Tag Archives: Severe weather

Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader's Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis.

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According to John Berger, author of the newly released book Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis, time is running out. The climate is changing in ways that will bring unwanted results, and we as a species are slow off the mark to do something about it.

Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis begins with a description of the global climate in the not too distant future, 2100. It is of course a guess, perhaps fiction. But Berger’s description of the world in 2100 is plausible, and much of it probable. We don’t know, of course which parts are more vs. less likely. Killer heat waves are common. Forest are dying. Wildfires are frequent and abnormally large. Natural habitats, all of them, are being destroyed by changing conditions, causing widespread species extinctions. Serious diseases well ensconced in the tropics have spread widely. Island nations and low lying continental regions are being flooded, or are already destroyed by rising seas. And more.

By 2100, the Arctic Ocean is virtually ice-free. That amplifies global warming, because the reflective ice is replaced by darker water, which absorbs more heat. Without the ice, walruses are virtually gone. The huge shoals of shrimp-like krill that swarmed and bred beneath the margins of the ice shelves are gone.The whales that strained tons of krill have starved. So have the krill-eating fish and seals that had eaten the fish—and that needed ice during breeding and pupping season. Polar bears that depended on the seals and that bore their young on ice have become very scarce.A small population remains on land where they interbred with grizzlies…

With water so scarce and costly, many farms over the past decades had first fallowed their fields and, when the rains failed, had finally gone out of business.Then food prices had shot up. … Many people simply left the region. Farm economies unraveled…

Skeletal remains of shorefront buildings and walls protruded from the surf. A congealed mass of plastic flotsam and jetsam identified the high-water mark. …

And that is just a sampling. And, again, there is nothing in Berger’s alarming description that is “alarmist” in the sense science denialists usually use the term. Alarming, yes. Alarmist, no. Just realistic.

Berger describes climate change and its mechanism, gives some history as to how we know what we know, and discusses the perils of climate change in several major categories: That pertaining to the United States in particular, though he also discusses the situation across the globe; economic perils, health related perils, extreme weather, extinction, and bad things that happen to the ocean.

The hardest chapter to write, the one that is most likely wrong in detail, and at the same time, the most important, is on “Tipping Point Perils.” There is presently a discussion on the internet about one tipping point that is probably not realistic: the rapid extinction-event level warming induced by the release of large amounts of Methane from beneath the Arctic sea (and nearby land areas). Berger goes out on a limb a ways with his discussion of Methane, as do many others, and we hope there is not really a “Methane Bomb.” For the most part, though, he addresses the Arctic Methane problem fairly realistically, pointing out evidence on all sides of the issue.

Most of Berger’s tipping points are more realistic and still quite serious, including his discussion of methane. For the most part, a “tipping point” is an out of control positive feedback, where warming induces the rapid increase of some effect which in turn increases warming. Like melting permanent ice and snow, which normally sends an important quantity of the Sun’s energy back into space. Another is the qualitative change in climate systems, such as changes to large scale oceanic currents which contribute greatly to how heat is distributed across the planet. Obviously, glacial melt is on this list as well.

Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis is a fun read. If, you know, you like non-fiction apocalyptic stories.

An important point is this: Berger does not say the game is over. He advocates taking action and makes the claim that these perils can be addressed, and of course, must be addressed.

Fortunately, many global studies confirm that we have the technology, financial capability, and renewable energy resources to successfully transition to an energy economy largely free of fossil fuels. But this will require some hard technological and political choices.Very large global programmatic investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy technology, agriculture, forestry, as well as carbon capture and storage will be needed to protect the climate…

Unfortunately, the movement for climate protection and clean energy does not have 50 years to put clean energy proponents in high offices and end business-as-usual energy policies. Fortunately, grassroots political activism plus new technology sometimes produces faster results. President Obama himself used grassroots organizing and social media to gain the White House in 2008. Social media was also indispensable to the Arab Spring revolutions that began in Tunisia in 2010. But whereas many climate organizations are already active on the web, their initiatives are often lost in internet cacophony, much of it created by powerful commercial interests.

The book has a foreword by Benjamin Santer, and an introduction by Paul and Anne Ehrlich.

Berger has a PhD in Ecology and has been involved in environmental issues in a number of ways, including advising for the National Research Council.

More Research Linking Global Warming To Bad Weather Events

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A new paper advances our understanding of the link between anthropogenic global warming and the apparent uptick in severe weather events we’ve been experiencing. Let’s have a look at the phenomenon and the new research.

Climate Change: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

It is mostly bad. Sometimes it is ugly. I was looking at crop reports from the USDA and noticed an interesting phenomenon in Minnesota, that is repeated across much of the US this year: Fewer acres are in crops but among those acres that are planted there is a high expected per-acre yield. The higher yield will make up for the lost acreage this year. Unfortunately, that is about as good as it gets.

The lost acreage, at least in Minnesota as I understand it, comes from a late spring followed by a wet early summer. And holy crap was it wet, and fairly cool. My own tomatoes were utterly confused. One plant produced a single tomato that ripened a month and a half early, then waited for weeks to make its next move. I think organisms do that sometimes; when they think they are about to die they reproduce desperately, which for a tomato plant, is producing one premature tomato and then trying to not be noticed for a while. In any event, many Minnesota farmers live with an interesting conflict. There are parts of their farms they can’t plant in a given year because it stays too wet too long, and that varies from year to year. The rest of the farm is irrigated much of the summer. This year, it seems that there has been enough extra rain to increase productivity of the irrigation season, but acreage was lost between the encore of a sort of Polar Vortex mimic and a lot of rain.

