2015 turning into a VERY interesting year....

Powerful Cyclone Chapala Could Make Historic Landfall in Yemen Next Week
10,97112

Dennis Mersereau
Filed to: CHAPALA10/30/15 2:40pm
Powerful Cyclone Chapala Could Make Historic Landfall in Yemen Next Week

2015 is a year that’s determined to break every record possible. Just a week after we saw the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded, we’ve got one of the strongest cyclones ever recorded in the Arabian Sea, and it’s aiming straight for Yemen. You know, that ol’ tropical paradise.


A Typhoon and a Hurricane Are the Same, So Why Do We Call Them Different Names?
A tropical cyclone is an iconic storm that strikes fear (or laughter) in the heart of coastal…
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It didn’t take very long for Cyclone Chapala to rapidly intensify from the equivalent of a tropical storm to a Super Cyclonic Storm, which is a decidedly badass name for a storm that’s just bad if you’re in its path. It took just 24 hours for the storm to bump its 65 MPH winds up to 155 MPH today at 0600Z, or 2:00 AM EDT on the U.S. East Coast.

Years’ worth of rain in 48 hours: Monster cyclone threatens Yemen & Oman with floods, landslides
Published time: 30 Oct, 2015 19:04
© Gene Blevins / Reuters

A large tropical cyclone coming from the Indian Ocean promises record rainfall in the otherwise arid deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. Meteorologists predict about[HILITE] eight years’ worth of rain in the coastal areas of Oman and Yemen within two days.[/HILITE]

https://www.rt.com/news/320187-desert-rainfall-arabian-peninsula/

One of the best "real world" examination of the issue affecting the oceans

How Washington Transformed Its Dying Oyster Industry Into A Climate Success Story
BY NATASHA GEILING OCT 28, 2015 11:07AM

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/1 ... ification/

Damaged industry...some might think fossil fuel companies should be held to account

Hillary is one

Hillary joins calls for federal probe of Exxon climate change research
The Hill‎ - 2 days ago
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she wants a federal investigation into how Exxon Mobil Corp. has communicated about its research into climate change.

Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, is joining multiple Democrats, including opponents Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley in calling for the Justice Department to probe Exxon.

She was asked whether Exxon should be subject to an investigation at a New Hampshire campaign stop by Jordan Cichon, a volunteer for 350 Action, a climate activist group that published a video of her comments.
“Yes, yes they should,” she said of a potential Justice Department investigation. [HILITE]“There's a lot of evidence [Exxon] misled people.”[/HILITE]

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro ... e-of-exxon

Here's a NYT article, with very cool graphics. Scientists on the Greenland ice measuring the flow of rivers and the rate of ice melt. It's a "layperson" thing. But, not to worry, it's science, too.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/27/world/greenland-is-melting-away.html?_r=0

Meanwhile in the real world....it's getting much hotter and we're responsible...

On the heels of the news from NASA that October’s global temperature this year spiked more than any other month in 135 years, virtually assuring that 2015 will be the warmest year on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday that their data showed similarly remarkable numbers.

The arresting October heat is a sign of both the steady upward march of global temperatures from warming as well as the strong El Nino boosting global heat this year.


10 Nasty Surprises From Climate Change
By NASA’s calculations, October was more than 1°C, or nearly 2°F, above the 1951-1980 average for the month — the biggest departure for any month in their archives and the first time any month has exceeded a full degree Celsius. NOAA put the departure at 0.98°C (or 1.76°F) compared to the 20th century average. This was also the highest departure in NOAA’s records, extending back 136 years. The small differences are due to the slightly different ways the two agencies treat the data, though overall their estimates are in broad agreement.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/u-s-agencies-agree-october-was-crazy-warm-151118.htm

At a tangent to the topic, but doesn't bode well if states are going to treat climate activism as terrorism ...

theguardian.com wrote: Paris climate activists put under house arrest using emergency laws

At least 24 climate activists have been put under house arrest by French police, accused of flouting a ban on organising protests during next week’s Paris climate summit, the Guardian has learned.

One legal adviser to the activists said many officers raided his Paris apartment and occupied three floors and a staircase in his block.

The author and climate change campaigner, Naomi Klein, accused French authorities of “a gross abuse of power that risks turning the summit into a farce”.

“Climate summits are not photo opportunities to boost the popularity of politicians,” she told the Guardian. “Given the stakes of the climate crisis, they are by their nature highly contested. That is democracy, messy as it may be. The French government, under cover of anti-terrorism laws, seems to be trying to avoid this, shamefully banning peaceful demonstrations and using emergency powers to pre-emptively detain key activists.”...

http://gu.com/p/4etya?CMP=Share_Android ... _clipboard

Do you know nothing about climate science or are you trolling?

mcgruff wrote:Do you know nothing about climate science or are you trolling?

