The Atlantic is frying, but so far hurricanes are dying. What’s going on?
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Yes, I can do the math; 83F is 28C, but it really would be nice if the graph could have dual Fahrenheit and Celsius scales.
(It's incredible to think of, but that's actually getting too warm for comfortable swimming!)
(It's incredible to think of, but that's actually getting too warm for comfortable swimming!)
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The sea water temperature near Florida is around 90°F and it hit 101°F in one spot.
Not only does this imply that any hurricane that makes it to the Gulf will continue to strengthen, it also means that sea life is dying off at a very high rate.
This is not good news.
ETA map of temperatures. For those who don't speak °C, the scale runs from 81.7°F to 90.3°F
Not only does this imply that any hurricane that makes it to the Gulf will continue to strengthen, it also means that sea life is dying off at a very high rate.
This is not good news.
ETA map of temperatures. For those who don't speak °C, the scale runs from 81.7°F to 90.3°F
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But Eric, you are ALWAYS concerned about hurricane season! 
On a more serious note, the prognosis looks grim. Wildly high surface temps and other unusual data.
I’m curious how much impact the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption impacts all of this. SOOO much extra water in the atmosphere, along with the additional heating effects.
On a more serious note, the prognosis looks grim. Wildly high surface temps and other unusual data.
I’m curious how much impact the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption impacts all of this. SOOO much extra water in the atmosphere, along with the additional heating effects.
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I'll take a while to math out, but yeah, Nino + usual variability + Hunga + warming ratchet are all contributing to this year's records.
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The reality we have, at least this year (and certainly in future years), is the frequency of use of the word "unprecedented".
Nothing in recorded history like this has happened before. Record hot surface levels in BOTH the Atlantic and the Eastern Pacific at the same time. Typically, during El Nino, the Atlantic cools a lot more than it has.
I'd like to know how the climate models handle that input, and what they predict will happen on a regional level. Or do they need to make new models based on what we find out happens this round?
It's one thing to model a complex system within established norms, but when the levels exceed all established norms, how well do the models hold up?
Any thoughts there, other than, "Be concerned. Be VERY concerned."?
Nothing in recorded history like this has happened before. Record hot surface levels in BOTH the Atlantic and the Eastern Pacific at the same time. Typically, during El Nino, the Atlantic cools a lot more than it has.
I'd like to know how the climate models handle that input, and what they predict will happen on a regional level. Or do they need to make new models based on what we find out happens this round?
It's one thing to model a complex system within established norms, but when the levels exceed all established norms, how well do the models hold up?
Any thoughts there, other than, "Be concerned. Be VERY concerned."?
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I was on a dive recently where I was showing 80°F at ~60 feet below the surface. I was flabbergasted.
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Yeah, that's not what's causing the excess heat.
It is the fact that we've got a heat dome stuck on/near the Gulf. And the heat dome is exacerbated by climate change, which was mostly caused by anthropogenic CO2.
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I still remember what happened last year right after Eric wrote an article about the lack of hurricanes....
Hide people ! (move, actually)
Hide people ! (move, actually)
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I have what is probably a really dumb question. With the SST being so high, for so long, does that mean that we are also recording warmer temperatures deeper into the water column? I ask because as I understand it, the SST means more thermal energy for storm intensification, but if we are seeing that thermal energy deeper into the water column doesn't that also mean we could see slow moving storms that are able to intensify, and stay intense, when in the past we saw upwelling of cold water help limit their growth? Also I was under the impression that one of the drivers that helped limited chains of hurricanes was that same upwelling, could we also see an increase in back to back storms? Sorry if my terminology is all over the place/flat out wrong, just trying to understand what not only record high temps mean, but what they mean deeper in the ocean that might impact storms.
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Well at least now we will find the political will and common ground to advance and support an actual climate policy right?
/s
/s
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The more the shear keeps hurricane from forming, the more energy is in the ocean for when they do form.
Fun!
Fun!
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Just don't try to escape the heat by moving to Canada, because it's on fire. Where is BC on fire? Yes.
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Not mentioned in the article is that the Atlantic has had more than average Saharan dust this summer. That also suppresses tropical storm formation (because that air is dry) but doesn't really cool the Atlantic. If that doesn't hold up through the hurricane season, we could be in for a lot of extra storm energy.
My hope is that we'll end up seeing trains of storms following each other every few days. That tends to stir up the water and makes the surface temperature cooler. What's really devastating is three weeks with no storms followed by a low coming off Africa.
My hope is that we'll end up seeing trains of storms following each other every few days. That tends to stir up the water and makes the surface temperature cooler. What's really devastating is three weeks with no storms followed by a low coming off Africa.
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If a storm like Dorian parks over any part of land, that area will be as catastrophically destroyed as anything Katrina did by breaking the levies. But that's not going to scrub the entire state. We'll still be here for another 50 or 70 years. It's rising water that will eventually wash us away.
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Speaking comfortably from my armchair over here, it is my opinion is that life on the gulf coast is going to become untenable (and sooner rather than later). Things are bad now, but they are only going to get worse for the foreseeable future.
If you have the ability to get out, I would do so as soon as I could find a greater fool to sell the possessions that I could not take with me (i.e. house) before the supply of said fools runs out.
If you have the ability to get out, I would do so as soon as I could find a greater fool to sell the possessions that I could not take with me (i.e. house) before the supply of said fools runs out.