The extra productivity was a lucky break, and is limited in its effects. The same weather phenomenon that made June nearly the wettest month ever in the upper plains has contributed significantly to a longer term drought in California, which is on the verge of ruining agriculture there. Severe flooding or extreme dry can do much more damage to agriculture than is accounted for by minor increases in productivity because of the extra water vapor provided by Anthropogenic Global Warming.

And the floods can be downright dangerous. I was talking to my friend and former student Rusty several months ago about the flooding in Colorado. I asked her about how her husband was doing (they both happen to be climate scientists by the way).

“Oh he’s probably fine but I’ve not heard from him in three days. His cell phone battery is probably out. I imagine he’s clinging to some high ground up on the Front Range about now.”

He is a volunteer first responder and had headed up into the canyons year boulder during the big floods there. Which were like the big floods in Calgary. And Central Europe. And the UK. And that rainy June here. And the flooding that just happened in several parts of the US.

All of it, all of those floods, and some significant drought, and the Polar Vortex that hit the middle of North America last winter, all caused, almost certainly, by the same phenomenon.

Wildfires are probably enhanced by recent weather phenomenon as well, with extreme rains causing the build up of fuel, followed by extreme dry providing the conditions for larger and more frequent fires.

On the more extreme end of effects for severe weather is the Arab Spring phenomenon. It is one thing to have a bad year for corn because of a wet spring. It is worse to have a multi year drought that could seriously affect our ability to buy almonds, avocados and romaine from California. But what happens when an agricultural system fails for several years in a row, the farmer abandon the land and move to the cities where they become indigent, a civil war breaks out, and next think you know a Caliphate is formed, in part on the wreckage of one or two failed regimes, failed in large part because of severe weather conditions caused by human induced climate change?

I’ve discussed this at length before. (See: Linking Weather Extremes to Global Warming and Global Warming and Extreme Weather) The relationship is pretty simple, to know how it works all you have to do is remember one word:

AGWAAQRaRWaWW. Rhymes with “It’s stuck in my craw, paw!”

Let me parse that out for you.

AGW -> AA -> QR-RW -> WW

AGW – Anthropogenic Global Warming

Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is caused mainly by added CO2 in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuel. By definition, the burning of fossil fuels is the release of energy by separation of carbon previously attached to other atoms by biological processes typically a long time ago, and over a long period of time. We humans are spending a century or two releasing tens and tens of millions of slow storage of Carbon, all at once in geological time, causing the chemistry of our atmosphere to resemble something we’ve not seen in tens of millions of years.

AA – Arctic Amplification

The CO2 by itself would warm the Earth to a certain degree, but it also produces what are called positive feedbacks. Which are not positive in a good way. For example, added CO2 means there is more water vapor in the atmosphere (because of more evaporation and ability for the atmosphere to hold water). Water vapor is, like CO2, a greenhouse gas. So we get even more warming. In the Arctic, there are a number of additional positive feedbacks that have to do with ice. The Arctic, with its additional positive feedbacks, warms more than other parts of the planet. This is called Arctic Amplification.

QR-RW – Quasi-resonant Rossby waves

Jet Stream Cross Section
Cross section of the atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere. The Jet Streams form at the highly energetic boundary between major circulating cells which contain the trade winds near the top of the Troposphere.
Normally, heat from the equator makes its way towards the poles via air and sea. Giant currents of air are set up by a combination of extra equatorial heat and the rotation of the earth. Part of this system is the so-called “trade winds” (winds that typically blow in a typical direction) and the jet streams.

What the jet stream is supposed to look like.
What the jet stream is supposed to look like.
The jet streams occur at high altitude between major bands of trade winds that encircle the earth. The trade-wind/jet stream systems are typically straight rings that encircle the earth (a bit like the bands on the major gas planets) and the jet streams move, normally, pretty straight and pretty fast. But, with the warming of the Arctic, the differential between the equator and the poles is reduced, so all sorts of strange things happen, and one of those things is the formation of quasi-resonant Rossby waves.

A Rossby wave is simply a big giant meander in the jet stream. Quasi-resonant means “almost resonant” and resonant means that instead of the meanders meandering around, they sit in one place (almost).

What the jet stream looks like when it is all messed up.
What the jet stream looks like when it is all messed up.
It appears that Quasi-resonant Rossby waves set up when there is a certain number (roughly a half dozen) of these big meanders. When this happens, the jet stream slows down. The big bends in the jet streams block or stall weather patterns, and the slow moving nature of the jet stream contributes to the formation of either flash droughts (as Paul Douglas calls them) where several weeks of nearly zero rain menace a region, or extensive and intensive rainfall, like all the events mentioned above.

WW – Weather Whiplash

That’s the term that refers to dramatic shifts between the extreme weather events created by Quasi-resonant Rossby Waves, the result of Arctic Amplification, caused by Anthropogenic Global Warming.

And that’s how you get yer AGWAAQRaRWaWW. Rhymes with “It’s stuck in my craw, paw!”

Quasi-resonant circulation regimes and hemispheric synchronization of extreme weather in boreal summer

Which brings us to Quasi-resonant circulation regimes and hemispheric synchronization of extreme weather in boreal summer. This is the title of a paper by Dim Coumou, Vladimir Petoukhov, Stefan Rahmstorf, Stefan Petri, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. Here is the “for the people” abstract of the paper:

The recent decade has seen an exceptional number of boreal summer weather extremes, some causing massive damage to society. There is a strong scientific debate about the underlying causes of these events. We show that high-amplitude quasi- stationary Rossby waves, associated with resonance circulation regimes, lead to persistent surface weather conditions and therefore to midlatitude synchronization of extreme heat and rainfall events. Since the onset of rapid Arctic amplification around 2000, a cluster of resonance circulation regimes is ob- served involving wave numbers 7 and 8. This has resulted in a statistically significant increase in the frequency of high- amplitude quasi-stationary waves with these wave numbers. Our findings provide important new insights regarding the link between Arctic changes and midlatitude extremes.

