Not-so-lovely Rita 22 September 05

I asked this on RealClimate, but no one responded, and usually they do if I’m wrong (but not if I’m totally wacko & off the track). Maybe they just can’t say…

It occurred to me that an iceless far north (black) Pacific or Arctic ocean (see previous entry below) could really absorb a lot of heat during summer with midnight sun beating down. Dan earlier mentioned something about a glass of cold water rapidly warming after the ice melts. Does anyone have any ideas about this? I understand as it is right now, hurricanes could reach as far north as San Diego (and one in history did), possibly LA. What I read was that in a GW world hurricanes would increase in intensity, but stick in their same places as today, but I wonder…

BTW, Rita was heading straight toward me in the Rio Grande Valley of TX, but they expect her to veer north between Corpus Christi and Galveston. I think we’ll just get some winds & rain here. But who knows, some of the hurricanes have been acting erratically, jogging back & forth. And someday, we may get one square on. I just hope Americans, esp. Bush & Co., wake up to global warming.

Hi all,

See this link

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/browsh.html

It shows Rita in the gulf. However, if you look a couple of grids to the right there is a shape that look so mirror this. I was just wondering if this is yet another event or if this type of thing is standard.

If any one knows I would love to understand.

Many thanks Ian.

Oh and to all our American friends who post on this board. Please be safe. Am think of you.

Thanks Mark, the links are great. We’ve had the images of planet earth from space for some time now and although you can’t see the CO2 they are a great aid in explaining the fragility of the planet and the vulnerability of us humans on it.

Maybe these hurricane images will achieve iconic status and be useful as visual summaries of the problems we face unless we get a grip and reduce our CO2 output dramatically. (Intensity and extent!!)

Readers may appreciate the Tyndall Centre’s new report on “Decarbonising the UK” available from their site. http://www.tyndall.ac.uk Lots of scenarios presented.

Oh, and I’ve been “away from the keyboard” for a bit so, a belated thank you to Dan for his kind comments below in the “pause” blog.

And has anyone else noticed the bad news from Indonesia – the peat is on fire chucking huge quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere? Read it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1561948,00.html

Cheers

Douglas Coker

I think with water temps being in the 50’s and low 60’s even with global warming this would be too cool to feed hurricanes. You need to be worried about earth quakes….

The lovely Rita and Katrina are trying to tell us that 380 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere is too high. While commentators sit around discussing when CO2 levels will reach 450 ppm, lots more lovely ladies will come knocking to see if we have got the message.

Instead of just talking about slowing our emissions a little bit, why dont we act. Lets admit that 380 ppm is too high.

There is one group of people who can reduce atmospheric CO2 levels, the world’s farmers. They have the ability to feed 6 billion people, as well as the potential ability to provide the bulk of the world’s energy.

Farmers in Finland and Austria supply wood chips to heat houses and schools in local towns. Farmers in Australia grow sugar cane to be turned into ethanol for transport fuel, while the residue provides heat to generate electricity. Farmers in Brazil are producing ethanol and electricity on a grand scale at less cost than fossil fuel. Farmers in New Zealand are growing trees on hills too steep for agriculture, to produce low energy wood products and bioenergy. Farmers in ancient Japan and the Amazon buried charcoal to improve soil fertility and moisture holding capacity. This buried carbon can stay in the soil for 5000 years.

What would happen if the farmers of the world were encouraged to produce bioenergy and store carbon on a grand scale, as well as feed the ever increasing world’s population. Fortunately a group has been working on this proposition and their work can be seen on www.accstrategy.org .

This group shows that if the world’s best modern and ancient farming practices are employed, along with some modern technology, CO2 levels could be brought back to below 300 ppm by 2060. At the same time, much of the world’s energy would be produced above ground, and there would be less reliance on hurricane battered oil wells.

I am watching Rita as a humble farmer from New Zealand. There are over a billion of us around the world, so please dont underestimate us.

Maybe, when Rita’s grand-daughters come knocking in 2061, they wont come barging in as cat 5 hurricanes, but as welcome tropical storms to provide summer rain for Texan farmers.

http://www.hwn.org/

Hurricane watch . net gives advisories every 3 hours to local and GMT (Zulu) on developing storms in the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the US.

cheers

Colin

Jimbo got it, plus the California Current runs from N-S, making northward progression of hurricanes problematic.

It is interesting to see that this year and last Alaskan fisherpersons are finding subtropical fish in their nets and on their lines, confounding the experts, but still the waters won’t be warm enough to support hurricanes.

Best,

D

From a humble UK business school lecturer to an informed New Zealand farmer:

Michael you are so very right – the world needs coordinated action, and we need that action now. High profile figures need to become accountable – they need to walk the talk as we Brits sometimes say. Global warming is still not far enough up the corporate and government agenda in my experience. Of equal importance or maybe more importantly, at a personal level mitigating against ongoing global warming is not even on the agenda of most world citizens.