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Looks like Haida Gwaii is OK so far...Just don't try to escape the heat by moving to Canada, because it's on fire. Where is BC on fire? Yes.
View attachment 60246
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I
Presumably, one must agree as base stakes that there is a heat dome over the gulf as a requirement for the marine die off to have started in the first place.
Obviously the answer could be “no, that would be a completely negligible effect vs the dome itself” but it’s not mutually exclusive by default. To be clear, I have no clue.
I could be wrong, but it didn’t seem like OP was disagreeing with that base assumption, but wondering if the degree of marine die off could fuel that excess heat cycle further.
Presumably, one must agree as base stakes that there is a heat dome over the gulf as a requirement for the marine die off to have started in the first place.
Obviously the answer could be “no, that would be a completely negligible effect vs the dome itself” but it’s not mutually exclusive by default. To be clear, I have no clue.
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It seems that the last 5 years we have pondered the lack of hurricanes in July with warm surface temperatures. This seems like a recurring Ars article.
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Are there any credible predictions on what would happen to tropical hurricanes if/when the Atlantic circulation shuts down?
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The amount of energy decaying bodies can release compared to the volume of water in the Gulf and Atlantic, it is lease than a measurement error.
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If that is the question, then the answer is "No".
The Sun dumps some ~600 W/m2 of energy into the ocean every day, with another ~600 W/m2 being lost in the atmosphere.
For comparison, a human body dumps less than 1 W/m2 into the air as it cools after death.
The rest of the math is left as an exercise for the student.
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The uncertainties on the predictions will likely be larger than if the conditions were within the ranges for the data the models were generated from. And said models will very likely be modified once the real world data is in. Still not a good place for us all to be in though - you never want to be in the test subject group that's really pushing the boundaries.
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Doubful. I'd expect the response on the right to be: "Look at that! We defeated hurricaines because we didn't listen to those loser global warming pessimists! Moar oil!"
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Looking at that first temperature graph, clearly we're just a month or two early from the normal annual temperatures. As such, we can expect the line to similarly plummet a month or two early, right? Not a problem at all.
/s
/s
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Throw the all the data we have at Chat GPT!
Actually, it would be interesting to see what a modern learning machine could model. The existing hurricane models already consider a lot of factors, but it could be an actual for real interesting enterprise.
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Well, that's a warm-blooded creature just losing heat. That's not decomposition. I'm not really sure how to model the latter, so I'll just assume that all the biomass is a hydrocarbon fuel and it reacts with oxygen (basically, what happens if you burned all the biomass in the ocean?). That should be a ridiculously conservative estimate - by 3 or 4 orders of magnitude I'd bet.
Let's assume the world's oceans have a mass of 6 gigatonnes. We'll use 40 MJ/kg as the heating value (because, why not?) which leads to an enormous number of joules of thermal energy released (2.4e20). But we know there's a lot of water as well. For our analysis here, treating the specific heat of water as 4.2 kj/kg*deg. C (fresh water) is good enough. NOAA estimates there's 1.335e9 km^3 of water in the oceans at 1,000 kg per m^3. So the mass of all the oceans is something like 1.335e21 kg. Which leads to an astounding 43 microkelvin increase in the temperature of the water.
Granted, the biomass dying will bias to heating the top of the water. But I've also assumed that all the biomass is burned. In other words, everything decays as an aerobic process. Decomposition without oxygen would release a lot less energy. But we killed all the biomass, so I'm not sure how we'd have any aerobic (or anaerobic) decomposition at all. But the point being, there's really a lot of water in the oceans and the total biomass just isn't all that large a fraction.
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As I just edited in I definitely wasn't suggesting it's the primary cause, I was just wondering if it could be contributing to any meaningful extent.
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Did you account for the majority of the biomass turning into methane and carbon dioxide? And the recursive warming effects that would engender?
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There was a story about this in the last 48 hours. It seems that the Hunga, was 490 feet underwater and created vast amounts of steam which blew up to the clouds, injecting lots of water in the atmosphere. Water in the atmosphere retain temps. This happened about 1 1/2 years ago, and it seems will affect weather for several more years. Of course most volcanos toss around a lot of dirt, these particles are added to the atmosphere and block the sun making things cooler. Here comes a lot more trees and algae, jeez.But Eric, you are ALWAYS concerned about hurricane season!
On a more serious note, the prognosis looks grim. Wildly high surface temps and other unusual data.
I’m curious how much impact the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption impacts all of this. SOOO much extra water in the atmosphere, along with the additional heating effects.
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If the blasted mercury would just stop rising… but I hear that this is the coolest summer most of us will have for the rest of our lives. I for one, look forward to next year's edition of "the wind shear is enough to cap massive early hurricanes so far this year." Given current (lasting) temperature trends, the alternative article does not bode well for those looking to Space City Weather or any other meteorology team in the Gulf or East Coast.
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We Done Fucked Up
I'm at the other side of the Atlantic. North Italy is pummelled into small pieces by massive hailstorms while the South is baking in temperatures approaching 120ºF (keeping to your units..) Over here we've had the wettest and windiest June ever, a very hot and wet July and August is starting with weather more typical for November. Except for the exceptional amounts of rain.
And next year will be worse.
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Just start a rumour that they can Own The Woke Libs by buying their gulf property. They'll flood in (before they're flooded out).
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