Did climate change impact Hurricane Harvey?

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Why do you keep repeating this lie, the experts don’t agree with you.
I quoted them in early posts explicitly showing you were wrong with your conclusions.
lynnvinc said:
There is sufficient data for hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons (all being the same thing) globally to indicate global warming/climate change/greenhouse effect (as it has variously been called) is increasing the intensity of them (the global dataset of them); also some evidence it is increasing their frequency, though that evidence is not as robust as the evidence for increased intensity.

There is also the science, physics, and theory re GW and weather patterns and many studies from different angles to explain and support that evidence.

Since we are now living in a globally warmed world and as people concerned about life on earth we should not start out with a “null hypothesis” (as scientists do), and the sea surface temps have increased, even more so in the Gulf of Mexico and along the east coast of the US, we can understand that global warming most likely did impact Hurricane Harvey –
(1) making it more intense than it would have been without global warming and its effects;
(2) giving it more precipitation and causing more flooding; and
(3) enhancing the stalling pattern that led to even more dramatic flooding in Houston and elsewhere (as research on how GW impacts Rossby waves, has indicated).

Take it or leave it… I presume you will leave it. 🙂
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Selective data.

Nowadays with the internet, we can spot it and bring it to peoples’ attention more easily.
 
Theo520 said:
Why do you keep repeating this lie, the experts don’t agree with you.
I quoted them in early posts explicitly showing you were wrong with your conclusions.
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Not a lie.

I will only admit that the science behind CC-C/H/T is not as robust as the science behind CC is happening. And that is mainly because of the small data set for C/H/T (a threat to statistical conclusion validity, which has nothing to do with whether or not there is a link) and the more factors that go into them (some not related to CC), which would impact whether CC is impacting their frequency.

But there is plenty of evidence and confidence for people concerned about life on earth to act now to mitigate CC (including how it is impacting C/H/T), as well as for sincere policy-makers who have our best interests at heart.
 
vz71 said:
So before anyone should be economically hurt for your cause, we should make certain the hardship is justified.

You leaving out pertinent information shows that you do not care for those that could be hurt.
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I know you people here think unrealistic policy implications should determine science, but you are way off for 2 reasons:
  1. Increased C/H/T intensity and perhaps frequency is not the only reason to mitigate CC. CC is contributing (and will be contributing much more in the future) to many other harms, including serious threats to food productivity. There are probably more than 100 reasons we should mitigate CC, C/H/T intensity being just one. So even if you reject that CC is impacting these, there are still other reasons we should mitigate. My bringing up this OP topic was to show here is one more reason to mitigate, not to suggest we should not mitigate if we don’t accept the OP thesis, for mercy’s sake.
  2. Mitigation can be done in ways that actually save us money and enhance our lives, if we put our minds and hearts into it. However, since we have stalled for over 30 years in doing these things – preferring to live profligately, wastefully, and inefficiently – there are many more harms in the pipes and it will take more effort to mitigate. Still it can probably be done down to 75% reduction in GHG emissions and land use change (as Ridgerunner suggests) without harming our pocketbooks or lifestyles. It would take some 20 or so years to implement all that, so after 20 years, we’ll see if we might have to tighten our belts a bit (which might be a good health move for the obese).
There are also spiritual reasons to mitigate – even if there are no laws re CC, it is not morally right to harm and kill people or harm their property and food sources, and it is not right to harm unnecessarily others of God’s creation. JPII, BXVI, and Pope Francis have been admonishing us for 27 years to do the needful in mitigating CC, but their words fall on the deaf ears.
 
lynnvinc said:
, it is not morally right to harm and kill people or harm their property and food sources, .
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So why do you, yourself, still persist in the morally wrong behavior of “harming and killing people” and “harming their property and food sources”? you have said on these forums that you believe you still do these things, even with your Chevy Volt and what not.

If you really believe the stuff you are saying, that we are “harming and killing people”, why don’t you stop it completely?