Are you just trolling with that trolling comment?

The comments on that SciAm piece seem to the point.

The Ridley piece is crud. It's a Gish gallop of fallacies, inaccuracies, misrepresentations and unsupported assertions. I'm sure that, being in SciAm, someone with more time on their hands than me will have the patience to point out its flaws, but you could do worse than to start here if you want to learn something about why one of his central premises (overestimated warming) is bollocks.

THWOTH wrote:At a tangent to the topic, but doesn't bode well if states are going to treat climate activism as terrorism ...

Except that some of these "climate activists" are pure scum:

Protesters throw projectiles at officers in Place de la République

Police fired tear gas at protesters who hurled projectiles at them in Paris as a largely peaceful human chain of several thousand formed nearby to urge action on global warming ahead of the global environment summit.

A small group, some masked, took part in the violence, with some of them chanting: "State of emergency, police state, you will not deprive us of our right to demonstrate."

President François Hollande condemned Sunday's violence and said he was outraged to learn that the flowers in the unofficial shrine in République to those killed in the Paris attacks had been trampled on.

"It is doubly regrettable, even scandalous that this happened at the Place de la Republique where flowers and candles have been left in memory of those who were killed by the terrorists' bullets" in the Paris attacks, he said.

This is the kind of risks that will increase and have increased already ...more intense storms that are double edged...

Southern Queensland storm chasers reflect on 'bittersweet' storms
Peter Gunders, Monday November 30, 2015 - 18:02 EDT

A regional photographer says weekend storms brought "awe inspiring" images, but his thoughts were with the farmers who experienced massive damage.

When Bobby Skidmore was driving towards Warwick to capture images of the weekend thunderstorms, he reflected on both the excitement and dread storms bring at this time of year.

"It's a double-edged sword," he said.

"The storms are great to look at, but by the time the storm is over and I am sitting at home, the farmers are left counting their losses and cleaning up big messes."

Wild storms struck melon crops on the Western Downs, .

"I see all the fields and the livestock and the large farm sheds filled with hay and feed, and I really feel for the farmers."

Mr Skidmore said he believed the storms this season had been more intense than this time last year.

"And it's not even summer yet," he said.

"We've still got a long way to go this season."

Images of the storm that hit Warwick show the telltale green tinged-clouds of hail.

"The clouds started to look really intimidating," Mr Skidmore said.

"It was the most intense green, and you just knew that stacked inside that storm was a big hail system."

In Warwick, fellow storm chaser Terry West was kilometres away, but could hear the same noise.

"It roared like a freight train," he said.

"These storms bring a lot of rain and we need it, but it is a catch 22.

"The high winds and the hail cost the farmers a lot of money."

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/sout ... rms/409846

The storms are feature of the season ....the intensity of them is increasing as is the lengthening of the season during which they occur ...welcome to the Holocene.

ElDiablo wrote:Are you just trolling with that trolling comment?

Enjoy your moment of glory while it lasts.

mcgruff wrote:

ElDiablo wrote:Are you just trolling with that trolling comment?

Enjoy your moment of glory while it lasts.

I think that's incredibly unfair. At no point did El Diablo come across as a denialist (all you've to do is check his posting history if not sure). He may be a victim of a shoddy, but well written (to the untrained eye) article at best.

It looked to me like he was throwing the article out there to see what people thought, rather than trying to stick it to 'warmists'.

There was no such qualifier nor any attempt to explain when challenged. This is a strictly moderated topic for climate science which a variety of people have tried to subvert. Matt Ridley is a notorious denier, as anyone with any real interest in the subject would know.

That's it.

mcgruff wrote:There was no such qualifier not any attempt to explain when challenged. This is a strictly moderated topic for climate science which a variety of people have tried to subvert. Matt Ridley is a notorious denier, as anyone with any real interest in the subject would know.

That's it.

Sure, but coming down hard on El, rather than calming setting him straight, was not called for.

Funnily enough I once posted an article I myself suspected was bullshit, just to run it by you guys, and El done the same shit to me.

El is not a denialist.

mcgruff wrote:Do you know nothing about climate science or are you trolling?

Steady on there mg. He only said 'intetesting', which it's appearance in SciAm certainly is.

Thanks guys/gals for knowing that I didn't intend it to be an denialist post.
I should have been clearer but I thought my posting history here would have been clear, also since I isolated the quote about the negative effects of the rush to decarbonization may have the poor. That is what I really found interesting about the paper.
It could be that my post belongs in the other climate change thread as well.