The effects of climate change have occurred (and will occur) on a number of time scales. Over a century we’ve had a foot of sea level rise, which is showing its effects now. Storminess, in the form of changes in tornado regimes and tropical storms, has probably been with us for a few decades. But Agwaaqrarwaww has probably only been with us since about the beginning of the present century.

I blogged about this before. In “Global Warming And Extreme Weather” I described an earlier paper produced by the same research team, in which they presented this graphic:

QRRossbyWavePaper

Followed by this graphic, which I made, with the intention of more clearly showing the trend in QR events:
QR_conditions_over_time_based_on_Petoukhov_et_al

I sent that to one of the authors, which may have inspired the production of a different graphic but showing the same trend, for the current paper:

BvBgV8hIIAEBVDY

Look how recent this phenomenon is. It is now, current, happening at sub-climate time scales. We don’t know enough about it, and we need to address it.

I asked Stefan Rahmstorf, one of the paper’s author and the scientists I was exchanging graphics with, to elaborate on the signficance of this recent study and to explain why it is important. He told me, “Previous studies have failed to find trends linked to global warming which could explain the recent spate of unusual extreme events. For example they have looked at trends in the occurrence of blocking or in the speed of the jet stream. But you need to know what you are looking for in order to find it. The planetary wave equation reveals what the resonance conditions are which make the waves grow really big, causing extreme weather. So we knew what trends to look for.”

I also asked him if severe weather events post dating the end of his study period conform to expectations as Rossby Wave events. “I can’t say for sure because we have not done the analysis for the very latest data yet – studies like this take time,” he told me. “But I suspect there have been more resonance events. They are not necessarily constrained to July and August either. The record flooding in May/June 2013 in Germany of the Danube and Elbe rivers, for example, was associated with large planetary wave amplitudes. Dim Coumou has assembled a young research team now that will work on further data analysis.”

Damian Carrington has written up this research at the Guardian, and notes:

Prof Ted Shepherd, a climate scientist at the University of Reading, UK, but not involved in the work, said the link between blocking patterns and extreme weather was very well established. He added that the increasing frequency shown in the new work indicated climate change could bring rapid and dramatic changes to weather, on top of a gradual heating of the planet. “Circulation changes can have much more non-linear effects. They may do nothing for a while, then there might be some kind of regime change.”

Shepherd said linking the rise in blocking events to Arctic warming remained “a bit speculative” at this stage, in particular because the difference between temperatures at the poles and equator is most pronounced in winter, not summer. But he noted that the succession of storms that caused England’s wettest winter in 250 years was a “very good example” of blocking patterns causing extreme weather during the coldest season. “The jet stream was stuck in one position for a long period, so a whole series of storms passed over England,” he said.

I’m not convinced that the seasonality of Arctic Amplification matter much here, and I note that we’ve not looked closely at the Antarctic. Also, “blocking patterns” and QR waves are not really the same exact thing. They may be different features of the same overall phenomenon, but QR Rossby Waves are a more general phenomenon, and a “blocking” is something that happens, probably, when that phenomenon interacts with certain kinds of storms.

It occurs to me that there is a huge difference between Agwaaqrarwaww happening randomly in space vs. blocking and steering waves setting up for long periods of time over the same place, and appearing in those places typically. Like Godzilla. We know that over time Godzilla will usually destroy Tokyo and not London, because Godzialla, while sometimes random, is usually geographically consistant. Can we expect Rossby Waves to usually causae drought in California, flooding on the Front Range or Rockies, and drenching rains in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Region, for example? I asked Stefan about that as well.

“We have not looked at this aspect yet, but the recent paper by Screen and Simmonds has indeed found such a preference of the wave troughs and crests to sit in certain locations.

Ruh Roh.

Arctic Emergency: Scientists Speak

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Lots to talk about here:

Published on Aug 1, 2014
Arctic Emergency: Scientists Speak On Melting Ice and Global Impacts (1080p HD)

This film brings you the voices of climate scientists – in their own words.

Rising temperatures in the Arctic are contributing the melting sea ice, thawing permafrost, and destabilization of a system that has been called “Earth’s Air Conditioner”.

Global warming is here and is impacting weather patterns, natural systems, and human life around the world – and the Arctic is central to these impacts.
—————————————-­———
Scientists featured in the film include:

– Jennifer Francis, PhD. Atmospheric Sciences
Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University.

– Ron Prinn, PhD. Chemistry
TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

– Natalia Shakhova, PhD. Marine Geology
International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska-Fairbanks.

– Kevin Schaefer, PhD.
Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center.

– Stephen J. Vavrus, PhD. Atmospheric Sciences
Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison

– Nikita Zimov, Northeast Science Station, Russian Academy of Sciences.

– Jorien Vonk, PhD. Applied Environmental Sciences
Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University

– Jeff Masters, PhD. Meteorology
Director, Weather Underground

California is clearly exceptional, but not in a good way: #Drought

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The US Drought Monitor produces an assessment of drought conditions every week. The drought in California has taken a large jump over the last few days, with the highest category, “Exceptional,” jumping from 36.49% to 58.41%. At the start of the calendar year, that category was represented in California by 0%, so this is a continuation of an ongoing trend. The image above is the current map from US Drought Monitor.

I made a couple of other graphics that demonstrate the problem.

This is the percent area in California covered by severe to exceptional drought since the most recent time that this percentage was at zero, near the end of 2011.

