Daily Archives: October 28, 2010

Stormy World

It turns out that the “land hurricane” (technically, a super storm, aka extra tropical cyclone or bomb cyclone) may have been the biggest (most energetic) storm hisorically recorded for the region. Of particular interest is the pressure record (the ultimate measure for a storm) but also, the number of tornadoes and the damage due to winds was also impressive. And, there are interesting tropical things going on in the Atlantic Ocean.

Is this all caused by Global Warming? Yes, probably. Gone are the days when the knee-jerk reaction must be “well, no, no one storm can be attributed to bla bla bla.” Instead, we increasingly recognize that the energy balance sheet has shifted (are my metaphors mixing?) and we live in a stormier world now than we did 100 years ago, because of the release of carbon trapped in antiquity into the atmosphere.

Global warming is like your checking account. Your paycheck is automatically deposited every two weeks (that’s energy from the sun) and varies only a little from time to time. Several bills are paid every month, and thus the money dissipates from your account like the sun’s heat returning to outer space. But then, imagine that the people who bill you delay billing a couple of days each month, until they are a full month out of sync. The same amount of money is going in, the same amount of money is going out, but the money stays in your checking account longer. In this way, instead of the average amount of money in your account hovering around zero (I hope you have overdraft protection!), it hovers around a higher value.

Greenhouse gases retain the energy from the sun longer than usual in the atmosphere. Weather is all about the transfer of the sun’s energy, unevenly (at several scales) distributed on delivery, evening out. A hurricane is a blip in the rush of tropical energy (where there is extra) towards the poles (where there is less), for instance.

A certain amount of this energy simply goes away (returns to space) and plays no further part in the weather, but when that energy is retained longer due to greenhouse gasses, the entire system is more energetic.

So this week, Anthropocentric Global Warming gives you the most intense continental storm ever in North America, and three tropical cyclones trying to get borned in the Atlantic …

Continue reading Stormy World