I think we need more honesty so that networks and communities around the world can become more informed, can have increased confidence in the evidence and become less doubtful about the Global Warming truth. As Mark has said in his book we need to keep repeating the Global warming message and we need more virtual spaces like this to inform the wider community. (Directing more people traffic to spaces like this must surely be an immediate next step that can only help our cause). But how de we create an increased sense of readiness to acknowledge the evidence so that mild governments, dastardly businesses and deluded tabloid media entities can awaken and cause some coherent action with some sort of urgency? The sad reality is for example that in the UK, life-style problems of celebrity queens like Kate will continue to steal the front-page thunder (sic) even when world threatening hurricanes such as Katrina or Rita threaten to hit, hit or have hit our world coasts.

What you can see appears to be TS Phillipe, which formed just before Rita and has meandered up the Atlantic, gaining Hurricane status and then dissipating again.

The latest advisory from the NHC can be found at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT2+shtml/230848.shtml

Next storm awaited and will be named “Stan”.

Cheers

Mark

They have an advantage of understanding GW at a more intimate level than scientists. It occurred to me the other day that many people live so detached from nature, wilderness, a farm (or perhaps from their earlier experiences of these), that they have no basic sense of ecological principles, how intricately all of nature is interconnected, how if you change one thing it reverberates throughout the system in ways so complex that even scientists cannot predict or totally understand.

People may intellectually understand that food comes from farms, but their gut-intimate knowledge is that it comes from grocery stores. And they have no idea that it comes from the entire earth-ecosystem, which needs to be healthy.

When I hear the Christian Right frame environmentalism as “saving the baby rabbits while neglecting human fetuses” and critize environmentalists for that, I’m stunned by their lack of knowledge & lunacy.

I was so fortunate to grow up near wilderness, which we kids loved to explore. Once when new born rabbits got washed out in a flash arroyo mini-flood (which is the geological nature of arroyos), we tried to save them & keep them alive. Perhaps because they looked so much like human fetuses, I’ve always had an aversion to abortion. Sometimes I feel I could kick some people, but I wouldn’t want to kill them by failure to turn off lights not in use.

They have an advantage of understanding GW at a more intimate level than scientists. It occurred to me the other day that many people live so detached from nature, wilderness, a farm (or perhaps from their earlier experiences of these), that they have no basic sense of ecological principles, how intricately all of nature is interconnected, how if you change one thing it reverberates throughout the system in ways so complex that even scientists cannot predict or totally understand.

People may intellectually understand that food comes from farms, but their gut-intimate knowledge is that it comes from grocery stores. And they have no idea that it comes from the entire earth-ecosystem, which needs to be healthy.

When I hear the Christian Right frame environmentalism as “saving the baby rabbits while neglecting human fetuses” and critize environmentalists for that, I’m stunned by their lack of knowledge & lunacy.

I was so fortunate to grow up near wilderness, which we kids loved to explore. Once when new born rabbits got washed out in a flash arroyo mini-flood (which is the geological nature of arroyos), we tried to save them & keep them alive. Perhaps because they looked so much like human fetuses, I’ve always had an aversion to abortion. Sometimes I feel I could kick some people, but I wouldn’t want to kill them by failure to turn off lights not in use.

SH:

I like your ideas, and fundamental human nature needs to be overcome: sweep away denial and find good leadership. I fail to see this happening today.

When the people lead, the leaders will follow.

Best,

D

Hi Lynn,

Your question was answered but I have additional thoughts about Rita and now is the time to share them. It appears the problem is high SSTs and logically lowering these high SSTs may be the way to help mitigate this hurricane problem. Can we do this? Read on!

As Mark mentioned, we have the 3rd highest intense hurricane on record and Rita is now confirmed by the experts as being even more powerful than Katrina was. I think this makes even the most skeptical folks wonder a bit about the GW link.

The area where Rita entered the Gulf is the place where the warm currents exit the Gulf to become the Gulf Stream. It seems that this is the best place to start picking up heat energy as the higher-temperature water would be there.

Also, when a hurricane travels against a warm current, then it picks up more energy since “more” warm water will pass underneath it as compared to a hurricane traveling in the same direction of a warm current. It may depend on the relative velocities of the ocean current and hurricane plus the surface temperature as to the extra heat energy transferred to the hurricane.

The principle I just explained is the same concept in the design of a counter-flow heat exchanger. That particular heat-exchanger design is the most efficient means of transferring heat from a warm stream to a cold stream.

I see these hurricanes in a similar light. Similar physics! The results of Katrina and Rita intensifying due to the path of these storms going against the warm waters exiting the Gulf seem to suggest that I may be on the right track with my thinking.

With that said, I will now suggest a geo-engineering idea about transferring surface energy using the water located in the cold depths in the center of the Gulf to decrease the intensity of future hurricanes in the Gulf region. Also, by moving some excess surface heat to the vast cold sink of lower ocean depths, we have the side benefit of reducing GW. Nice “side benefit” is it not?