CaliforniaDroughtPercentSevereToExceptional

And these two graphs show just the percentage of land area in California covered by Exceptional drought since the beginning of the US Drought Monitor’s data in 2000 to the present (upper graph) and the same information for the last year (lower graph).
CaliforniaDroughtPercentExceptional

Note the extreme uptick.

The drought monitor has a synopsis of the situation:

Increasingly, drought indicators point to the fact that conditions are not appreciably better in northern California than in central and southern sections of the state. In addition, mounting evidence from reservoir levels, river gauges, ground water observations, and socio-economic impacts warrant a further expansion of exceptional drought (D4) into northern California. For California’s 154 intrastate reservoirs, storage at the end of June stood at 60% of the historical average. Although this is not a record for this time of year—the standard remains 41% of average on June 30, 1977—storage has fallen to 17.3 million acre-feet. As a result, California is short more than one year’s worth of reservoir water, or 11.6 million acre-feet, for this time of year. The historical average warm-season drawdown of California’s 154 reservoirs totals 8.2 million acre-feet, but usage during the first 2 years of the drought, in 2012 and 2013, averaged 11.5 million acre-feet.

Given the 3-year duration of the drought, California’s topsoil moisture (80% very short to short) and subsoil moisture (85%) reserves are nearly depleted. The state’s rangeland and pastures were rated 70% very poor to poor on July 27. USDA reported that “range and non-irrigated pasture conditions continued to deteriorate” and that “supplemental feeding of hay and nutrients continued as range quality declined.” In recent days, new wildfires have collectively charred several thousand acres of vegetation in northern and central California. The destructive Sand fire, north of Plymouth, California—now largely contained—burned more than 4,000 acres and consumed 66 structures, including 19 residences.

Typhoon Rammasun

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There is a major typhoon (hurricane) in the Western Pacific, Rammusan, which has already caused flooding and damage in the Phillipenes, where it killed 12 people, heading for southern China, and expected to affect northern Vietnam later on. From Accuweather:

Warm ocean waters combined with light wind shear will allow the storm to remain well organized through Friday as it approaches Hainan Island. Rammasun will likely bring widespread winds of 100 mph to northern Hainan Island on Friday afternoon and Friday night with higher gusts. Widespread wind damage is expected across northern Hainan, as well as the Leizhou Peninsula to the north.

Jeff Masters has a detailed analysis here.

UPDATE Friday AM: The typhoon is battering the coast in Hainan and Guangdong provinces in southern China China, and the Chinese have classified this as a “red alert” typhoon, the highest category for them.

Is the California Drought Caused By Climate Change, Or By Californians?

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Possibly both.

Climate change certainly has a huge effect. Increased evaporation, decreased snowpack, the stalling of air masses that cause more drying and less wetting, which in turn is caused by changes in the jet stream, which in turn is caused by “Arctic Amplification,” an effect of global warming, are major causes of a three year drought coming hard on the heels of a decade of near-drought dry.

But also, Californian approaches to water management have been an issue. I recently learned that there are communities in California that don’t even have water meters on people’s houses. What the heck? A while back the state asked people to use less water. They didn’t. Just now, the California Water Board implemented a fine for overuse of water, and local communities are asking people to turn in their neighbors who do so.

Here is an interview on All In with Chis Hays of Peter Gleick of The Pacific Institute, on the drought and the response to it.

UPDATE Chance Typhoon Neoguri Will Hit Nuke Plant Increases?

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Update:

The new forecast track of Neoguri is shown above as well as the location of two nuclear power plants.

The forecast track has moved south, and is now in a very good (and here good means bad) position to strike the Sendai nuclear power plant very directly. Keep in mind that this forecast may change.

On Tuesday mid day UTC the storm will likely be in the later phases of a turn to the right, aiming roughly at the Sendai plant. At this point maximum wind speed near the center of the storm will likely be about 90 mph, which puts the storm in the middle of the Category One range. That evening, possibly near midnight, the center of the typhoon should be coming ashore. During this time the storm will weaken.

The exact track matters a lot. It is quit possible that the right front quadrant, near the eye, will come ashore very near the plant, which would mean a very severe storm tide. But, the strength of the storm will be attenuated so perhaps the storm tide will be reduced.

Even though the storm now seems to be more or less aiming at a shut-down nuclear power plant, I’m thinking this will all result in little more than a very wet nuclear power plant. If the storm was stronger I’d be more worried about the effects of storm surge. I think Japan will have other problems caused by this storm to worry about.

Old post:

Screen Shot 2014-07-07 at 4.28.42 PM

Yes and no. The question really has to be understood to refer to a “meaningful” hit, one that matters to the plant.

<li>Yes because Super Typhoon Neoguri (which means "raccoon" in Korean) is on its way to Japan and there is no way that at least two nuclear power plants, those facing the southwest in the vicinity where the Typhoon is likely to make its first major landfall, will not be affected by this storm because the storm is huge.  It is going to hit everything. </li>


<li>No because it is possible Neoguri will not be a Category Five storm when it hits this part of Japan, it is more likely to be a Category Two storm by then.</li>


<li>Maybe, because the currently predicted path of Neoguri, as indicated on the graphic above, is highly uncertain at any level of detail at this time.  It is quite possible that the right punch (right leading quadrant) of the storm, and thus the storm tide, will come ashore in a bad place.  In this situation, the bad place would be at Sendai ... Genkai is probably more protected.  But the storm could come assure in a lot of places, we just don't know yet.</li>


<li>No, because even if there is something of a direct hit, the Japanese nuclear authorities have ashore us that the plants, which are all shut down, are secured and can easily handle this.</li>


<li>Maybe yes because if you accept what the Japanese Nuclear Power authorities say at face value you are a moron. That should be obvious by now. </li>

In the end, though, I do think that nuclear power plants are generally well built and secured and I’m sure a big storm won’t bother them too much. But, even if shut down, as they are, cooling of fuel is still required and a major storm could do the kind of damage that interferes with that. So we’ll see. The chances, though, of a nuclear disaster related to this particular storm are minimal. The storm itself is the problem.

