Hurricane Patricia slams into Mexico

[GrauGeist]

To all of our Mexican friends here on the forum, I'm hoping that you, your families and loved ones are safe and out of harm's way!

http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-patricia-mexico-coast

 

[mikewint]

200mph(322kph) wind speeds are unimaginable essentially an EF5 tornado to us inlanders
Puerto Vallarta to the north and Acapulco to the south with Guadalajara dead center. Whatever is left will hit here (Arkansas) on Tues though how much or how little the weather guy can't say.

 

[Airframes]

That is a serious weather pattern !
Hope our friends in Mexico, and anywhere else the storm hits, are safe and well.
And this will be followed by the El Ninio, the strongest yet recorded, due to bring sever snow storms.

 

[Gnomey]

Stay safe guys!

 

[bobbysocks]

tis the season for those things. it usually happens sooner but the mild summer temps have kept a lot of that at bay.

 

[GrauGeist]

Here's a good inside look at Patricia.

I find it interesting how, even in the article, they maintain climate change is behind the dynamics of Hurricane Patricia, yet there have been catastrophic storms on this scale in the past...well before "global warming". OOps, I meant "climate change"...

Note the dates in the article: 1935 and 1969, both years of intense solar activity, by the way.

What Makes Patricia the Most Powerful Hurricane Ever?

 

[mikewint]

From what I hear on the news, there is very little damage in spite of the massive and powerful nature of this storm.
Hurricane Patricia—the strongest hurricane ever recorded—made landfall on Friday without causing the catastrophic damage that many had anticipated. That lack of destruction is in large part due to the storm's record winds staying confined to a small area and hitting a relatively unpopulated region.

"The amount of damage is going to be entirely dependent on where the storm hits," said Sean Sublette, a meteorologist at Climate Central. "If it had been a more heavily populated area, we'd be having a much different conversation."

The storm made landfall near Cuixmala, a luxury retreat in a sparsely populated ocean reserve, early Friday evening with winds of around 165 miles per hour. But the storm's strongest winds didn't extend much beyond 15 miles of its eye. The nearest city Manzanillo, which has a population of more than 100,000, is located more than 50 miles away.

Hurricane devastation is often due more to a combination of unfortunate circumstances rather than the sheer size of the storm. New Orleans, for instance, only sustained category 1 or 2 level winds during Hurricane Katrina but the storm caused a high "storm surge"—when elevated waters get pushed onto land by the wind—which ultimately led to much of the devastating flooding. Failed levees and neighborhoods located below sea level only contributed to the problem. Damage due to Hurricane Sandy was also largely the result of a high storm surge.

And while Hurricane Patricia avoided the most populated places along the coast, experts said that the storm had caused widespread damage in the area it did hit, including mud slides, flooding and power outages. Officials in the more densely populated areas, like tourist haven Puerto Vallarta, also appeared to follow preparation practices that would diminish the chances of injuries or death.

While the damage caused by Patricia may not scratch the record books, its strength certainly will. The storm's winds reached 200 miles per hour Friday before making landfall.

 

[bobbysocks]

a couple years ago we took a vacation to the island of cayman brac....one of the smaller cayman islands. when driving around the isla I noticed the middle was a tall limestone bluff surrounded by beach. where the road met the bluff was several feet above sea level. I noticed the bottom 10 or 14 feet of the bluff had been eroded away by the crashing of waves and it got me to thinking. this kind of erosion takes thousands of years....so the normal "sea level" had to be several feet higher than it is presently and had to be that for a very, very long time. then I wondered, are we really facing an abnormal climate change or are we still recovering from the last ice age? what is the norm? a hundred years ago before industry caused all this " global warming/hole in the ozone layer"...or when the waves crashed into that bluff?

 

[GrauGeist]

Global warming aka climate change, is nothing more than a marketable program.

All one has to do, is look at how the climate has shifted and affected civilizations over the millenea, to see that the only constant thing about climate, is it's change.