This idea requires commitment of resources to say the least. It depends partly on where we want to direct our resources and for me constantly rebuilding this Gulf region while these intense storms continue to destroy this area may not be the best idea. Allowing the seas to rise from GW does not seem like the best option either if we could use our ingenuity in a prudent way to help avoid it.

We have limited options and transferring excess surface heat elsewhere is one of them be it reflecting it back into space (reflective pavement) or employing an available thermal sink and a natural thermal gradient to power that transfer of energy.

Reducing emissions may not be sufficient as the current carbon buildup is driving the problem so much that time is not on our side with that focus alone in my opinion.

The thermal gradient of the ocean not only is a way to transfer excess surface heat from using the cold water of lower depths but it is also a renewable energy resource to generate electricity. Check the site below so you understand clearly the potential of what actually can be done.

http://www.greenenergyjobs.com/otec-intro.php

The above site explains an interesting concept worthy of your time to explore as I have done today based on my thoughts on energy transfer and climate change. Anyone, please take the time to read and comment on my thoughts as I think they may have enough merit to provide another prong in Peter Winter’s desire for us to have a multi-prong focus.

GW/CC requires us to get serious as Michael Cambridge recently pointed out in his post what farmers can do.

GW/CC is a problem all of us need to be aware of and all of us can be part of a solution focus as articulated by Stephen Hickman.

In addition, Colin Keyes favors technology which creates fuel from carbon capture from the air. That idea is a good one and the original concept was to use solar energy but energy from the ocean thermal gradient could power these systems once the concept becomes an actual technology.

Again, the site below:

http://www.greenenergyjobs.com/otec-intro.php

Based on the above site’s information on ocean thermal energy conversion, I calculated that 15 ships can absorb the 0.85 W/m2 earth’s heat imbalance on 38 percent of the Gulf ocean surface area and provide 1,500 megawatts of electricity and 6,750,000 gallons of fresh water daily. Fresh water is the major byproduct of this process. This process also has the potential of decreasing the ocean surface temperature of these shallow waters by a degree Celsius every 2 years. No Joke!

The calculations may not include all the “complex” feedback factors but I share them for “peer” review by others on “this” blog who may provide additional light on my thoughts. Calculations below:

Gulf total surface Area: 1,500,000 km2

Shallow ocean under 20 m deep: 38 percent of above Gulf area

Heat Imbalance from GW: 0.85 W/m2

Time needed to raise 20 m of water 1 C: 2 years (based on earth’s heat imbalance and the specific heat of water)

Calculated Energy from the information above required to be removed from Gulf to achieve balance: 170,000 MW (1 MW = 1 megawatt).

Based on this, 1,700 ships each generating 100 MW would work but when you take into account the byproduct of the fresh water of 450,000 m3 per day per ship, then this number reduces considerably. The fresh water is mentioned in the same web site and it is more of a factor than the electrical energy extracted.

Calculation below:

Latent Heat of Vaporization of water: 2,260 KJ/kg

Density of water: 997.1 kg/m3

Volume of water evaporated in one day from one 100 MW power producing ship: 450,000 m3

Interestingly, this represents a major energy benefit as the evaporation of sea water to make fresh water is what the hurricanes do so well and this is a lot of energy which also lowers sea temperature.

Based on the physics and the numbers from the OTEC website, I calculated this energy to be 11,737 MW per ship and when you add the insignificant 100 MW of electricity to it, then only 15 ships would be required.

So, 15 ships each generating 100 MW of electrical energy plus creating 450,000 m3 of fresh water will also negate the earth’s heat imbalance of 0.85 W/m2 for 38 percent of the Gulf region lowering temperatures by 1 C every 2 years.

Yes, please read that again and if you know basic physics and mathematics, then I invite you to do your own simple calculations with the same data or assert your comments on any false simplifying assumptions I may be making which are relevant to negate the results of my calculations.

The reason for this vast difference in energy lays in the small temperature gradient to create the electrical energy from an OTEC system. The energy used to condense water in the “normal” power cycle can be considered “waste heat” like in the typical power plant. Fossil-fuel power plants can achieve 40-60 percent efficiency which is based mostly on the high temperature difference associated with fossil-fuel power-plant cycles.

By contrast, the temperature difference using ocean thermal gradients is so low that it will lower thermal efficiency considerably but since this system requires no fuel, then this is not a problem. It just means that most of the ocean thermal gradient energy extracted is going to condense fresh water rather than to make electricity.

So, in order to produce a little electrical energy, you have lots of condensed water which is also “waste heat”. But this waste heat is actually extracted out of the surface water from utilizing the cold water pumped from the lower ocean depths. In this way the waste heat becomes extracted “global warming” heat from the surface. The waste heat results in lots of condensed fresh water as explained earlier.

You may also look at this idea as simply using some of the vast cold water of the ocean depths to cool the ocean surface and provide a little electricity and lots of fresh water as beneficial byproducts.

I like ideas in particular that have a multiple economic and natural-capital benefit and they should be analyzed not in isolated economic terms but by the total accumulation of benefits.

