Will Sandy Be the Climate Change Wakeup Call We Need?
Calling Hurricane Sandy a disaster almost underplays the enormous devastation wrought by this freakish monster of a storm. Four days after Sandy came ashore just south of Atlantic City, NJ, millions are still without power, gas stations are running out of fuel, and the death toll continues to rise. But for those of us who worry about climate chan… Read More
How Fujiwhara Effect Will Toss Hurricane Sandy Into U.S.
Occasionally, two tropical cyclones get close enough to one another to do the Fujiwhara dance. It happens only rarely in the Atlantic. Computer models predict that Sandy is going to do it, not with another tropical cyclone, but with the vortex center associated with the larger extratropical storm. … Read More
How Hurricane Sandy Can Become a ‘Frankenstorm’
To some degree, it probably will be a hybrid storm that shares characteristics of two parents: Sandy, a tropical cyclone (the broader term including hurricanes and tropical storms); and an extratropical “trough, or upper-level low pressure system associated with a big wiggle in the jet stream. … Read More
Hurricane Sandy Poses Growing Threat To East Coast
What is known with greater certainty is that Sandy is going to make landfall Wednesday in Jamaica, lashing that island with hurricane force winds and heavy rains, before charging northeastward into eastern Cuba. It will also dump heavy rainfall on Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which could cause life-threatening flooding. … Read More
Will Tropical Storm Sandy Threaten U.S. East Coast?
Some computer models, such as the one built by the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), are showing that the storm could be near hurricane intensity when it strikes land somewhere between Virginia and Maine, almost a year to the day since the Snowtober storm struck the same area.… Read More
Scientists Eat Crow on Geoengineering Test. Me, Too
Scientists (presumably including Keith) were outraged that such a thing could happen. It’s not that they have anything against algae, but rather that the project was a type of geoengineering — a suite of anti-climate-change strategies that are highly controversial because they have the potential for triggering significant unintended consequences.… Read More
Grim Storm Scenarios Loom for Mid-Atlantic, Northeast
Several computer model runs have shown a slingshot scenario, in which Tropical Storm (or hurricane) Sandy initially moves out to sea east of North Carolina, but is captured by the jet stream and flung northwestward into the Mid-Atlantic or Northeast.… Read More
Sea Level in the Year 3000: Why We Should Care
Sometimes a new scientific result is so clearly important that the bottom line needs no explaining — a report showing how ocean acidification threatens food security around the world, for example, or one that ties melting ice in the Arctic to the threat of colder, snowier winters for the U.S. But it’s tougher to see why anyone should care about … Read More