There are several ancient coastal cities, that were prosperous and flourished for centuries, but became inundated by the ocean like Dwarka, off the coast of India, the original Alexandria off the coast of Egypt and the ancient city of Pavlopetri off the coast of Greece (although some suggest a quake may have submerged the city) just to name a few examples.

To cite some classic climate shifts, we can look to the Sahara and north Africa as a shining example, where it was, at one time, a wet (nearly equatorial) region, complete with forests, savannahs and grassy plains thousands of years ago. There are numerous petroglyphs that depict game animals that would be typically found in such a bountiful region, and just recently, archeologists have discovered ancient lakes, marshes and buriel sites in the area.

Another clear example, would be the Chaco culture in the Southwestern U.S., who built cities connected by a network of roads and relied heavily on agriculture for survival. Their rock paintings showed abundant game and even Great Condors, that only exist in California now. When the climate shifted, the Chaco culture came to an end and the people disappeared.

However, for those who buy into the "climate change" scheme, can go to this site: TerraPass: Buy Carbon Offsets to Reduce Carbon Footprint and purchase "carbon offsets" (carbon credits) to help reduce their "carbon footprint" and reduce the greenhouse gas burden on the planet.

Yep, that's right...you send them money and you've suddenly made things right with the world...

 

[michaelmaltby]

"...Global warming aka climate change, is nothing more than a marketable program. "

Be very, very leery about what goes down in Paris next month. We're still paying for Paris, 1918-19, Versailles Treaty.

 

[bobbysocks]

why? what happens in paris next month?

 

[GrauGeist]

why? what happens in paris next month?

The big +20 nation conference on Global Warming (otherwise known as "how to take money from stupid people")

Here is a very good, in-depth article posted by an actual expert (in several fields) who goes to great lengths to explain the flawed science (and who's behind it) and has loads of sources of how the "climate change" bullsh!t has been promoted and how it started.

Sort of a long read, but VERY worthwhile: Forbes - That Scientific Global Warming Consensus...Not!

 

[mikewint]

Dave, IMHO we cannot totally dismiss "Climate Change" as nonsense. There is compelling evidence to show that our climate is indeed changing. What we can debate though is the CAUSE of that change. Human or natural (whatever that means). You mentioned the desertification of the Sahara. Probably the most common theory is that the Sahara dried up due to a change in the Earth's orbit, which affects solar insolation, or the amount of electromagnetic energy the Earth receives from the Sun. In simpler terms, insolation refers to the amount of sunlight shining down on a particular area at a certain time, and depends on factors such as the geographic location, time of day, season, landscape and local weather
Around 8,000 years ago, the Earth's orbit was slightly different than it is today. The tilt changed from around 24.1 degrees to the present-day 23.5 degrees.
In addition, the Earth had its closest approach to the Sun in the northern hemisphere in August, while today, that closest approach is in January. So, summertime in the north was warmer than it is now.
The changes in the Earth's orbital tilt and precession occur because of gravitational forces emanating from other bodies in the solar system. Just like a top, the Earth wobbles slightly about its rotational axis. This tilt changes between roughly 22 and 25 degrees about every 41,000 years, while the precession varies on about a 26,000-year period. These cycles have been determined by astronomers and validated by geologists studying ocean sediment records.
From the above record, it was theorized that the Earth's tilt would change only insignificantly in the next century. However, scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory say that the current melting of ice in Greenland is already causing the tilt to change at a rate of approximately 2.6 centimeters each year. They predict that his change could increase in the years ahead as more ice melts.
Putting it all together, the changes in insolation caused by shifts in axial tilt have an impact on atmospheric weather patterns. Thousands of years ago when the northern hemisphere received more sunlight, it intensified the monsoons. After the Earth's tilt changed, the monsoons decreased and the vegetation began to disappear. When there were no plants to retain water and release it back into the atmosphere, the rain progressively decreased. The resulting feedback loop between plant life and climate eventually created the current desert conditions.
In 1999, German scientists used computer simulations to model the Earth's climate thousands of years ago. They concluded that the climatic transition of the Sahara took place abruptly, within a possible span of about 300 years. Given the very strong dependence of vegetation on water availability, the end of the 'Green Sahara' would have come about quite suddenly as a very slow change in the orbit led to an abrupt collapse in that ecosystem.