This is the economic thinking which Mark would envision and many on this blog have come to embrace as opposed to the one-dimensional economic thinking articulated so cleverly by neoconservatives, Mark’s nemesis (and spoiled-brat) Lomborg, and our once resident contrarian Norbert who finally endured enough humiliation expressing his convoluted views to finally flee this site. I pity him if he returns now and suggests again that warm waters have no influence on hurricanes. I am glad he has better things to do now.

Back to OTEC systems. So, we create clean renewable energy with no GHG emissions and decrease ocean surface heat contributing to global warming and at the same time decrease hurricane intensity in the Gulf. I like ideas which have a multiple economic benefit.

Other ideas on this order include repaving road surfaces with reflective calcium-carbonate artificially made from sequestered carbon providing a storage site for sequestered carbon in solid form and not as a gas which others fear would leak (solids are incapable of leaking).

Reflective pavement will reduce both energy and carbon emissions needed to cool buildings by eliminating those urban heat islands, and reflect excess heat back into space countering the decreased albedo from melting ice. This idea is not sufficient by itself (I did some calculations on it) but it is a good idea that has multiple benefits and, along with other ideas, it may help us get earth’s heat imbalance back to equilibrium.

Recycle heat from power plants, recapture the energy from liquefying LNG (since we will utilize this fossil fuel resource more after peak oil), increase energy efficiency everywhere, and monitor our energy use to find the best ways to reduce it, build more wind generators, decrease our transportation energy with lighter vehicles when possible and boldly implement every other good idea we all know is important to get our emission level down to the point where our planet’s excess carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide buildup will start decreasing rather than increasing.

Then, we start to focus more on taking that extra carbon and out of the air and reduce that buildup from hundreds of years of burning fossil fuels. With vast renewable systems in place in our future world, then the fuel derived from atmospheric carbon capture becomes more viable. As we increased our electrical efficiency, we enable more energy to be used to replace necessary stocks of petrol chemicals long after peak oil eliminated our best available fossil-fuel resources.

Keep the planes flying for now! Why? My understanding is that the contrails are helping to cool the planet more than the carbon emissions from those planes are adding to our carbon buildup.

What a dilemma we have here! All that carbon from the exhaust of those planes is adding to the carbon buildup but those contrails are slowing the ice melt.

Hard choices but this is the real world and it appears to me that the lesser of two evils is to keep the planes flying because we need those “cooling contrails” to make the atmosphere more reflective until we can reduce the carbon buildup from reducing energy use more at ground level.

Unless someone can show me where I am incorrect, I stand by my current assessment on flying. I would hate to suggest making the atmosphere more reflective from increased pollution from coal-power plants which emit cooling sulfates because this entails more sulfur pollution that we would rather reduce. The planes provide a transportation function and less pollution than coal power plants.

Plant more trees! Convert sea water to fresh water via solar energy and use this water to reforest desert areas? The Sierra Desert was once a Sierra Forest thousands of years ago.

However, maybe we need to leave these deserts alone since they tend to be more reflective than forests but maybe the extra carbon sequestration would be better.

I do not know if this idea is feasible but I suggest it simply as another idea to consider that can help reduce our carbon buildup. We certainly have less forest now than we did in the past. Maybe we need to create forests where they are not. Can we do this? I do not know but it would be interesting if we could find a way to create a forest out of a desert area. Maybe the new forest can generate the required rainfall through transpiration and lower the required water import necessary to make them start growing?

Where do we get the water? From the OTEC ships I mentioned earlier! Check the site out if you had not already done so. What if we used OTEC ships to provide the drought-stricken areas of Africa with both fresh water and electricity?

Now, some may be concerned about transferring heat to the ocean depths from OTEC ships and we all need to think about the greater ecology. I calculated in the past that if we applied the 0.85 W/m2 heat imbalance of the earth to all the world’s oceans, then it would require 6 centuries to heat all that massive amount of water 1 C.

What this tells me is that the world’s oceans are an incredible heat sink available to us in the short term (centuries) to help solve some of our energy concerns, and allow the earth to reduce the carbon buildup which cannot be affected sufficiently through current emission-reduction strategies (we have yet to balance the current carbon buildup by not adding more to it!).

Humans built giant pyramids with huge heavy stones precisely laid and accomplished this feat without the use of any fossil fuels and without the aid of modern technology. With modern technology, we put men on the moon within a decade, created a communication link via the Internet, and we can talk to anyone anywhere using wireless cell phones.

We also spend enormous sums on our military-industrial complex and fight costly wars. So much of our resources are directed to destruction for our “protection” but I wonder about the logic of protecting ourselves by means of the intentional destruction of someone else’s infrastructure.

Does this not invite someone to attempt to destroy our own infrastructure even more? Ingenuity is available to all humans! All humans are ingenious provided by nature’s own natural-selection process. This is just my way of looking at it. Furthermore, rebuilding infrastructure requires energy and creates more carbon emissions. We sure have plenty of resources for rebuilding! Or will we continue to have these natural resources? Constant rebuilding does deplete our natural capital unless it is recycled.