Matt Ridley's piece is about as scientific as Macdoc's posting about intense hailstorms in Southern Queensland in late November representing a lengthening of the hailstorm season, i.e. not very scientific at all. If there's cleanup to be done, get rid of both posts.

Hail is common in November around here (we're in broadly the same region - I lost a car a decade ago on November 8 to hail) and the evidence for "increased intensity" is one guy saying this year's been worse than last year. Actual meteorological data confirms this sort of storm as normal: http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/stormarchive/ (can't get url for search results, but there are severe South Queensland November - and October - hailstorms as far back as the records go.)

Exactly right, Olli. Finding that sweet spot between alarmism and denialism isn't easy in the current, um... climate.

THWOTH wrote:

mcgruff wrote:Do you know nothing about climate science or are you trolling?

Steady on there mg. He only said 'intetesting', which it's appearance in SciAm certainly is.

You're using a different meaning of interesting. Apparently ElDiablo thinks it's interesting without any irony.

You agree the post should be deleted?

I can't help you if you don't understand enough climate science that increased intensity and length of season is an indicator of climate change.

No single event can be attributed, extreme events show the influence of a warmer world.....deal with it.

The Sci Am article was a sneak in apologetics by a closet denier..... ( the author ) - I'll lay out the background so you are up to speed

Didnt IPCC state that neither the intensity nor the frequency of the storms would increase?

You don't need to rely on prediction....the physical record is clear for increased intensity both in cyclonic storms and other types.
This intensity includes rain/snow amounts as well as windspeeds or could be both.

Atlantic hurricanes are a different story as they have wind sheer complications.
As the tropics expand and the subtropics as well - areas that are not normally subject to intense rain events are getting a month of rain in a day ....infrastructures are simply not up to dealing with that.

Toronto's cost was close to a billion dollars for a non-cyclonic storm event. a couple years ago

A year after the worst flash flood in the City of Toronto’s history, some homeowners’ insurance premiums are up 15 to 20 per cent, spending on basement flood protection equipment is rising, and Mother Nature remains as unpredictable as ever.
The July 8 storm that lashed the city, flooded basements, stranded Go Train passengers and destroyed a Toronto lawyer’s $192,000 Ferrari contributed to the worst year in history for insurance claims across Canada.
It wasn’t just insurers who felt the impact. The city has boosted spending on water and sewer improvements, while homeowners are spending more to try to prevent future backups
Insurers paid out nearly $1 billion to cover the cost of the Toronto flood, as much as they’d spent on weather-related damage across the entire country in each of the four previous years.

http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/investing/2014/07/05/a_year_after_the_toronto_flood.html

A smaller community to the west also got slammed last year with 2 months of rain in a few hours

Burlington flood: 2 months worth of rain falls within hours ...
http://www.cbc.ca/.../burlington-flood-2-months-worth-of-rain-falls-within-ho...
Aug 5, 2014 - Much of southern Ontario was under severe thunderstorm warning, watches Monday afternoon. .

even a while back Bombay got hit with nearly a meter of rain in 24 hours ......off the charts compared to any preceding record.

Snow storms are expected to increase in intensity as well even tho snow cover is falling.
Boston got buried last year.

UK has finally started naming storms and have just simply been deluged with high wind intense rainfall and snow fall this year

Abigail, Britain's first named storm, in pictures - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk › News › Weather
Storm Abigail, Britain's first named storm, is causing major disruption with power cuts and school closures as gale force winds batter the country. Gales in the

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/weather/11993710/Abigail-Britains-first-named-storm-in-pictures.html

Then a second slammed in on top of soaked ground.
The infrastructure costs and added insurance costs are unreal...there is too much focus on heat records etc.

Taiwan got hit with a Cat 2 Cyclone....nothing special in wind speed but it dumped a year of rain in 2 days and this year there were 5 Super typhoons

he most powerful storm of 2015 is on a collision course with Japan and Taiwan. With winds of over 350kmh, Typhoon Soudelor has already wreaked havoc on a group of tiny islands in the Pacific Ocean. It is expected to make landfall sometime on Thursday.
The tropical storm ripped through the Northern Marianas on Sunday, which are some 2,500km due east of the Philippines. However, it hasn’t taken any lives yet[HILITE]. Winds have been gusting up to 354kmh (220mph[/HILITE]

https://www.rt.com/news/311553-typhoon-pacific-japan-taiwan/

The insurance companies are very aware of the rising toll...

Australia is very much on the frontlines for impacts related to increasingly extreme weather events and those are magnified this year as an historic El Nino unfolds.