Hurricane!

This blogger quotes Dr. Robert Balling Jr.'s critique of An Inconvenient Truth, a film featuring Al Gore on climate change.

Gore has ignored dissenting opinions. He has implied that certain changes are the fault of human made greenhouse gasses — something that is according to Balling — completely false. He’s cherry picked data to make his case, and has overstated the extent of the threat.

There are several obvious problems with Balling's arguments.

Balling says that the film's claim about water rising 20 feet is inconsistent with measurements of 1.8mm rise per year over 8,000 years. But the rise of 20 feet is based on the volume of water Greenland's glacier would add to the oceans if the glaciers melted. Currently, Greenland's glaciers are melting more quickly than anticipated.

Balling says that "... the snows of Kilimanjaro have been retreating for more than 100 years, largely due to declining atmospheric moisture, not global warming." While the local Kilmanjaro conditions may be due to declining precipitation, it doesn't seem logical to attribute measured melting of glaciers worldwide to declininng atmostpheric moisture. Is it possible that it stopped snowing at all the glaciers over the same time period?

The problem with Balling's arguments are that they focus on somewhat irrelevant details without looking at the basic physics. It's as if Balling is boiling water and saying that, because we can't predict when and where the bubbles will occur, the water must not be getting hotter.

It's too bad politics seems to get in the way of a good discussion about climate change.

Today I saw the new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, at the Arclight theater. The film basically documents a slide show presentation that Al Gore has been giving to audiences all over the world since his 2000 presidential election loss. I’m sure there are a lot of “right wing” liberal hating republicans out there that would like to dismiss Mr. Gore’s message as political maneuvering. They’ll probably suggest that this is all an attempt by Gore to slowly ease his way back into the public eye to begin a campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president. If that turns out to be true, I think it would be a very very good thing. That said, what this movie is REALLY about is the message itself. Mr. Gore spends the majority of the 100 minute documentary detailing just exactly what we’ve managed to do to our planet in the last 40-50 years. His evidence is irrefutable. He answers every doubt about global warming that I’ve ever heard (”oh its a natural cycle”, “so its getting hotter, so what?” etc). This is all build up to his main point which is that we CAN still do something about this.

In the case of CFCs and the ozone layer 30 years ago, the U.S. government pushed Europe to take action in case CFCs caused a problem. Today, it's Europe thats pushing the U.S. to take action in case CO2 is a problem.

With the news that the ozone hole is recovering faster than expected it just goes to show how little we know about global climate change and that radical steps to “fix” things often are worse than just sitting back and watching things pan out. Don’t get me wrong though, I believe changing the environment in a negative way (CFCs, carbon levels in the atmosphere, pollution, etc.) are bad and harming us and the environment and we should steer clear of those as much as possible.

While the CFC ban caused local industry pain, it had no impact on the overall world economy. The same may be true for CO2.

How great is this: a trade show that encourages participants to bike to the show and save CO2.

So why did I end up going? Because in my new role as VP of Eco Responsibility at Sun I was the official sponsor of the Bike to JavaOne initiative! We ended up saving about 8 tons of CO2, so it was a very cool event (check out my Sun blog for upcoming pics).

Extra CO2 doesn't really help plants, it just creates global warming.

Just like all of nature’s creatures, plants show an adaptiveness to increased CO2 levels that indicate they do not simply absorb the extra. After taking in what they need, the stomata (mouths) on the leaves that take in air and moisture close, preventing the plant from throwing itself into disequilibrium. This disproves those who say that global warming and increased CO2 in our atmosphere will merely result in bigger and greener plants. See more at NASA’s Earth Observatory News.

The predictions are in for the 2006 hurricane season.

NOAA has released its 2006 Atlantic hurricane season forecast, calling for 13-16 named storms, 8-10 hurricanes, and 4-6 major hurricanes.

A look at the coming 2006 hurricane season and some famous east coast hurricanes.

I made this at StormAdvisory.org using some newsworthy East Coast storms, such as Hurricane #4 (1938), Tropical Storm #7 (1938), Hurricane Bob (1985), Hurricane Bob (1991), Hurricane Isabel (2003), Hurricane #1 (1893), Hurricane Carol (1954), Hurricane Floyd (1999).