What if we had a strong focus and desire to prevent GW/CC and made a decision to collectively use all our best ideas and all our resources plus to make the bold decisions we must make to insure our success? I think we could be successful and achieve what may be considered today as impossible.

Maybe these hurricanes are a form of education and we unfortunately need them to raise our degree of concern high enough where we take the future more seriously and not dismiss any good idea prematurely but to strive to make all our best ideas work for us and to restore the natural balance.

With more hurricanes of higher intensity, it is becoming self evident that the GW-hurricane equation is moving to a higher degree of certainty because there is no debate over the detrimental effects that these storms have. This is a hard form of education. I just hope we are learning the lessons nature is trying to teach us.

How many more lessons will be required? I have had enough already. It is time we get this one right! We can do it! It can be done!

All the best to everyone and this includes those I did not mention by name.

Special regards to Mark Lynas who wrote about hurricanes in the Washington Post long ago. That article led me to read his book High Tide and led me to this blog community.

All the very best,

Dan

The reason I’m asking is that I’m writing a screenplay about global warming (I’ve got to do what I can to inform people). Among other things, it involves a freaky hurricane. I chose San Francisco, because I’m familiar with it & for other reasons. However, I’d like to keep this near-future script within the outside bounds of scientific possibility. So it could be LA.

I do know a hurricane almost hit San Diego in 1858, and the hurricane region comes up Baja Calif.

What if the Humbolt Current was stalled or warmed (or not cooled as much) from Arctic heating or melting? And other factors converged. An LA hurricane?

Douglas, I downloaded the ‘DeCarbonising the UK’ report from the Tyndall centre. It is excellent and we will be using it in discussions with partner organisations in working-up a community sector renewable energy strategy for Wales.

In return, I can thoroughly recommend the current edition of Scientific American on sale in WHSmiths in the UK. It is a special edition and is packed with articles on climate change, eco system stress, population carrying capacity and the need for strategic decision making. It includes an article on a CO2 scrubber made from membranes coated with a type of algae found in volcanic thermal vents, that will survive in power-station exhausts. Apparently the algae will consume Sulphur and Nitrous oxides too end exhale oxygen and water only.

Now this kind of clever latteral thinking is waht we need more of, looking for natural solutions and assisting the ecosystems by exploiting them. It also shows the level of innovation and progress that is going on in the US: but we seldom hear about.

kind regards

Colin

Hi Dan,

It was good to see your range of solutions, particularly your detailed look at utilising some of the heat energy of the Gulf.

I once read an estimate of the heat energy in the Gulf Stream. It was huge, but I cannot find the reference again. One reference says that the flow of the Gulf Stream is 500 times the flow of the Amazon. Another says that 30 million cubic metres per second flow past Florida, which in turn is flowing out of the Gulf. You need to consider that you are dealing with a river, rather than a lake, of warm water.

The Mexican Gulf must act like a huge solar collector with the sun shining at a Kw per square metre over an area of 1.5 million sq kms. This would total 1000 MW per sq km, or 1.5 billion Mw total while the sun is shining, before losses from reflection, evaporation etc.

I suggest that it is better to deal with the causes of global warming rather than the effects. If you agree that atmospheric CO2 levels are the cause, then the figure to watch is the CO2 reading from Mauna Loa which showed an increase of 3 ppm over the last 12 months, and is now reaching 380 ppm. This large increase is more than double 5 years ago, but fossil fuel use has not doubled. Some of the rate of increase has to do with feedback loops.

The world’s farmers have a big influence on CO2 levels. A stark example is the slash and burn agriculture in Indonesia which sets alight peat deposits. This alone is responsible for 1/7th of the worlds CO2 emissions. see www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=45762

A tragedy is occuring in Africa with slash and burn agriculture. Satellite pictures show how devastating this is. see news.mongabay.com/2005/0906-nasa_africa_fires.html

The real tragedy is that tropical countries have the potential to produce large quantities of bioenergy per hectare, and could be removing huge quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere while at the same time reducing the world’s reliance on liquid, gas, and solid fossil fuels.

If you are still with me, I suggest that you spend some time exploring the www.accstrategy.org web site. To get a quick overview you could start with www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=26&objectid=3612471

The Accstrategy is all about preparing for abrupt climate change and deaing with it in the least cost way. I would like to hear from you after you have had a good look at this site.

Regards

Michael Cambridge

Hi Stephen,

I think that we should all feel humble when talking about the powerful forces of nature.

The Kyoto Protocol provides a clean development mechanism (CDM) to help countries meet their Kyoto commitments. The greatly expands the opportunities for developed countries to make major contibutions to reducing the world’s GHG emissions. If you want to see some pretty exciting opportunities, then spend some time exploring www.accstrategy.org I would like to hear from after you have done so.