A Chevy Volt does not fit the needs of every family and not everyone can replace their entire electrical needs with solar panels so please stop calling us immoral murders for not doing so.

And while we are at it, lets not pretend that the production of the batteries in your car and your solar panels don’t harm the environment in any way.
 
Fair question.

Of course we all have to live and get around, etc. The earth systems take up about one-half of our CO2 emissions. The point is to reduce these as much as possible, without harm to ourselves, and certainly not hold one’s breath until one dies. 🙂

So when engaging in some mitigation measure the question should be, “Does this help me reduce my GHG emissions or help absorb CO2 (like planting more trees, etc),” and not “Does this reduce my GHG emissions down to zero,” which would be impossible, since we have to breathe…and eat, and survive.

And it is not always easy to figure that out, but with some thought, research, and prayer for God’s help, one can probably do better than they are now. God only expects us to do the best we can, not beyond our capabilities.

Hope that helps.
 
That bullet you quote (saying I ignored it) is about the frequency of cyclone, not the increased intensity (which is what the OP is about). As mentioned, even though there is some evidence of increased frequency (despite what the bullet says), it is not as strong as evidence for increased intensity. I’ll admit that. No problem. Time will resolve those issues.
 
More like statistics - it was bound to happen sooner or later…
 
They used terms like “once in 1000 years storm” to describe Harvey so it was barely possible (not at all likely) to have happen in a non-warmed world.

I suggested to some climate scientists that perhaps they could do some calculations about what its probability would have been, given the initial formation of the hurricane, of becoming a Cat 4, stalling, & that level of precip, say, in a pre-1970 climate vs. what the probability of all that would be in our current warmed world. I’m thinking the answer would be something like .001 probability (.1%) of it reaching Cat 4 and stalling (re Rossby waves) & releasing that much of precip in a pre-1970s climate vs. perhaps ?? a .15 probability (15%) of all that in a warmed world, given the initial formation of that hurricane at that time & place.

I guess one could say hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons (as well as heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods, etc) will probably happen sooner rather than later in a globally warmed world with warmer atmosphere with more H2O vapor and warming seas, and longer, stronger Rossby waves. There is just more energy in our earth system with global warming, which can take various forms making such events more likely…loading the dice for them.

Anyway, we will be getting some rainfall from Hurricane Katia here in the drought-stricken RGV. Great! While my prayers go out for victims of Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Katia…and the recent earthquake in Mexico, and flooding in Asia, etc.
 
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Climatologists are the soothsayers of the 21st Century . The chances of winning a lottey are infinitesimally small,yet people do it all the time!

Unfortunately, the only way we will ever be sure of global warming would be after the fact! Long after!
 
Meteorologists do good. Climatologists do guess work.

Truth is, they haven’t been around long enough to be proven. Climatology is a long term game!
 
If climate change is impacting hurricane frequency or intensity, it will likely be 40 years before we find out.
 
That CC is impacting hurricane intensity and will be continuing to increase that intensity on into the future is fairly well established. Re frequency there is some debate about it, one idea being that the more intense hurricanes will sort of take the wind out of the sail for more frequent hurricanes – the idea that while hurricanes will likely become more intense, they will be less frequent – this is under debate re frequency.

There is the theory & knowledge about hurricanes & other factors underlying the CC-Hurricane intensity link: that warmer sea temps will give more energy for hurricanes to become more intense, that a warmer atmosphere will hold more water vapor to come down as precip, and that Rossby waves may become stronger and longer, causing greater stalling patterns.

There is some theory and knowledge and evidence of the underlying CC-Hurricane frequency link, such as the conditions for more frequent hurricanes becoming stronger. See On tropical cyclone frequency and the warm pool area .

So increasing hurricane intensity is not much under debate, while increased (or decreased) frequency is.