Bobby, Sea Level sounds like a pretty simple thing BUT it's determination is actually quite complex and is, in fact, at any location, an 'average' or mean value calculated over a period of time
The precise determination of a "mean sea level" is a difficult problem because of the many factors that affect sea level, i.e., the sea is in constant motion, affected by the tides, wind, atmospheric pressure, local gravitational differences, temperature, salinity and so forth.
To an operator of a tide gauge, MSL means the "still water level"—the level of the sea with motions such as wind and waves averaged out, i.e.: averaged over a period of time such that changes in sea level, due to the tides, also get averaged out. It is important to note that the values of MSL are made with respect to the land. Thus a change in MSL can result from a real change in sea level, or from a change in the height of the land on which the tide gauge operates.
In the UK, the Ordnance Datum (the 0 meter height on UK maps) is the mean sea level measured at Newlyn in Cornwall between 1915 and 1921. Prior to 1921, the value used was MSL at the Victoria Dock, Liverpool.
In France, the Marégraphe in Marseilles measures continuously the sea level since 1883 and offers the longest available data about the sea level. It is used for a part of continental Europe and main part of Africa as official sea level. Elsewhere in Europe measurements are made relative to the Amsterdam Pile elevation (water level in the canals of Amsterdam), which dates back to the 1690s.
Recently satellite altimeters have been making precise measurements of sea level since the launch of TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992. A joint mission of NASA and CNES, TOPEX/Poseidon was followed by Jason-1 in 2001 and the Ocean Surface Topography Mission on the Jason-2 satellite in 2008.
All the available data shows that for at least the last 100 years, sea level has been rising at an average rate of about 1.8 mm (0.1 in) per year. Most of this rise can be attributed to the increase in temperature of the sea and the resulting slight thermal expansion of the upper 500 meters (1,640 feet) of sea water. Additional contributions, as much as 25% of the total, come from water sources on land, such as melting snow and glaciers and extraction of groundwater for irrigation..

 

[michaelmaltby]

"..... we cannot totally dismiss "Climate Change" as nonsense. There is compelling evidence to show that our climate is indeed changing. "

With due respect, Mike, there is compelling evidence to show that our climate has indeed always been changing. Adaptation to that reality is completely normal .... I fear when I hear nonesense talk about mitigation of climate change ... mitigate solar cycles? ... mitigate asteroids? .... you don't mitigate nature you adapt to nature. How often do you hear the word ADAPT in the climate discussion .... never.

 

[GrauGeist]

Mike, tou'll also note that the Chaco culture flourished for quite a long time, but withing a short (perhaps generation) time, the cizilization was abandoned. We can also look to the demise of Ankor Wat and see that a climate shift brought about extended periods of drought, which had dire consequenses for the Khmer's empire.

The Earth's climate has always undulated, but fortunately, has been more stabile during and after the last Ice Age. Scientists have been using Ice Core samples as well as tree rings from ancient living specimens (Bristlecone) and date-verified specimens (archaeological specimens from such places as Herculaneum, for example) to get a broad view of climate. The one thing they have found, is that the Ice Core samples and Dendocronology samples all relate directly to Solar Flare activity. The mini ice age that plagued the northern hemisphere, ending in the 19th century, has been connected to solar activity and they have determined that the solar activity cycles also directly affect California's recurring droughts.

One thing I also noticed recently, is that the years that had record cyclones, were also drought years in California.

 

[mikewint]

Michael, EXACTLY my point. Climate indeed does change over a period of time through the natural (there's that word again) course of events. Humans certainly had nothing to do with the desertification of the Sahara or the ice age yet one cannot simply dismiss the effect of trillions of tons of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels nor the trillions of liters of methane from our cattle herds. Whether that alone is enough to trigger a change or to hasten a change already occurring is the question.

Dave, without further checking as I recall the Chaco through a very advanced system of irrigation brought life to the desert and the culture flourished. However time and evaporation increased the mineral content of the irrigated soil to the point of toxicity destroying crops and the Chaco left for greener pastures (yea, deliberate)

 

[GrauGeist]

lol @ "greener pastures", well played!