I have given more explanation in my reply to Dan titled “Depowering nature’s weapons of mass destruction”

Regards

Michael Cambridge

Hi Lynn,

You are right, farmers are closer to nature, but they dont understand the implications of global warming. In fact many see talk of GW as a threat to their way of life. Most are likely to continue emitting large quantities of CO2 and methane, because there is no understanding, or incentive to do otherwise.

If you want ot see some real incentives for them doing otherwise, then I suggest that you visit www.accstrategy.org . I have sent a more detailed reply to Dan titled “Depowering nature’s weapons of mass destruction ” which provides an explanation and would be worth reading first.

I would like to hear from you after reading this.

Regards

Michael Cambridge

If that current warms that much, we won’t have to worry about a hurricane in LA, trust me. BTW, I used to live in Sacramento, which is much harder to spell than LA.

Anyway, a hurricane does, rarely, drift up from MX toward CA. Usu. it is of no more than TD strength by the time it gets to SD and then gives a gully-washer for an hour or two. The rare precip. in CA in summer is usu. caused by dying hurricane blow-off that drifts over the state from S-N. We used to call them high-based thunderstorms when I was a weatherman way back when, and the first one I saw was problematic because the old airways system didn’t have a code for thunderstorms with a base above the lower layer.

The wx patterns in the mid-1800s were different in CA than today. CA used to be wetter, and thus was the basis for the Bureau of Reclamation and others to assert CA could hold lots of people. That decision basis is now coming back to biting CA, NM, CO and other states in the butt.

Best,

D

We’re talking SciFi anyway (though I’d like it within outer possibility).

I spent my summers swimming in the ocean north of San Diego. The waters did occasionally get into the 70s for a short period, maybe upper 70s (I can’t remember). So you get some weird thing to do with the Arctic melting to slow & slightly warm the current (pushing waters off S Diego into the lower 80s), add an el nino, then I do know you can get wicked winds from the West. And though Calif is very dry, esp in summer, I think in a GW world there will be freaky deluges in the midst of drought (I think that’s already happening in places).

Or, we could just make it November, & a terrible deluge LA or San Francisco has never seen before – which means mudslides & flooding they’ve never seen before.

BTW, I’ve read that S. Calif & the SW (as well as the Mediterranean region) are predicted to get even drier.

Hi Stephen, little to the side of what you wrote about but you might be interested in George Monbiot’s Guardian column from last week – http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1574003,00.html cheers

I read this weekend in the papers, that experts are saying that New York is the fifth most likely target for a major hurricane in the US and so far the 4 most likely cities have already been hit over the last 2 years. Plus to make matters worse hurricanes travel faster in the Atlantic than they do in the Gulf of Mexico, so they will have less time to evacuate New York than they had to evacuate both New Orleans and the Texas Coastal Areas. The problem is that the US Administration still refuses to accept the link between Global Warming and the increase in destructive hurricanes or for that matter any of the eratic weather being experienced araound the globe at present! When will they stop being ostriches and take their heads out of the ground!

I was horrified to read several papers report that Tony Blair has made a U-turn and is now backing Bush and no longer supporting a post-Kyoto agreement.

Mark – what is your opinion on this? Is it the usual tightrope (Blair said at Davos that an agreement must not compromise nations’ wealth, then took a slightly better line at Gleneagles, and he has been juggling one line with Kyoto countries and another with the US before) – or is this a true U-turn, two weeks after he destroyed part of his own legacy and effectively tore up the Non-Proliferation Treaty in Delhi (as far as he UK’s adherence to it was concerned)?

I was horrified to read several papers report that Tony Blair has made a U-turn and is now backing Bush and no longer supporting a post-Kyoto agreement.

Mark – what is your opinion on this? Is it the usual tightrope (Blair said at Davos that an agreement must not compromise nations’ wealth, then took a slightly better line at Gleneagles, and he has been juggling one line with Kyoto countries and another with the US before) – or is this a true U-turn, two weeks after he destroyed part of his own legacy and effectively tore up the Non-Proliferation Treaty in Delhi (as far as he UK’s adherence to it was concerned)?

I was horrified to read several papers report that Tony Blair has made a U-turn and is now backing Bush and no longer supporting a post-Kyoto agreement.

Mark – what is your opinion on this? Is it the usual tightrope (Blair said at Davos that an agreement must not compromise nations’ wealth, then took a slightly better line at Gleneagles, and he has been juggling one line with Kyoto countries and another with the US before) – or is this a true U-turn, two weeks after he destroyed part of his own legacy and effectively tore up the Non-Proliferation Treaty in Delhi (as far as he UK’s adherence to it was concerned)?

We just finished a program at our church – Souper Sunday, about world & local hunger. A psychologist on our committee gave a talk on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If we can’t get beyond out basic needs (& lots of farmers have it hard trying to stay above water), then we cannot get to the higher levels of being, including compassion for others. Then my husband (the criminologist) spoke on the culture of poverty, which leads to hopelessness and fighting over peanuts.

What sort of frightens me, is that when things really start to get bad due to GW (maybe we’re already squarely on that path), it’ll be “every man for himself” & skip the women & children. It’s easy to be magnanimous when we’re well off. In that day saints will be very few & far between.

