Harvey Caused by Climate Change?

It's ludicrous to say that climate change causes any tropical storms or hurricanes. So the answer to the question is NO. That said, the warmer Gulf of Mexico can add energy to tropical storms, and make them much more severe. In the case of Harvey, it's slow movement, and persistence to hang around the Eastern gulf area is causing most of the problems. Some predicted that stationary summer air is also exacerbated by climate change.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/28/16213268/harvey-climate-change

Finally (and most speculatively), one of the most damaging aspects of Harvey is how it’s hanging around in one place, thanks to weak prevailing winds. Mann recently published a papersuggesting that such near-stationary summer weather patterns are made more common by climate change.

All these factors contributed to the size and severity of the storm. Exactly how much they contributed will have to await peer-reviewed attribution science, but logic, experience, and measurements all make clear that Harvey’s damage was worse than it would have been absent recent changes in the climate. “The storm is a bit more intense, bigger and longer lasting than it otherwise would be,” climate researcher Kevin Trenberth told Mooney.

 

To make that claim would be to say that 10 years without a major gulf storm was also caused by climate change.

And that there has never been a hurricane of this strength prior to the 20th century.

 

Flooding and Drought in the Northern hemisphere is really the issue here. There have been a number of similar occurrences, including the Pakistan flood of 2010. The following paper is a study about stationary atmospheric events. I believe that Harvey may serve as an important research mechanism to deteremine the ties to AGW.

Persistent episodes of extreme weather in the Northern Hemisphere summer have been shown to be associated with the presence of high-amplitude quasi-stationary atmospheric Rossby waves within a particular wavelength range (zonal wavenumber 6–.
...
In summary, our analysis of both historical model simulations and observational surface temperature data, strongly suggests that anthropogenic warming is impacting the zonal mean temperature profile in a manner conducive to wave resonance and a consequent increase in persistent weather extremes in the boreal summer. Combined with other additional proposed mechanisms for climate change impacts on extreme weather, this adds to the weight of evidence for a human influence on the occurrence of devastating events such as the 2003 European heat wave, the 2010 Pakistan flood and Russian heat wave, the 2011 Texas heat wave and recent floods in Europe.

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45242

 

As I have posted for the last 5 years at online forums, climate change is real, it has been real for thousands of years. Whether it is escalating beyond its natural cycle us in dispute as is whether humans can reverse the cycle and slow it down significantly.

 

There aren't too many that question the effects of greenhouse gases in warming the earth's atmosphere. You're not saying that's in doubt, are you? Some do question the severity of the warming, resultant from the CO2.

The Paris Accord is seeking to prevent any warming about 2 deg C. Since we are currently between .6 and 1 deg C, there is some time. It's important that the world stands together to fight this problem. It's a global problem that requires a global solution.

 

The Paris Accord is a cash sucking Black Hole, .... Well, for the US primarily....

Useless.

 

This all assumes that events like this have NEVER occurred prior to the industrial age and we already k ow that's not true.

 

Even as someone who think that climate change is real, I think it's stupid. A hurricane is not caused by climate change, hurricane are regular phenomenons. However, the increase of strenght and frequency can be caused by the climate change.

 

Much of Harvey's damage was due to the lack of regulations in Houston which has paved over 25K acres of wetlands that could have absorbed much of the water, replacing it with woefully inadequate storm water pipes.

 

I agree with everything you said, other than the "stupid" part.

 

A lot of truth in what you say. It will get worse, throughout the US, with Trump's new EPA guidelines.

https://qz.com/1064364/hurricane-ha...ed-urban-development-and-wetland-destruction/

And that’s before Trump came into office and started removing layers of regulation. Just 10 days before Harvey struck, the president signed an executive order that rescinded federal flood protection standards put in place by his predecessor, Barack Obama. FEMA and the US Housing and Urban Development Department, the two federal agencies that will handle most of the huge pile of cash expected for the rebuilding of Houston, would have been forced to require any rebuilding to confirm to new, safer codes. Now, they won’t.
...
To take another example: Obama had greatly expanded the number of wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act. This federal law requires developers who destroy wetlands to mitigate the ecological effects, for instance by creating new wetlands elsewhere. In February, the Trump administration said it would repeal (paywall) Obama’s decision, meaning a lot more wetlands would lose that protection. (The repeal process is still unfolding.)

 

Also from Houston not following the process for handling natural disasters.

 

The LIES that Trump used to back up his decision are unprecedented, and very irresponsible. Read all about them.

http://www.businessinsider.com/fact...nt-2017-6/#just-a-tiny-temperature-decrease-2

Trump went on: "In fact," he said, "14 days of carbon emissions from China alone would wipe out the gains from America — and this is an incredible statistic — would totally wipe out the gains from America's expected reductions in the year 2030."

That claim also does not appear to be accurate. With the US abandoning its commitments, Climate Interactive calculates that by 2025, the country would emit 6.7 gigatons of CO2 a year instead of the 5.3 gigatons of CO2 a year that the US would emit under the agreement.

