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Hurricane Frances - flickr
Living in Florida since 1964, I had the dubious privilege of experiencing numerous hurricanes. The first being Cleo, making landfall in Miami as a category 2 storm. I was living just the other side in Naples at the time so we did feel the effects of it for a few hours until it was north of us. Cleo came through just a couple of weeks after we arrived so we had our trial by water as it were.
Of course since then I have been through a number of tropical systems. Some large some not so much. But they are different now.
How has climate change effected hurricanes ? This has be a question that climatologists and meteorologists have been try to find out for the past number of years.
So far the general consensus is that it has not increased the number of tropical systems. However it has had an impact on the strength and overall size. It was rare for even a major hurricane to have tropical storm force winds to extend beyond 100 miles from the center. Most hurricanes these winds would extend only around 70 miles. Indeed hurricane Andrew that swept through and flattened south Miami only had tropical force winds at 30 miles from the center and it was a category 5 storm when it made landfall.
Compare that with tropical storm Isaac now in the Caribbean which has tropical storm force winds over 100 miles from the center. Or major hurricane Ivan where these winds extended nearly 200 miles from the center. And this trend is continuing.
Small intense storms like Andrew are becoming a thing of the past and large major hurricanes more and more common.
The number of storms and their maximum intensity may not be increasing, but the area effected by them is. Increasing the damage and lives effected by them by the wind an rainfall.
Hurricane Ivan
11 Comments
Larger storms now, that may be only the 1st change however. In the future as the warming ramps up we might see bigger and more frequent or bigger and more intense storms, or bigger, more intense and more storms period. My guess is this is going to be an evolving change and we haven’t seen the end of it. We’ve only experienced 1 deg C of warming so far and already were seeing significant changes.
One other thing is that they are a lot wetter – contain more rain – that before. Causing more flooding. And do their larger size can hold together for a longer time once over land.
This can be seen with Isaac now. A smaller storm of the same intensity would be completely torn up after passing over the mountain of Hatti but the prediction for Isaac is for it not only to hold together but rapidly intensify once over the war waters of the Florida Straights and the Gulf.
Do we have numbers on how much bigger hurricanes are now than they were just a few decades ago?
Numbers are easy to remember and make great talking points for the Media especially if we keep repeating them it takes months but if we repeat them enough the message sometimes gets through.
If a hurricane hits the GOP convention everyone will read hurricane posts if you have numbers ready the Media and who ever decides to front page stuff will likely pay attention.
Suppose the Hurricane misses Tampa but still hits Florida how far did the Gulf oil spill spread to your beaches hurricane winds will likely wash oil onto your beaches maybe local pups from Florida to New Orleans can have their cameras ready?
I know I would want to see pictures of that and I know the Media right after a hurricane will be to busy and or too bought off to cover that angle.
This is certainly also true of the late summer thunderstorms we typically see here in the western states. And I wonder if you know, cmaukonen, whether these larger hurricanes are also increasing in height? There was an article I read recently that pointed to disturbances in the upper atmosphere caused by intense storm activity, and one would think a hurricane could do that also, unless the physics are against that.
I think I know what you are talking about. I read an article in one of my mags about how they have found that the lightning in the larger thunderstorms with the highest cloud tops effects the lower part of the ionosphere.
Hut hurricanes do to their structure do not have very high cloud tops and also do not have much cloud to ground lightning.
I have not been able to find and comparisons done on the size IE dimensions and wind fields of the storms over time. But the data is kept at the NWS and NHC. However the NHC lost a lot when their facility was destroyed during hurricane Andrew.
Damm surely someone else has this data. I think Florida pups should be ready with story ideas in case the gop convention is hit by a hurricane remember the gulf oil spill thats all anyone talked about for weeks.
The GOP is famous for no regulation on things like buildings I wonder how much the building codes about building buildings that can stand up to hurricanes were enforced during the housing boom?
I wonder if the building housing the GOP Presidential convention and the hotels nearby are really safe in a hurricane?
Both the design and the actual construction you can have a poor design and or you can have a contractor build a building that does not follow the design.
During a housing boom inspectors are often over worked and or bribed especially on big politically connected projects.
Was the building housing the GOP convention built with tax payer funds?
If yes then its a pork project and pols had their friends build it projects like that almost always have corners cut.
Well the building code were pretty tight for a while and then go real losy goosey and the the inspectors really corrupt.
The Andrew came through and flattened south Dade County. Insurance companies pulled out and some would not insure houses in flood prone or wind areas. Then the state cleaned up the code enforcement again.
How it is now is anybodies guess though.
I lived through two hurricanes in my childhood and remember them vividly. Their names were Carla and Beulah, respectively.
They are two of the many reasons I left south Texas, vowing never to return.
As far as I am concerned, anyone who lives on the Gulf coast or anywhere near the southern Atlantic Coast, which includes the entire state of Florida, and can afford to go elsewhere and doesn’t is a damned fool.
Anyway, there do seem to be more frequent and stronger hurricanes of late, do there not? Not to mention the Drought in most of the country. Could these two phenomena possible have anything to do with climate change?
Well, yeah. Unless one has a vested interest in denying the fact, like all of those politicians gathering in Tampa as I type this.
The stage for cosmic irony is indeed set. Too bad the damned thing will probably miss the most poetic target.