I liked your links – they made sense. I just read the China is having 2nd thoughts about bio-fuel, because they need to grow food.

I don’t know much about the regional climate of the US west coast, nor of regional climate change models for that part of the world (and regional circulation models, I understand, are still very much experimental anyway).

However, please remember not all hurricanes are tropical. Or rather, not all severe storms with hurricane-force are tropical in nature.

The storm which hit Scotland this January reached 124 mph. It was the strongest in living memory, reports say. Storm activity over the UK has doubled in the past 50 years, according to the Hadley Centre. This is linked to changes in air pressure, and probably GW.

So, GW can do terrible things to storms outside the (sub)tropics, too. Waters “too cold” for a hurricane? That may not always give you the reassurance you seek.

Yes, when they go outside of the tropics, hurricanes are ‘extratropical’. Some Atlantic storms catch the Gulf Stream, go past the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and rain on Britain. Storms off of the Pacific coast of Mexico generally head west. Some make it as far as ~25-30N.

Hurricanes’ function (among others) is to transfer heat from the tropics to higher latitudes, and this is done via latent heat properties of hurricanes.

I lived in Germany one year when, during the winter, a low pressure center went directly overhead, putting the jet stream at ground level. We had quite a bit of damage in the area from that event. It was not a hurricane, however, yet had hurricane-force winds.

Best,

D

Yes, when they go outside of the tropics, hurricanes are ‘extratropical’. Some Atlantic storms catch the Gulf Stream, go past the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and rain on Britain. Storms off of the Pacific coast of Mexico generally head west. Some make it as far as ~25-30N.

Hurricanes’ function (among others) is to transfer heat from the tropics to higher latitudes, and this is done via latent heat properties of hurricanes.

I lived in Germany one year when, during the winter, a low pressure center went directly overhead, putting the jet stream at ground level. We had quite a bit of damage in the area from that event. It was not a hurricane, however, yet had hurricane-force winds.

Best,

D

I looked at your comments and your links and I agree that the slash/burn method in Africa has to stop.

In addition, killing rainforests by burning them is about the worst thing we could ever do because that poor soil will not permit reintroduction of those types of forests and it may nearly be impossible to even consider introducing any type of forest with that depleted soil.

Destroying rain forests also destroys the source of rain which those trees create through transpiration and the dark soil afterward increases solar absorption in a tropical region where there is plenty of sunshine. This solar absorption may be further aggravated by less reflective cloud cover unless the cloud cover at night is diminished enough to allow enough of the absorbed radiation during the day to escape from the surface.

The extra carbon going into the air from burning these trees must be substantial since there is a lot of carbon in those trees. Furthermore, raising cattle from that land increases methane from the cattle belching that gas and the soil is so poor that farming cannot be maintained for very many years anyway so burning the rain forests for farming is a very bad idea.

If you have any ideas to eliminate this practice, I wish you well because these practices plus burning peat bogs is at a magnitude higher in creating emissions than our current ability to quickly reduce emissions in the energy sector of our global economy.

With the other ideas from your links, sequestering carbon is a good idea such as burying charcoal because this takes carbon out of the air for a long time. The use of bio-fuels only addresses current emissions and not our current carbon buildup since burning these fuels will re-release the carbon so this is comparable to other forms of renewable energy which produce no emissions. However, using bio-fuels is a great renewable idea toward replacing fossil fuels since a high energy density fuel is required for transportation and the transport of food.

All these ideas are important and they can be all a part of the total master plan toward solution.

I do need to clarify some other points you brought up which is good for this blog. I am focused on solutions which address both the “causes” and the “effects” of GW/CC and the ideas I mentioned had multiple modalities and not just the modality of addressing an “effect” of GW/CC. Those ideas even included the same modalities that your ideas offered.

For example, reflective pavement using sequestered pavement has the same effect as burying charcoal but also reduces greenhouse gases by reducing urban heat islands and fossil energy used for cooling by increasing earth’s surface alebedo sending energy back into space on sunny days. That is an additional bonus which helps reduce the earth’s heat imbalance.

My main idea in my original post was to use a systems approach in applying ideas which cut across more than one modality and to analyze them economically based on the summation of all the many benefits to address the GW/CC problem.

The ocean thermal-gradient power generation idea also cuts across multiple modalities by providing clean fresh water to grow the vegetation you suggest as the solution to sequester more atmospheric carbon. So, even my thoughts can enable your ideas to be more viable since some land would be more arable if there was an available water supply.

The water supply would also include electricity to pump it with zero emissions and also take cold water stored in the deep ocean thereby cooling the surface slightly which lowers the earth’s heat imbalance at the surface.

With regard to your numbers on the solar-energy input on the Mexican Gulf of a KW per sq meter or a 1000 MW per sq km, let me say that I am not suggesting we have any influence on that magnitude of energy.