As of 2013, China emitted 9.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide a year — which comes out to 0.025 gigatons a day. Fourteen days' worth would be 0.35 gigatons — far less than the annual US decrease.

Another example of Trump alienation. His legacy will be "the Great Divider".

 

Many right wingers in their hate and delusional thinking actually blame Obama:








Get this:



New Poll Shows A Third of Louisiana Republicans Blame President Obama for Katrina Response



If this doesn’t terrify you about the amount of misinformation and sheer ignorance in this country, I’m not sure what will. A recent poll done by Public Policy Polling found that 29% of respondents in Louisiana blamed President Obama for the poor response following Hurricane Katrina.

How many blamed President Bush? Less than those who blamed President Obama. Only 28% of those polled blamed Bush for the terrible response by our federal government following Hurricane Katrina.




And possibly just as sad, 44% said they weren’t sure who to blame.

No, this isn’t satire.

A quick refresher course since it’s obviously needed — Hurricane Katrina happened three years before Barack Obama became President!

Let’s just look at the question and numbers:

Who do you think was more responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina: George W. Bush or Barack Obama?

George W. Bush: 28%

Barack Obama: 29%

Not sure: 44%

It’s absolutely ridiculous for anyone to blame President Obama for the response organized nearly an entire presidential term before he ever took his oath of office.

Now some might dismiss the poll because it was done by PPP, which does lean left. However, when you look at the poll numbers themselves, the vast majority of respondents (82% to be exact) identified themselves as conservative. Which does makes sense because the poll was targeting probable Republican primary voters.

Which only highlights just how incompetent many Republicans truly are.



Because it’s one thing to not understand which branch of government is in charge of what, or even how a Constitutional Amendment is passed, but to blame a President for something that happened three years before he ever took office more so than you do the actual President that oversaw the botched relief efforts, that’s not even insanity—it’s stupidity.

Then like I said, it’s equally as sad that almost half of the respondents didn’t even know who to blame. That means, when you factor in the 29% who blamed President Obama, a whopping 73%of the Republicans polled in Louisiana weren’t aware of who the President was in 2005.

That’s a terrifying statistic.

It would be one thing if this poll targeted information such as the health care law or our national debt, two items that are clouded in mystery thanks to right-wing rhetoric, but it didn’t.

It asked a very basic, indisputable question and 73% of those Republicans polled said they either didn’t know who to blame, or they blamed a man who wouldn’t even become President until over 3 years after the devastating hurricane.

Then again, many Republicans actually blame President Obama for our economic collapse. But at least that batch of misinformation is derived from an event that happened only about a year before he become President—not three years.

So they’re a little closer — but still completely, utterly, embarrassingly and horribly wrong.



https://forwardprogressives.com/new...s-blame-president-obama-for-katrina-response/



Utterly incredible! When will members of the far right ever learn to think rationally?

 

Perhaps it is true. This is now being called "the Worst Flood Ever".

 

By the usual suspects.

 

So, just asking, but did the distribution of over 100 Trillion gallons of the gulf lower the sea state?

Better question, what impact will the pervasive cloud cover have on temperatures in the region for the effected time? (Temps were anywhere from 10-20 F lower during the storm..)

Best question, how much heat energy was transferred out of the gulf because of the storm?

 

They couldn't prevent the storm. I am not sure how much your process could have mitigated damage. Even in mandatory evacuations, it isn't as if they can really make people leave. They don't go door to door and look under every bed and in every closet. I have been through hurricanes before. If you told me Harvey was going to come to my city, I would still stay.

 

The process is followed to minimize deaths.

 

If 10 years without a hurricane is due to Climate Change, then give me some more Climate Change.
Members of the major media — who apparently moonlight as climate scientists — are already politicizing Hurricane Harvey, insisting the storm proves the validity of the global warming theory, and mocking Republicans who disagree.
https://news.grabien.com/story-montage-media-politicize-hurricane-harvey-blame-global-warmi

 

I believe the people that got hit by the tsunami several years ago will disagree with that bit of sensationalism.

 

When it gets above 4000 ppm let us know.

 

pressure inside the eye? not related to climate change.

wind speed? not related to climate change.

stalled over Texas? not related to climate change.

high volume of moisture? that may be related to climate change.

though i havent seen any evidence yet that storms are increasing in volumes of moisture.

 

It is likely the warming of our oceans and atmosphere have indeed played a role in the severity of storms in the last decades, Our atmosphere can now carry more water and the engine of hurricanes has been souped up. This is probably just the harbinger of things to come and no one can do a damn thing beyond bracing for impact.
Get ready for a bumpy ride.

 

Fair enough but I'm not sure it's a matter of wetlands as much as urban sprawl in general. As cities grow you have more roads,parking lots sidewalks on and on. The paving of America is not good for natural water runoff and absorption.