Those who fail to learn history are bound to re-live it:

But I want to briefly comment on Sims’ second major proposal: the creation of an Executive Office of Global Warming, that would coordinate the county’s response to climate change and advise the various departments in regards to the expected impact. For example, let’s say the county was planning to building a scenic shoreline road about 5 feet above sea level, but sea level is projected to rise 10 feet… well the Office might advise that the road be built a little further inland. Stuff like that.

European Space Agency wants to deploy a lidar system in space to detect CO2 build up leading to climate change.

ESA is considering using a LIDAR instrument to monitor the levels of CO2 within the atmosphere. The most effective wavelength to detect CO2 is at 2 µm due to its deep absorption signature at this wavelength.

Big oil is already advertising about CO2 before An Inconvenient Truth even hits the theaters.

Straw horse argument by the oil companies — coming to the defense of carbon dioxide, as a pre- emptive strike against a movie by Al Gore on the environment that will be released next week. Really, listen to these ads, it is surreal. Apparently environmentalists are attacking breathing and the oil companies have jumped to the defense. Way to skew the story guys…

From a post on the Federal government taking on a local sheriff after Hurricane Katrina.

About a week after Hurricane Katrina, the sheriff of Forrest County, Mississippi decided that saving human lives was far more important than policies and protocols of FEMA, which had left ice and water sitting in 18-wheelers while people were dehydrating and insulin was going unrefrigerated in the steamy Mississippi heat.

Click through for the link to the story on climate change on Jupiter.

The fact that “global warming” appears to be occuring on a number of planets in our solar system should probably give cause to those who have wedded themselves to the idea that such warming on Earth is entirely a product of human activity. Or perhaps the residents of Jupiter just need to cut their dependence on fossil fuels and stop driving those SUVs...

The article doesn't say that overall temperatures are rising on Jupiter, but speculates that "areas around the equator become warmer, while the poles can start to cool down."

Events like Hurricane Dennis demonstrate how inadequate supply can cause a spike in gas prices.

A little over a year ago I was in Florida when Hurricane Dennis hit, we were evacuated and upon out return there was a gas shortage. The only time there was any available was when the trucks brought it in, anytime after that, gone. Even with this prices barely reached the 3 dollar mark. It didn’t take long for prices to steadily go back down to near normal.

The quickest way to drive down gasoline prices? Reduce demand.

Will increased hurricane intensity create more rogue waves?

A 70-footer washed over the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship last year, a nearly-100-footer was reported in 2004 during Hurricane Ivan, and there have been reliable measurements of a 112-foot (34-meter) wave that rose over the USS Ramapo in 1933. Could there have been bigger waves that people didn't survive to tell about? Maybe so: In "The Bird in the Waterfall," Jerry Dennis and Glenn Wolff report that computer models can produce theoretical waves as high as 219 feet (67 meters).

On the benefits of high gas prices to climate change and political stability.

From the broad national standpoint, we should welcome high gasoline prices because it is in the national interest to reduce our consumption of gasoline, and high prices will do that, dramatically so in the long run when more substitution is possible. The burning of gasoline in vehicles creates pollution and emits carbon dioxide that contributes significantly to global warming; and curtailing driving in order to reduce the consumption of gasoline would alleviate traffic congestion. Furthermore, a large part of the world’s oil supply comes from nations such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia that are actually or potentially unstable, hostile to the United States, or both, and it would be prudent to reduce our dependence on such suppliers.

Climate change may move diseases now found in the tropics towards the poles.

I have a feeling that the mandatory limits on carbon dioxide would have far less of a damaging effect on this nation's economy (an untrue statement in any case) than epidemics of tropical diseases laying waste to significant segments of the population. It's time for scientists from all fields of study to unanimously make public the dangers that lie ahead if we don't all make every effort possible to avert them. If public health threats are seventy years ahead of the predicted climate change curve, then at the very least we deserve to be made very aware of them.

Mortar color may reveal recent hurricane repairs.