There is some great coverage on the storm here:

<li><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/07/3456862/typhoon-neoguri/">‘Once In Decades’ Typhoon Approaches Japan, Two Nuclear Power Plants</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/07/supertyphoon-neoguri-japan-nuclear-plants-fukushima">A Scary Super Typhoon Is Bearing Down on Japan…and Its Nuclear Plants</a></li>

Hurricane Arthur May Be Category Two On Contact With North Carolina Tonight.

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The Hurricane may (or may not) directly strike the Outer Banks.) I’ve updated the title of the post to update concern that Hurricane Arthur has a much increased chance of directly striking coastal regions in North Carolina. Scroll down to the most recent update below to find out more. I’m adding updates to a single post rather than writing new posts because I’m almost out of paper for blog posts. No, not really, it does not work that way. I’m doing this as an experiment in keeping things organized, especially handy-dandy images of the process unfolding.

The previously mentioned tropical low pressure system is now classified as an official “Tropical Depression” which is not very impressive. The winds are 30 knots, it is not that well organized, it is not huge, it is off shore (near Florida).

But models suggest that the depression will develop into a tropical storm and eventually a Category I hurricane and move north roughly parallel to the Atlantic coast. It will be called Tropical Storm Arthur, then Hurricane Arthur.

At present, there is a better than even chance that tropical storm force or stronger winds will be on shore in North Carolina, though there may be effects in South Carolina and Florida. Georgia too, but the Peach Tree state sits back west a bit so the chance of tropical storm level winds there is reduced. As the storm winds up and starts moving North, Florida will get a bit of a side long blow as well.

Here’s the key timing, according to current forecasts which are subject to revision:

<li>The storm will be off the Georgia coast (a long way) in the early morning hours (2AM) of Thursday, as a tropical storm. Then, 24 hours later, the center of the storm will be very close to or on the North Carolina coast and it will be a hurricane.  That is a very fast moving storm, and the details are going to matter a lot especially to the people in North Carolina.  It will be a low-end Category One hurricane at this point.  </li>

<li>At this point the storm is expected to speed up even more, and to become a mid-level Category One hurricane when it is off the coast f New York/New Jersey, but pretty far out to sea, over the next 24 hours.  It will then speed up even more and by 2 AM Eastern Time Sunday morning, <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at1+shtml/115506.shtml?5-daynl#contents">if the models hold</a>, "...the cyclone will merge with a baroclinic zone near Nova Scotia, which should result in extratropical transition." </li>

All indications are that the conditions for formation of this hurricane are favorable, and the National Hurricane Center is saying that the models are in close agreement. The main uncertainty seems to be how east-vs west the track will be, which will make all the difference in the world to the Outer Banks. A few miles here or there can make the difference between hurricane force vs tropical storm force winds striking the coast. There is the difference of a full-on landfall vs. grazing the coast at stake as well. The landfall probably won’t happen, but it could. But do remember, a hurricane is not its own eye. Read this to find out what I mean by that.

UPDATE Tuesday 11:00 AM Central

The storm has been officially named and its name is Arthur.

Organization of the storm has improved and sustained winds are 33 knots at Grand Bahama Island, in a part of the storm that is not the strongest. Arthur is not drifting Northwest, as predicted by models. There is no significant change in the forecast but the official forecast:

Tropical Storm ARTHUR Forecast Discussion

Home Public Adv Fcst Adv Discussion Wind Probs Graphics Archive

US Watch/Warning

000
WTNT41 KNHC 011502
TCDAT1

TROPICAL STORM ARTHUR DISCUSSION NUMBER 3
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL012014
1100 AM EDT TUE JUL 01 2014

Radar and satellite imagery indicate that the convective
organization of the cyclone has improved since the previous
advisory, and the cyclone is being upgraded based on a sustained
wind report of 33 kt from Settlement Point (SPGF1) on Grand Bahama
Island earlier this morning that was outside of the deep convection.

After remaining nearly stationary earlier this morning, Arthur
appears to to be drifting northwestward now with an uncertain motion
of 315/02 kt. Otherwise, there is no significant change to the
previous forecast track. The latest model guidance has continued the
trend of a pronounced mid-tropospheric trough digging southeastward
from the upper-midwest into the northeastern and mid-Atlantic region
of the United States by 72 hours. The 500 mb flow pattern is almost
identical in the GFS and ECMWF models, which increases the
confidence in this evolving pattern. As a result, a steady increase
in southwesterly steering flow over the southeastern United States
is expected to gradually turn the tropical cyclone northward over
the next 24-36 hours, and then accelerate the system faster toward
the northeast on Thursday and Friday. By Days 4 and 5, Arthur is
forecast to move over the far north Atlantic as an extratropical
cyclone. The NHC track forecast is just an update of the previous
advisory track, and lies down the middle of the tightly packed
guidance envelope close to the consensus model TVCA.

Northwesterly vertical wind shear is forecast by the models to
gradually subside over the next 48 hours, which should allow the
cyclone to develop its own upper-level outflow pattern. In fact,
latest visible and water vapor imagery indicates that cirrus
outflow has been expanding on the north side of the system during
the past few hours, suggesting that the shear conditions could
already be subsiding. The low shear conditions and warm
sea-surface temperatures should allow for at least steady
strengthening, and the cyclone is expected to become a hurricane by
72 hours. The official intensity forecast is similar to the
latest intensity model consensus IVCN through 36 hours, and then
slightly higher after that.