You're correct in the irrigation techniques, however, this was to exploit the rain that was abundant at the time. If we look at current annual rainfall in the region, there is not enough to sustain extensive Maize crops, let alone the flora and funa that was present at the time their social centers were flourishing.

And I apologize for the terrible spelling in my last post, I had a kitten trying to help me with my ipad

 

[michaelmaltby]

"..... one cannot simply dismiss the effect of trillions of tons of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels nor the trillions of liters of methane from our cattle herds."

CO2 is not a greenhouse gas (water vapor is) .... the planet is greener now than it was 20 years ago thanks to CO2's role in photosynthesis and grain/corn crops are more productive per acre. The vast buffalo herds that roamed the plains after the last ice age until 1850 didn't produce vast amounts of methane, Mike ...?

I dislike waste and am all in favor of efficiencies where genuine ( low flush toilets aren't efficient ) but the environmentalists are trading in fear and cooked science while arguing for science-based solutions. Their answer is to turn their backs on their historical path. They would have rejected coal in 1800 had they been given the opportunity.

How do you suppose they will mitigate things when the north-south magnetic poles flip polarity as they have done before?

 

[mikewint]

Michael, I differ with you on several points so bear with me:
Carbon dioxide is a well documented "Greenhouse Gas" and its increasing atmospheric concentration is also well documented. Ancient air bubbles trapped in ice allow us to see what Earth's atmosphere was like in the distant past. Their analysis tells us that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are higher now than they have ever been at any time in the past 400,000 years. During the ice ages, CO2 levels were around 200 parts per million, and during the warmer interglacial periods, they hovered around 280 ppm. In 2013, CO2 levels surpassed 400 ppm for the first time in recorded history. This recent rise in CO2 shows a remarkably constant relationship with fossil-fuel burning, and can be well accounted for based on the simple premise that about 60 percent of fossil-fuel emissions stay in the air.
There are essentially 4 recognized Greenhouse gases:

1. Carbon Dioxide: Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas and oil), solid waste, trees and wood products, and also as a result of certain chemical reactions (e.g., manufacture of cement). As you posted, Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere or sequestered when it is absorbed by plants as part of the biological carbon cycle.
2. Methane (CH4): Methane is emitted during the production and transport of coal, natural gas, and oil. Methane emissions also result from livestock and other agricultural practices and by the decay of organic waste in municipal solid waste landfills.
3. Nitrous Oxide (N2O): Nitrous oxide is emitted during agricultural and industrial activities, as well as during combustion of fossil fuels and solid waste.
4. Fluorinated gases: Hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and nitrogen trifluoride are synthetic, powerful greenhouse gases that are emitted from a variety of industrial processes. Fluorinated gases are sometimes used as substitutes for stratospheric ozone-depleting substances (e.g., chlorofluorocarbons, hydrochlorofluorocarbons, and halons). These gases are typically emitted in smaller quantities, but because they are potent greenhouse gases, they are sometimes referred to as High Global Warming Potential gases.

The Global Warming Potential (GWP) was developed to allow comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases. Specifically, it is a measure of how much energy the emissions of one ton of a gas will absorb over a given period of time, relative to the emissions of one ton of carbon dioxide. The larger the GWP, the more that a given gas warms the Earth compared to carbon dioxide over that time period. The time period usually used for GWPs is 100 years.
Carbon dioxide, by definition, has a GWP of 1 regardless of the time period used, because it is the gas being used as the reference. Carbon dioxide remains in the climate system for a very long time: carbon dioxide emissions cause increases in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide that will last thousands of years.

Methane, is estimated to have a GWP of 28-36 over 100 years. Methane emitted today lasts about a decade on average, which is much less time than carbon dioxide. But methane also absorbs much more energy than CO2. The net effect of the shorter lifetime and higher energy absorption is reflected in the GWP. The methane GWP also accounts for some indirect effects, such as the fact that methane is a precursor to ozone, and ozone is itself a greenhouse gas.

