (Nature, Aug. 4, 2005) reports that a measure of the power dissipated by tropical cyclones (proportional to the cube of their wind speed) has approximately doubled in the North Atlantic and western North Pacific, with most of the increase occurring over the past 30 years. Increases in both intensity and duration of tropical cyclones have contributed to this apparent increase. Emanuel's power dissipation measure is strongly correlated with sea surface temperatures in these basins, which have increased markedly over the same period. Webster et al. (Science, Sept. 16, 2005) find that the number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled globally over the past three decades. Although their analysis spans a shorter time period than Emanuel's, their results show that a substantial increase has occurred in all six tropical storm basins.

[...]

An increase in the upper-limit intensity of hurricanes with global warming was suggested on theoretical grounds by M.I.T. Professor Kerry Emanuel in 1987. In the late 1990s, Knutson, Tuleya, and Kurihara at GFDL/NOAA began simulating samples of hurricanes from both the present-day climate and from a greenhouse-gas warmed climate. This was done by "telescoping-in" on coarsely resolved tropical storms in GFDL's global climate model using the high-resolution GFDL hurricane prediction model (Figure 2). A research report describing this work was published in the Feb 13, 1998 issue of Science, with a more detailed paper in Climate Dynamics (1999, vol. 15). All of these studies, as well as our more recent ones, include the moderating effect of atmospheric stabilization aloft under high CO2 conditions, rather than simply increasing the sea surface temperature alone.

In a follow-up study, which appeared in the Journal of Climate (June 2001), NOAA scientists Knutson and Tuleya teamed up with Isaac Ginis and Weixing Shen of the University of Rhode Island to explore the climate warming/ hurricane intensity issue using hurricane model coupled to a full ocean model. The coupled model was used to simulate the "cool SST wake" generated by the hurricanes as they moved over the simulated ocean (Figure 3). The model simulations including this additional feedback still showed a similar percentage increase of hurricane intensity under warm climate conditions as the original model without ocean coupling.

[...]

According to this latest study, an 80 year build-up of atmospheric CO2 at 1%/yr (compounded) leads to roughly a one-half category increase in potential hurricane intensity on the Saffir-Simpson scale and an 18% increase in precipitation near the hurricane core. A 1%/yr CO2 increase is an idealized scenario of future climate forcing. As noted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is considerable uncertainty in projections of future radiative forcing of earth's climate. A criticism of our paper by Michaels et al. is being published soon in the Journal of Climate. Our response, which will appear in the same issue, is available here.

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~tk/glob_warm_hurr.html

[/Q]
 
It looks like we've gone from step 1 to 3.

The meat of science is in step 4 - testing theories to validate and exclude other possibilities. As noted in a different thread, politics has interfered with this process regarding global warming. Scientists are rebuked if they try to truly test the theory and disprove.
 
nbcrusader said:
It looks like we've gone from step 1 to 3.

The meat of science is in step 4 - testing theories to validate and exclude other possibilities. As noted in a different thread, politics has interfered with this process regarding global warming. Scientists are rebuked if they try to truly test the theory and disprove.



where is this pressure coming from?

my undrestanding of the situation is that the scientists who are the most politicized in their findings are those working for either the bush administration or oil companies who have a much, much greater economic and political stake in the politics of global warming than do organizations like NOAA, or even a more political organization like the Sierra Club (who are like ants in the face of Exxon).

i think you're right to point out that science can be and often is politicized; i just think that in this particular issue, the political pressure comes from those who need something, anything, to cast some sort of doubt on the fact that human activity is warming up the atmosphere.

this is why Bush's whole "global warming needs more study" is every bit as absurdist and political as "the jury is still out on evolution."
 
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Hey YBORCITYOBL......welcome to the "hunker down club"....I've been this way since last hurricane season....and I can't "unhunker" myself. I remember a number of years back we had a hurricane strength storm I believe it was in March....they called it the "unnamed storm"....remembered it ripped the skylight off my roof.



:|


I'm thinking of taking up haarp lessons....but a good harp is hard to find..... :shifty:
 
Those in the Northeast U.S. need to keep watch on Wilma. Some computer models are forcasting Wilma to phase with a powerful low pressure area dropping into the plains and northeast. This would be similar to 'The perfect storm' only on top of New England. This is only a slight chance, but is a real possibility.
I will search for a link that mentions the models forcasting this. :huh:
 
this is why Bush's whole "global warming needs more study" is every bit as absurdist and political as "the jury is still out on evolution."
I find this statement to be utterly absurd.
 
nbcrusader said:


Er, yes, actually it is. Drawing simple lines between largely separated event may help you reinforce an idea you want to believe, but it is not supported by science.

That is how horoscopes work.

Just like "Intelligent Design" eh?

:wink:
 
a. anyone who thinks that all of the shit we pump into the air on a daily basis has no adverse effects on our environment and atmosphere needs a reality check. it doesn't take a genius to figure out basic cause and effect relationships. whether or not this directly affects hurricanes is beyond my knowledge.

b. if we're lucky jesus is following close behind wilma. this will all be over soon enough.
 
Actually figuring out causation versus correlation can be tricky, especially with global climate models. It is not mad to ask how much mankind effects global climate, what will happen, what benefits and what costs may there be and is it worth curbing emissions.

Climate change need not be doomsday.
 
No it was not. The earth has experienced significant climate changes during it's history through entirely natural processes, some of them occured very recently, geologically speaking. I would wager that some effects from global warming would be beneficial.

I think that we should be more worried about the possibility of a supervolcanic erruption than global warming.
 
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I know next to nothing about science and can't quote any scientific reports leaning either way. It does seem logical that global warming will eventually come back to haunt us. Still, if it's really the main factor in this year's hurricane season, that doesn't explain why 11 of the 15 most intense hurricanes recorded occured more than 50 years ago.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastint.shtml
 
And why might that be?

Is it not reasonable to try and objectively look at effects and then weigh up costs rather than leap to a conclusion and tow the line regardless of how much it will cost you and how little the benefit is?
 
Just heard on the news it could come around here. Like we didn't have enough rain already! There's a dam in one of the towns that's about to burst.


Question: With all this crazy weather that is happening around the world do you think that its like the movie : Day After Tomorrow? :|
 
Haven't they all been "The Big One" recently? It just seems like they always say that.


neverless they have all been really scary storms, I hope everyone in its path stays safe!:hug:
 
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