145625W_NL_sm

FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INIT 01/1500Z 27.6N 79.3W 35 KT 40 MPH
12H 02/0000Z 27.8N 79.4W 35 KT 40 MPH
24H 02/1200Z 28.7N 79.6W 40 KT 45 MPH
36H 03/0000Z 29.8N 79.5W 50 KT 60 MPH
48H 03/1200Z 31.2N 78.9W 60 KT 70 MPH
72H 04/1200Z 35.4N 75.2W 70 KT 80 MPH
96H 05/1200Z 40.8N 67.3W 65 KT 75 MPH
120H 06/1200Z 45.5N 59.5W 45 KT 50 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP

UPDATE 4 PM Central

Apparently the Hurricane Hunters went in to take a closer look at Arthur and enough unexpectedly strong turbulence that they had to change altitude to avoid getting jostled around too much. The Hurricane Hunters. Had to avoid turbulence. Must have been pretty bad. Anyway, they upgraded the wind speeds for the storm to 45 knots, and the forecast has been upgraded as well, but without much change.

FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INIT 01/2100Z 27.8N 79.4W 45 KT 50 MPH
12H 02/0600Z 28.3N 79.4W 50 KT 60 MPH
24H 02/1800Z 29.2N 79.5W 55 KT 65 MPH
36H 03/0600Z 30.4N 79.2W 60 KT 70 MPH
48H 03/1800Z 32.1N 78.3W 70 KT 80 MPH
72H 04/1800Z 36.6N 73.6W 80 KT 90 MPH
96H 05/1800Z 42.2N 65.5W 60 KT 70 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP
120H 06/1800Z 46.8N 57.5W 45 KT 50 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP
210553W5_NL_sm

UPDATE Wed 9: AM Central Time

Arthur has strengthened over night and has a large area of 45-50 kt winds in it’s northeast and east quadrants. The central pressure is falling. So the intensity fo the storm is now set at 50kt. This is pretty much exactly on the button for yesterday’s forecasts, so Arthur is behaving as expected with respect to strength.

There are competing strengthening and weakening factors and the storm is a bit lopsided, so future strengthening may be delayed. But, perhaps more important, the sea surface in the area is warm, as expected with global warming, and the vertical wind sheer is minimal, which is counter to expectations of global warming. THEREFORE THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING. Only kidding about that last part.

Anyway, at 6 AM central time the NWS predicted that Arthur will be a hurricane this time tomorrow morning or mid day. So look for that event on July 3rd.

The storm has started to move definitively north, and has sped up, but is only going 5 mph. Earlier forecasts had the track moved a bit east off shore, the latest forecast has moved the track back west again. Tropical storm watches have been issued for parts of North and South Carolina. Expect warnings by late PM today.

It is probably the case that the most important things that will happen with Arthur are severe winds general storminess in the vicinity, erosion along the outer banks, and storm surges along the coast west of the barrier beaches. The main concern for long term may be loss of some of the barrier beach real estate. But, if the main area of the hurricane stays off shore, there may be minimal major damage. Or, if the hurricane moves more to the west, this could be bad in spots. Note that it has been a long time since a hurricane has struck in this area. That makes for certain increased vulnerabilities, as well as some decreased ones (the latter with respect to erosion).

FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INIT 02/0900Z 28.4N 79.1W 50 KT 60 MPH
12H 02/1800Z 29.3N 79.3W 55 KT 65 MPH
24H 03/0600Z 30.5N 79.1W 60 KT 70 MPH
36H 03/1800Z 32.1N 78.1W 70 KT 80 MPH
48H 04/0600Z 34.2N 76.0W 75 KT 85 MPH
72H 05/0600Z 40.0N 69.0W 75 KT 85 MPH
96H 06/0600Z 46.0N 62.0W 55 KT 65 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP
120H 07/0600Z 50.0N 55.0W 40 KT 45 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP

Screen Shot 2014-07-02 at 8.55.01 AM

UPDATE: Wednesday 11AM NWS hurricane center discussion notes that the storm’s intensity remains at 50 knots and the storm is moving northward at 6 knots. Arthur is expected to accelerate shortly. The storm looks like a real tropical storm in satellite views now:

vis-l

UPDATE Wed 5:00PM

Arthur is strengthening as expected and with the latest information is being upgraded to 60 Kt strength. Here’s the forecasted strength and position:

INIT 02/2100Z 29.7N 79.1W 60 KT 70 MPH
12H 03/0600Z 30.7N 79.0W 65 KT 75 MPH
24H 03/1800Z 32.4N 78.2W 70 KT 80 MPH
36H 04/0600Z 34.5N 76.0W 75 KT 85 MPH
48H 04/1800Z 37.2N 72.5W 75 KT 85 MPH
72H 05/1800Z 43.5N 64.5W 60 KT 70 MPH
96H 06/1800Z 49.0N 59.0W 50 KT 60 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP
120H 07/1800Z 53.0N 50.0W 35 KT 40 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP

The graphic at the top of the post shows the estimated path. Here’s what the Atlantic looks like right now:

vis-l

Arthur will probably be a hurricane by morning.

UPDATE 12:30 pm
Arthur will probably be an official hurricane over the next hour or two and it’s predicted track, sublet to change, has shifted west to actually impact the Carolina coast.

UPDATE July 3rd, 8AM central

Arthur is now officially a hurricane.

Current intensity is set at 65 kt. As has been the case for the last few days, this is exactly as forecast. Remember some earlier recent hurricanes when the forecasts seemed to be very difficult? It is almost like Arthur is some sort of False Flag operation arranged by the NWS to make them look good. Thanks Obama!