Nitrous Oxide (N2O) has a GWP 265-298 times that of CO2 for a 100-year timescale. N2O emitted today remains in the atmosphere for more than 100 years, on average.

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride are sometimes called high-GWP gases because, for a given amount of mass, they trap substantially more heat than CO2. The GWPs for these gases can be in the thousands or tens of thousands.

Now let's consider Water Vapor, a somewhat new player in climate modeling. In the past climate models have only been able to estimate the strength of water vapor feedback. The record of water vapor data was not sophisticated enough to provide a comprehensive view of at how water vapor responds to changes in Earth's surface temperature. Instruments on the ground and previous space-based could not measure water vapor at all altitudes in Earth's troposphere.

AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder) launched in 2002, is the first instrument to distinguish differences in the amount of water vapor at all altitudes within the troposphere. Using data from AIRS, it became possible to observe how atmospheric water vapor reacted to shifts in surface temperatures. By determining how humidity changed with surface temperature it became possible to compute the average global strength of the water vapor feedback.

Not surprisingly this new data showed that as surface temperature increases, so does atmospheric humidity. Dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere makes the atmosphere more humid and the increase in humidity amplifies the warming from carbon dioxide.

The new data showed that if Earth warms 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the associated increase in water vapor will trap an extra 2 Watts of energy per square meter. That may not seem like much, but that is over over the entire Earth surface. In essence the water vapor feedback doubles the warming due to carbon dioxide alone.

Now let's deal with domestic cattle. Needless to say there is no scientifically accurate Bison census but we can approximate that there were about 50 million animals that roamed the western ranges prior to European settlement. A domestic cow, on average releases between 70 and 120 kg of Methane per year. Now recall that the effect on the climate of Methane is 23 times higher than the effect of CO2. Therefore the release of about 100 kg Methane per year for each cow is equivalent to about 2,300 kg CO2 per year.
World-wide, there are about 1.5 billion cows. Now include other domestic ruminants and we are looking at about two billion metric tons of CO2-equivalents per year. In addition, clearing of tropical forests and rain forests to get more grazing land and farm land is responsible for an extra 2.8 billion metric tons of CO2 emission per year.
A Japanese study showed that producing a kilogram of beef leads to the emission of greenhouse gases with a global warming potential equivalent to 36.4 kilograms of carbon dioxide. It also releases fertilizing compounds equivalent to 340 grams of sulphur dioxide and 59 grams of phosphate, and consumes 169 megajoules of energy. In other words, a kilogram of beef is responsible for the equivalent of the amount of CO2 emitted by the average car every 155mi (250 km), and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

 

[michaelmaltby]

Will you miss beef, Mike, cause I assume that you've given it up. You exhale CO2 ... planning to leave us shortly ?

And you provide the classic greenhouse gas list but don't recognize water vapor .... so clouds in the night sky don't trap heat (the very definition of a GHG)- altho in my part of the woods we fear clear nights for frost kill in spring and fall.

You can present all the big numbers you like but to compare GHG from an era when over 1/3of N America and N Europe were essentially locked up and dormant with an unprecedented area of industrial human activity - the 19th/20th Century - is simply misleading.

I am not disputing that human activity has an impact on the planet, Mike, but so does beaver activity and the buffalo herds certainly did. However to turn our backs on the great leap humankind has made/is making in the past 15,000 years simply because we suddenly think we can out-guess, out-finesse nature is folly.

Tell me how much nitrous oxide is emitted by every major volcanic eruption? The quantity of methane that seeps from the world's peat bogs? Human impact is piddily when stacked up against natural forces such as volcanoes, tsunami's, glaciation, forest fires and typhoons.

Global cooling is much more likely to be our fate if we look at the planet's geological record .... and to survive that in any form we will need hydro carbons ... and technology such as nuclear and hydrogen fuel cells.

Climate change is a power grab by those who think they know what's best for us .... and for those who are doing the grabbing the mantra is "do as I say, not as I do". It's replaced communism as the latest new world order vision .... and, like communism, it's based on pseudo science.