I am suggesting that the 0.85 Watt per sq meter or 0.85 MW per sq Km is something of an order of magnitude 1000 times less which is the calculated average heat imbalance of the earth posted by Mark Lynas long ago and this is at a level which humans can have an small but significant influence on directly which can add up over time. BTW, It took hundreds of years to alter the atmospheric chemistry.

With that said, my calculations on the ocean-thermal gradient systems do reduce the surface water temperatures in a significant portion of the Gulf waters by 0.85 Watts per square meter when employing 15 ships with each ship condensing 450,000 cubic meters of fresh water daily along with the 100 MW of electricity produced.

The fact that the Gulf and the Gulf Stream it feeds is a river and not a lake is beneficial since that heat reduction although very minor would be distributed globally via the surface currents of the Atlantic.

Oh did I mention that any reduction in heat energy of the Mexican Gulf over time also decreases the surface temperatures associated with increased hurricane intensity.

Hurricanes increase emissions because destroyed homes rot faster and release more carbon sooner and the rebuilding of infrastructure requires energy and creates additional emissions. I would think that benefit, if tangible enough to analyze, should be added as an additional bonus.

The net result of any solution focus should be to provide a means to get us to the point to prevent sea-level rise and it may be in the combination of useful ideas developed in a master world-plan by all of us to enable our actual success.

That is what it will take Michael and since our problem is a global one, then New Zealand farmers become a vital part of this total and comprehensive solution plan.

This is serious business and not merely for amateurs even though it requires everyone’s involvement at some level. The plan must be developed and implemented in a timely manner. We only have one shot at getting it right and there are no second chances on this one.

In regards to our first moon landing, it was never done before. But we had to get it right the first time by “knowing” completely the required physics at depth. I see this current problem as vastly higher in scope but no less demanding as to the detailed focus required.

We simply are not yet engaged at the level we need to be.

All the best,

Dan

I know of an environmental NGO in Mexico that was hit by Hurricane Emily earlier this year and now Wilma (category 5 to 3 now).. poor souls had just started rebuilding. I think it shows up the pace of hurricanes.

I know of an environmental NGO in Mexico that was hit by Hurricane Emily earlier this year and now Wilma (category 5 to 3 now).. poor souls had just started rebuilding. I think it shows up the pace of hurricanes.

and I wonder if we can rebuild the protective systems of New Orleans “in time” to prevent more flooding next year. I assume that it is likely the Gulf area will have another strong hurricane season next year and that any coastal areas will remain vulnerable.

What is most important is to rebuild somewhere safer or to build to take on a catagory 6 and a storm surge. Rebuilding to the same standard to be destroyed again can no longer be an option.

How can we get that simple idea understood by policy makers?

All the best,

Dan

“We are working to turn our crisis into an opportunity to improve our space, our work and our interaction with nature.”

Closer to home (UK) Met Office has predicted 67% sure this is going to be the coldest winter on record. Mini ice age coming?

best wishes sheena

I posted my comments a while back on my thoughts that the Gulf Stream may have slowed down. I tend to over-simplify and make assumptions which may or may not be true but I do it with sound reasoning.

After learning that the Mexican Gulf had large areas of relatively shallow ocean water, I surmised that this enabled a concentration of heat to occur like a solar collector which helps supply the Gulf Stream with extra heat which helps warm the UK.

If the Gulf Stream slowed down, then tropical heat would build up in the Gulf intensifying hurricanes due to high SSTs. The Gulf Stream slowing down would be because of ice melt lowering the density of northern ocean surfaces which help drive the currents northward.

If tropical heat is being retained and not reaching the UK, then will this create the mini ice age?

It seems to logical but since I lack the acumen in climate science, I can only speculate.

I wish your NGO all the best and that all of you can stay warm enough in the UK. Our energy prices have soared and it is not certain what our winter will be like in our location. Nevertheless, I will continue to make improvements in efficiency to keep our costs down.

I hope your NGO can still remain positive and please pass on to them my best wishes. Despair is not an option even though it is easy enough to feel it during these times. We have to remain strong and even more determined.

I wish for them the fortitude and determination to know where and how to rebuild so they can handle any storm which comes their way and prepare for any crises in the future.

Habitat for humanity homes built by Jimmy Carter’s organization withstood hurricane winds during hurricane Andrew while the surrounding houses were swept away. That does not surprise me. Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer. He would want to build strong structures. Maybe the Carter Center can lend a hand. I would tell your NGO to contact the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia and ask them about the Habitat for Humanity program.

In any event, your NGO knows now that they have to rebuild to even higher standards. Based on their earlier statement of determination, I do see them being successful in then end. What other options do they have?

All the best,

Dan

... for your interesting research on the Gulf Stream. Energy is a problem. Although some like the scientist James Lovelock go for nuclear energy as the immediate solution to the problem others like Peter Bunyard think wind power is the solution, which I agree with as it is a growing industry. As a member of a large housing co-operative we are looking at mini wind powered turbines for properties. London Transport have constructed a solar powered major bus interchange .. very interesting.