Anyway, Arthur is expected to gradually intensify as it passes over warm water but then very quickly dissipate into extratropical vagueness perhaps by Saturday morning. The center of the storm should move very close to the Outer Banks in North Carolina during the night tonight. So tonight and early tomorrow, on the 4th, people in the Outer Banks area will be experiencing a hurricane, though the eye may or amy not make landfall. Soon thereafter Arthur will speed up and head out into the Atlantic.

80+ mph winds, heavy rains, and moderate storm surge will be the main threat.

Arthur is already pretty much hugging the coast:

vis-l (1)

Here’s a radar image from Wunderground.com:

Screen Shot 2014-07-03 at 8.21.37 AM

Here is the estimated track of the storm. It is quite possible that the eye will never make landfall, but the core of the hurricane, where winds may be sustained at 85 mph, will:

Screen Shot 2014-07-03 at 8.24.18 AM

The National Weather service has a new highly experimental (as in you have to agree to not put too much faith into it before you look at it, so pretend you just did that) tool showing possible storm surge flooding in a warning area. This indicates widespread areas of potential flooding up tot 3 feet above ground at a conservative liklihood (about 10%). In other words, if you are in an are indicated for a 3 foot surge, there is a 1 in ten chance it will happen. That might seem like a very low probability. But, standing there in a storm surge is probably more likely to lead to death than having a person 100 feet away empty a revolver at you. (I have no idea if that is even close but I’m trying to make the point: You want to err on the side of caution when it comes to the actual Atlantic Ocean temporarily taking up residence where you actually are).

There are smaller areas of greater than 3 feet flooding. These are mostly within the outer banks (Thanks Outer Banks! Without you these numbers will be higher!) especially on the lee side of the banks (Today’s quiz: Why would that be?) but also across large flat areas along the coast, mainly in wildlife refuges and such.

Screen Shot 2014-07-03 at 8.30.25 AM

Most of the likely flooded areas are places where it is already low and wet. Comparing the NWS information to settlement maps I don’t see a lot of risk to people’s homes, etc. but if you live in the area you will want to be super aware.

The real big problem, as I see it, is the possibility of significant erosion to coastal wetlands which will have negative effects on regional wildlife for a few years, and also, will increase vulnerability to future erosion if another storm comes along before natural processes of restoration have developed.

FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INIT 03/0900Z 31.3N 79.1W 65 KT 75 MPH
12H 03/1800Z 32.5N 78.3W 70 KT 80 MPH
24H 04/0600Z 34.7N 76.1W 75 KT 85 MPH
36H 04/1800Z 37.5N 72.6W 75 KT 85 MPH
48H 05/0600Z 40.9N 67.9W 70 KT 80 MPH
72H 06/0600Z 47.5N 60.0W 50 KT 60 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP
96H 07/0600Z 54.0N 52.0W 35 KT 40 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP
120H 08/0600Z 60.0N 50.0W 35 KT 40 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP

UPDATE 3 July 1PM Central

Hurricane Arthur continues to grow stronger with peak winds over 80 knots or higher. The official intensity is currently set at 80 knots (at 11 AM eastern) and rising. The storm will be a Category Two Hurricane prior to land fall or close grazing of the North Carolina coast. This is an increase in what was forecasted earlier.

FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INIT 03/1500Z 32.4N 78.5W 80 KT 90 MPH
12H 04/0000Z 33.8N 77.3W 85 KT 100 MPH
24H 04/1200Z 36.3N 74.4W 90 KT 105 MPH
36H 05/0000Z 39.4N 70.2W 80 KT 90 MPH
48H 05/1200Z 42.7N 66.0W 70 KT 80 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP
72H 06/1200Z 48.5N 58.0W 50 KT 60 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP
96H 07/1200Z 55.0N 50.0W 35 KT 40 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP
120H 08/1200Z 60.0N 45.0W 35 KT 40 MPH…POST-TROP/EXTRATROP

Compared to the satellite image above, the storm is closer to the coast and farther north:
vis-l (2)

Here is the expected track:
Screen Shot 2014-07-03 at 1.04.05 PM

Notice that the eye of the storm is projected to pass right over the Outer Banks, but Arthur could easily pass farther to the West (less likely to the east).

Climate Change Increases Wild Fires

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First let me check … are all those denialists who have been claiming that wild fires have become rare done talking yet?

OK fine.

Yes, depending on where you go and what you look at we are having a problem with wild fires in the US and elsewhere (i.e., Australia). Part of this is probably due to weather whiplash. Periods of heavier than usual rain means more fuel grows, periods of dry make the fuel ready to burn, maybe even add some extra windy conditions, and the fires are worse than usual. This leads to landslide conditions being worse later on when the unusual rains occur.

Anyway, Climate Hawks Vote has taken note of this and made a meme, the picture above, that I thought you might want to see and share. Also, click here to see how media coverage in California is changing vis-a-vis wildfire and climate change.

Atlantic Hurricane Season Teaser

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There is a stormy thing in the Atlantic that may become a Tropical Storm. It is really just a blob right now, but there is a roughly even chance that over the next two to five days it will form a tropical storm.

No matter what, this blob will menace the US east coast, though it is way too early to say if this will be a big deal or not. It is not entirely clear which direction it will be moving in over the medium term. We will be keeping and eye on it.

Minnesota's Amazing June Weather

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We are breaking all sorts of records here in Minnesota this June, and not the records for drought (or, for once, cold). It has been raining and storming a lot, and not just in one place as happens now and then. The rains have been widespread and intensive. The flood levels of most rivers are not breaking records because those are set in the earlier Spring snow-melt driven flooding, but this time of year all the creeks, kills, and rivers should be receding not rising.

