Publisher's notebook
Did climate change cause hurricanes
After seeing the impact and devastation of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, people are naturally asking why? Was climate change the culprit? Act of God? Climate change skeptics say that every time it gets hot, or cold, or we have a big storm, it is blamed on climate change.
My response is that if anybody tells you they know the all answers, don’t believe them. However, it is certainly a valid question and I wanted to do a little more research than just hear what Al Gore or Rush Limbaugh pontificate about it. One can find an endless number of articles proving one theory or the other.
I found a piece published by that other little Post paper to be the most well balanced of the “yes, climate change did it” research. It was written by Chris Mooney, the science and environment reporter for the Washington Post on Monday.
Most of the debate over hurricanes and global warming generally centers around a few issues. Namely, will hurricanes become increasingly more intense like Irma? Or produce even more rain like Harvey? Will the storm surges be higher due to sea level rise? Will hurricanes now be more numerous?
Mooney says that you must accept that there is a broader picture to hurricanes now but admits it is a less certain one.
“Hurricanes are massive thermodynamic systems that withdraw energy from the oceans and expel it into the atmosphere. That means many of their patterns and traits could change with warmer seas — even if some of those traits are harder to talk about because the research remains less definitive,” he said.
Some of the evidence that climate change is causal looks at season length because hurricanes follow seasonal patterns, occurring in the summer and fall. Obviously the temperature of the oceans affects these patterns. Mooney wonders if, as the climate warms, could hurricanes be more likely to occur out of season?
Although there is some suspicious activity, “ultimately, there is not yet a consensus on how the length of the (tropical cyclone) season will change as a result of anthropogenic effects,” a 2015 computer modeling study by Columbia University’s John Dwyer and co-authors concluded.
Mooney then looked at whether the regions that hurricanes form in are changing. Once again, there is at least some evidence this is happening or could happen. However, from what I read the evidence is very early and not conclusive.
There is another theory that the rapid intensification of storms is affected by global warming. It would seem a logical hypothesis. But Mooney admits that this area remains little researched, so one computer modeling study shouldn’t be taken as a final answer. But like he says, it’s still worth pondering.
Finally, the report looks at storm size. It is the biggest question and Mooney concludes is the least provable at this point. He summed up his findings saying that “as scientists dig into these other questions, we will probably continue to see large storms, rapidly intensifying storms, out-of-season storms and suspiciously placed storms. Those should be regarded as anecdotes – not proof of anything. But we should remember that as the climate changes, all of the different ways that hurricanes extract energy from the tropical oceans could change, too.”
Personally, I don’t know how anybody could be sure that climate change cannot be caused, or at least contributed to by humans. Whether that means we should all go back to the caveman days is a different question. I mean, even burning wood produces a whole lot of carbon and there are a lot more of us than there used to be. I just wish that we could separate science from politics here. But I have always been a tree lover, very pro-environment. I hate the smell of engines, always did.
To me, it is just common sense that breathing clean air is better for me than dirty. I prefer living in the country. But I haven’t exactly moved to the arctics either, so we all make choices.
We are asking your opinion on the climate change debate in this week’s online Post poll. I ask that you try to put politics aside and just let us know what you think about the phenomena itself. The question is “Do you think climate change is to blame for the hurricanes sweeping the Atlantic?”
My response is that if anybody tells you they know the all answers, don’t believe them. However, it is certainly a valid question and I wanted to do a little more research than just hear what Al Gore or Rush Limbaugh pontificate about it. One can find an endless number of articles proving one theory or the other.
I found a piece published by that other little Post paper to be the most well balanced of the “yes, climate change did it” research. It was written by Chris Mooney, the science and environment reporter for the Washington Post on Monday.
Most of the debate over hurricanes and global warming generally centers around a few issues. Namely, will hurricanes become increasingly more intense like Irma? Or produce even more rain like Harvey? Will the storm surges be higher due to sea level rise? Will hurricanes now be more numerous?
Mooney says that you must accept that there is a broader picture to hurricanes now but admits it is a less certain one.
“Hurricanes are massive thermodynamic systems that withdraw energy from the oceans and expel it into the atmosphere. That means many of their patterns and traits could change with warmer seas — even if some of those traits are harder to talk about because the research remains less definitive,” he said.
Some of the evidence that climate change is causal looks at season length because hurricanes follow seasonal patterns, occurring in the summer and fall. Obviously the temperature of the oceans affects these patterns. Mooney wonders if, as the climate warms, could hurricanes be more likely to occur out of season?
Although there is some suspicious activity, “ultimately, there is not yet a consensus on how the length of the (tropical cyclone) season will change as a result of anthropogenic effects,” a 2015 computer modeling study by Columbia University’s John Dwyer and co-authors concluded.
Mooney then looked at whether the regions that hurricanes form in are changing. Once again, there is at least some evidence this is happening or could happen. However, from what I read the evidence is very early and not conclusive.
There is another theory that the rapid intensification of storms is affected by global warming. It would seem a logical hypothesis. But Mooney admits that this area remains little researched, so one computer modeling study shouldn’t be taken as a final answer. But like he says, it’s still worth pondering.
Finally, the report looks at storm size. It is the biggest question and Mooney concludes is the least provable at this point. He summed up his findings saying that “as scientists dig into these other questions, we will probably continue to see large storms, rapidly intensifying storms, out-of-season storms and suspiciously placed storms. Those should be regarded as anecdotes – not proof of anything. But we should remember that as the climate changes, all of the different ways that hurricanes extract energy from the tropical oceans could change, too.”
Personally, I don’t know how anybody could be sure that climate change cannot be caused, or at least contributed to by humans. Whether that means we should all go back to the caveman days is a different question. I mean, even burning wood produces a whole lot of carbon and there are a lot more of us than there used to be. I just wish that we could separate science from politics here. But I have always been a tree lover, very pro-environment. I hate the smell of engines, always did.
To me, it is just common sense that breathing clean air is better for me than dirty. I prefer living in the country. But I haven’t exactly moved to the arctics either, so we all make choices.
We are asking your opinion on the climate change debate in this week’s online Post poll. I ask that you try to put politics aside and just let us know what you think about the phenomena itself. The question is “Do you think climate change is to blame for the hurricanes sweeping the Atlantic?”