Perhaps you are implying that even if it takes us 40 years to find out beyond a shadow of a doubt, enough to convince the most ardent denialist, prudence requires us to do the needful now in mitigating CC and working to reduce the factors that make hurricanes more intense and perhaps more frequent, as well as mitigate CC so as to reduce its many other harms. That’s what the Catholic Church is asking us to do.
 
Actually, I didn’t say anything one way or another as to what our policy ought to be to mitigate climate change. What I am saying is that you cannot use micro data (one hurricane) to say anything about macro data (hurricane frequency and intensity). In addition, establishing causality between macro data, i.e. climate change and hurricane intensity and frequency, is something we need to be very careful about. Correlation does not imply causation and we need to be careful of spurious correlations.
 
lynnvinc said:
That CC is impacting hurricane intensity and will be continuing to increase that intensity on into the future is fairly well established. Re frequency there is some debate about it, one idea being that the more intense hurricanes will sort of take the wind out of the sail for more frequent hurricanes – the idea that while hurricanes will likely become more intense, they will be less frequent – this is under debate re frequency.
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It isn’t established that AGW is impacting hurricane intensity as you seem to be insisting. Data for tropical storms before the age of data recording is more scant and unreliable than temperature data, about which there is already considerable disagreement. Hurricanes were not categorized by intensity before 1924; what does that say about our assumptions? We can certainly find historical records and know that a major tropical storm event happened, but estimates of their intensity are guesses at best and no CC policy should be mandated on their basis. Further, the historical record doesn’t go beyond a few hundred years for most of the world. So again, not sufficient data to make this assertion.

There should be no question in anyone’s mind that we have had numerous extremely severe storms over the centuries and millennia before we could measure them. But AGW’ers would have us believe none are equal to today’s storms. I’ll have to dig up the link, but there was some evidence found through sedimentary deposits that it is possible that a hurricane greater than Category 5 struck Belize sometime before 1500. But likely no historical record of this event so we can’t make any judgement let alone CC policy over this and many, many other events we have no measurements for.

We can’t even call Houston area 100 year storms accurately. Not after having several of these so-called 100 year storms in the last 30 years.

AGW’ers insisted that Katrina presaged a period in which we would get disastrous hurricanes every year. That didn’t happen. So now the prediction is being modified to fit the AGW view.
 
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Zzyzx_Road:
AGW’ers insisted that Katrina presaged a period in which we would get disastrous hurricanes every year. That didn’t happen. So now the prediction is being modified to fit the AGW view.
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Good post.

Last year when “a Harvey” didn’t materialize the warming crowd were not saying: “We’ll this looks good!” No. They ignored it.

There have been “record events” concerning “weather” virtually yearly for as long as I can remember.

The “chalking up Harvey” to AGW is superstition.

If we talk about a weather event or season as “normal” the global warmists chide us saying “that’s weather. Not climate”.

When they do it, they pronounce it as “science”.

They ignore their false claims.

They ignore their demigods who by their own examples are not “Believers” in this superstition.

What the global warming game is all about is “control”, more GOVERNMENT (this time an international Government), money making on the backs of “regular folk” and population control. Don’t be fooled.

The Pope Francis admonitions (mis)used on some these threads are not persuasive.

Why?

Because they ignore the fact that WE ARE carrying our actions to help the environment.

It ignores the global warming elites profligate carbon footprints (you see some of the most outrageous excuses here from the “believers” supporting their “priests” and “priestesses” having three or four mansions (the Obama’s are looking at a large parcel on Martha’s Vineyard now. Apparently the giant homes in Chicago, California, and Washington D.C. are not “enough” for the Obamas.

You will hear almost no complaints about this from the “believers”—so much for imminent catastrophe of the globe).

And they ignore other things that Pope Francis has called for.

And they ignore the ORDER of things that Pope Francis calls for (such as respect for life being foundational).

Keep up the good work Zzyzx_Road.

God bless.

Cathoholic
 
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Can we pretty much at least agree that a warmer ocean contributed to these devastating hurricanes?
 
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