The situation is so interesting and important that our local public TV political weekly put the weather on top of the show and interviewed meteorologist Paul Douglas about it. Starting just after 3 minutes. Note especially his very important comment at 7:13!!!:

But don’t worry, we’ll be fine.

Minnesota's Current Weather Disaster — Don't worry we'll be fine.

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I woke up this morning to find about a dozen reports on my iPad Damage app indicating trees down and hail damage in many communities from Mankato to Edina, south of the Twin Cities. More of the same. We have been having severe weather for about a month now, or a bit less. One day in late May, Julia and I were taking pictures of people driving too fast through the lake that formed in front of our house form a major downpour. Early in that storm we witnessed a ground strike not too far away. A short while after that an ambulance came screaming by our house, coming from the direction of the ground strike to the hospital just south of us. Later we heard on the news that a woman at a little league game (which, frankly, should have been cancelled) was struck and transported to the hospital … that was certainly her. This morning, Mankato was flooded, a day or two ago a woman was rescued from her car that was eventually swept away by a river that does not normally exist. Flooding up on the Canadian Border has been epic. The entire state is under a Meteorological Siege.

Not exactly a Turn Round Don't Drown situation, but perhaps a Slow Down So As To Not Crack Your Engine Block situation .
Not exactly a Turn Round Don’t Drown situation, but perhaps a Slow Down So As To Not Crack Your Engine Block situation .
Yet, somehow, CNN has not taken notice.

I believe that what is happening here is an expanded, intensified version of what we usually get around this time of year. The Norther Plains has storms in the late Spring and early Summer for various meteorological reasons. But this Spring, the jet stream continues to experience it’s kinkyness, not the good kind of kinkyness, and we are having stalled weather systems. So, instead of having a storm front move through the area every few days, we have a big huge stormy thing hanging over us for weeks on end.

This is a similar phenomenon, most likely, to what brought epic floods to Central Europe, the UK, Calgary, and Colorado over the last two years. But, since we have no mountains to speak of and the state is full of more swamp and pond than arroyo and river, we don’t have the same kind of result. The rain that fell over the last 24 hours in southern Minnesota, falling in Colorado’s front range would have wiped out towns and people would be missing for days. Here, we have different results. Same weather phenomenon (more or less) likely caused by the same changes to the environment resulting form global warming (most likely) but spread out a bit in time and space so it becomes, rather than a single big huge national news story, this string of little local news stories (listed by day of month for June):

The interaction between the nature of events and the nature of news journalism certainly is interesting. We couldn’t stay out of the news when the Polar Vortex was visiting. Now, we are being ignored in all our glorious wetness. That is reasonable … so far this weather has not caused the death and destruction of epic flooding in mountain areas, and we are lucky that we’ve not had significant tornadoes here – the twisters are staying to the south of us, just. But it is interesting that we suffer the weather of countless tiny drops Minnesota style. In silence. With the occasional stern look. We will be making some hot dish now, out of season, but it is our comfort food. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.

ADDED:

Here’s a few tweeted pics from the NWS Twin Cities:

Screen Shot 2014-06-19 at 3.50.51 PM

Screen Shot 2014-06-19 at 3.52.23 PM

Screen Shot 2014-06-19 at 3.53.17 PM

Screen Shot 2014-06-19 at 3.53.49 PM

US Drought Over Time

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I made a movie you might enjoy. There may be something else out there like this, probably better than this one, but it is still cool. I downloaded all the PDF files from the US Drought Monitor archives, using the version of the connected US that has only the year, month, and day on the graphic. Then I slapped them in iMovie and sped the animation up by 800% over the default 1 sec. per pic. I do not have today’s rather horrifying image on it, which I’ve placed above.

Here’s the movie:

500,000 people evacuate massive 2-week long flood; 40+ dead.

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Excessive warmth attributable to global warming and a stalled weather system, also attributable to global warming, have caused a weather system in over southeast China to dump rain since May 12th. A million people are in the impacted area, ahlf of them have had to move or have been rescued, and the 2-6 inches of daily rain continues. 25,000 homes have been destroyed.

This area has recieved huge investments over the last few decades, since a huge 1998 storm killed thousands and caused 26 billion dollars in damage. They now fear that the present flooding will be as bad.

Here’s some video (with some out of date information on casualties and damages):

Sources:

Massive, Two Week Long China Flood Sends Half a Million Fleeing, Destroys More Than 25,000 Homes

Half a million evacuated as China braces for more flooding

The Amazing, Impressive, Powerful Amanda

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Usually when I make a sentence like that it is about my wife, Amanda. But this time we’re talking about Hurricane Amanda, the first hurricane of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season.

Amanda reached maximum winds of 155 mph on or about 8:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time on Sunday morning. That make Amanda the strongest Eastern Pacific May Hurricane on record. There are usually very few hurricanes in the Eastern Pacific in May, and the few that occur happen late in the months. Here’s the historical distribution of Eastern Pacific hurricanes, form 1966-1996:

East_pacific_tc_climatology

Amanda is the earliest on record Eastern Pacific Category 4 hurricane.

The hurricane date for the Eastern Pacific is not well organized and accessible (without working hard) as far as I can tell. Wikipedia is shamefully badly organized and out of date, and the NWS focuses much more on Atlantic hurricanes because they are far more likely to menace the US (though Eastern Pacific storms of course can end up in Hawaii, and occasionally hit the US West Coast … and one actually slammed into Texas!).

So I can’t say much more about Amanda. The extra intensity and early date is certainly related to enhanced sea surface temperatures in the region, but the relationship between that and the possible coming El Niño can not be established at this time. Putting this another way, we can ask the question, is the Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season going to be affected by El Niño, the answer is clearly: We’ll see.

Amanda has weakened since, and is expected to continue to weaken as she moves north and turns into a tropical storm.