The mortar on both sections are actually the same. The lower “lighter” area of mortar is several years older than the new section. The top portion of the wall was damaged during Hurricane Dennis. We went back to the original supplier and got the same mortar. It was manufactured by Lafarge and supplied by W.R. Taylor & Company. The mortar has lightened significantly over time. The new mortar will take a few years and will look the same. The mortar’s specifications can be found here.

If you want to know the relationship between Windows Vista and CO2 emissions, click through.

I found a paper from the UK parliament which makes that about 3% of the average C02 emissions per person here - France emits less Co2 than us - because their electricity is mostly nuclear, so their Co2 saving will be less. US emits twice as much (4.6% of the worlds population contributes 23.8% of green house gasses) so they need all the savings they can find.

Review of three climate change books from a scientific perspective.

I've finally got round to reading a number of the many climate change-related books that have been published in recent months. These books seem to have caught the public imagination in ways that are different than in the past, and so it's worth examining how they do. The three I've read are; Eugene Linden's The Winds of Change, Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe and Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers. The first two writers are journalists, while the third is a scientist by background, and while there is some overlap in contents all of them, they are clearly distinct works in quite different styles. I'll mostly stick to commenting on the science though...

If you'd like to read NOAA's Weather Service Feeds in your RSS reader, click through.

Link: Experimental XML Feeds and Web Displays of Watches, Warnings, and Advisories.

A response to Bay Buchanan's statement that President Bush has suffered enough from Hurricane Katrina.

Large sections of New Orleans are still in shambles and now we learn the levees are not fully ready for the next hurricane season.

From Roger Pielke, Sr.'s blog on climate change. Pielke works with regional atmospheric modeling and often draws different conclusions about the cause of climate change than his colleagues who work with global circulation models.

This work further illustrates why a focus on the radiative effect of CO2 as the dominant human climate forcing is so inadequate.

An intriguing look at how insurance companies work in the world of climate change and prediction.

The nexus of prediction markets and microlending and mobile technologies and climate change is one I find fascinating and offers great potential for improving the lives of millions and millions of people across the globe.

Improvisation saved a vacation during Hurricane Emily.

You can view our Playa pictures from last August here. We were delayed a month because of hurricane Emily, which blew away the hut at the all inclusive Xpu-Ha Palace we were to stay at. Everything actually worked out for the best because we found an awesome small hotel in Playa called the Playa Maya which is right on the beach, actually the only way you can even enter the hotel is if you walk on the beach! Mmm they had the best shrimp tacos and chips, guacamole and “Mexican salsa”. I can not wait to lay under an umbrella with some munchies and a bucket of beer. We also explored the area on our own and did a lot of things we probably wouldn’t have done had we stayed at some mega-resort.

This blogger doesn't think the government is ready for a replay of the 2005 hurricane season.

This man is mentally ill. The hurricane season is barreling down upon us and everyone knows the federal government is not ready.

From a post on the purchase of hurricane insurance.

I decided to discuss the letter with my husband who said, “Yeah, we’ve been lucky so far but we really ought to consider buying some.” That led to a lengthy online search that led us back to our insurance company. I’d rather deal with my insurance company than the United States government if I had to file a claim after a disaster. I thought the price was fairly reasonable at $233.00 a year. That could be because I live in the one very small zone in Baytown that is out of the flood areas.

If you wanted to know how the global warming story plays out, you can just watch Patlabor: The Mobile Police.

A little backstory: at the end of the twentieth century, global warming caused enormous flooding issues in Japan, and the government responding by creating "labor" construction forces to rebuild and protect. Eventually, these Labors were also used for police and other forces, yielding the quasi-post-apocalyptic, futuristic series we have here. In this volume, Noa and Kanuka discover a subterranean city and are stuck there, alone and without the ability to summon backup. What's more, they are not, of course, alone down there, and the prehistoric dragon creature down there with them is hungry, very hungry.

Well, not really, but lots of skepticism about Mayor Nagin's new hurricane evacuation plan.

More than eight months after Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin outlined an evacuation plan for his city on Tuesday.