Storms 'to get more destructive' (Scotland)

[Minstrel Boy]

Storms 'to get more destructive'

by JOHN ROSS
The Scotsman, Jan 17

THE storms which devastated parts of Scotland last week will become more frequent and more destructive in future, experts are predicting.

Residents of the west coast and islands said the storm, which brought hurricane-force winds reaching 124mph, was the worst in living memory. It caused the death of a family of five whose cars were swept into the sea as they tried to escape the fierce conditions on South Uist, and left a trail of destruction in its wake.

Power and telephone lines were brought down, roads and bridges were closed, schools and offices shut and buildings damaged or destroyed. But, according to researchers studying the seas off the west coast of Scotland, last week may be just a taste of things to come.

Scientists from Thurso and Southampton predict that a trend of more frequent storms may be set to intensify as a result of climate change, driving up winter wave heights off the west coast. The work has been done by Thurso’s Environmental Research Institute and Southampton Oceanography Centre.
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=58152005

[The Straight Story]

1. One thing I have been thinking about of late:

What if there were multiple volcanos that occured within the same day or days of each other - earthquakes, mass ash and lava, tsunami's, et all triggered.

How much would the world we know change in one day, and how prepared is the avg person to deal with it?

[Lorien]

6. That's not what we have to worry about

the earth could start to heat up so much that the Gulf Stream reverses, bringing on another Ice Age (How easy will it be to grow food under feet of ice and snow)? Warmer seas bring about stronger storms, too. A tropical storm becomes a category 5 hurricane because it's fed by warm sea temps. My town had not been hit by a hurricane in 60 years, until last year, when three hit it (with winds of up to 122 MPH). I expect next year to be no different.

[420inTN]

19. That's what i've been saying since the late 80's...

we gonna have another Ice Age breathing down our necks before too long (25-100 years). Ice Ages come in cycles, and some scientists say that we are overdue on the next one. It'll be interesting to see how humans survive, if we last that long.

The biggest thing that gets me about the various climatology "experts" and "predictions", is that there really isn't enough data. We've only been accurately recording weather patterns and temperatures for 100-150 years? Only been able to track global patterns for 20-50 years? The Earth has weather/climate patterns that span centuries and millenia. Heck, the weatherman can't even tell next weekend's forecast very accurately, much less 25-50 years from now.

[nashville_brook]

24. aren't we already seeing changes in the gulf steam due to

weakening of the North Atlantic Oscillation?

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/North_Atlantic.html

[oneighty]

2. No way

this is not real science.

Junk science is the phrase I am looking for. 'Junk Science'

180

[Dogmudgeon]

3. "Junk Science" ... like Climatology?

"Junk Science" is itself junk science. The website of the same name is a RW shill portal. Climatologists have been tracking these changes for a couple of decades. There is an extensive, well-supported body of work that now exists on climate change.

A loose translation of Junk Science is: Any science I disagree with. Usually the term is used to dismiss observed or experimentally-derived data that differ with a cherished, politically determined, or funded belief.

You'll have to explain to us what Real Science is.

--p!

[oneighty]

5. sarcasm

my bad. i felt it was obvious.

180

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Sorry ...

... I've been very literal-minded these days.

In addition, my sense of humor (which I didn't use in the post, fortunately) has been way off.

I blame my sinus infection. And Society. :)

--p!

[oneighty]

12. Blame no one, blame nothing.

It is not necessary.

180

[Demeter]

4. And So It Starts: The Day After Tomorrow

a horribly trite drama, but some really cutting edge science--enough to scare your pants off. Rent the film and watch.

[TrustingDog]

7. that movie creeped me out big time...

especially where the cold was coming from and why.

[420inTN]

20. Based on a book by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber...

"The Coming Global Superstorm".

[shadowknows69]

22. watch about the first 40 minutes

[BeFree]

8. Lets see, IIRC, the theory goes

Glaciers melting into the North Atlantic will form what might be called a cold water dam holding back the gulf stream current from moving as far north as it now does. The result will be cooler air temps over western Europe. That's the theory.

We all know that anytime two temperature differing climate systems confront each other, violent weather ensues. Maybe these storms are a sign that cooling of the North Atlantic, as theorized, has begun?

The theory also says that the European climate could flip, indeed, did flip in the past, within a time period of a decade. Scotland could be headed for serious trouble, and soon.

[FlaGranny]

9. Actually, from what I understand,

the temperature of the water from the melt is not so important as the salinity of the water. The fresh water from the melt gets dumped into the north Atlantic causing the water to become less saline. The gulf stream current is supposed to be driven by the salinity causing the warm water to be heavier and plunge to the depths in the north Atlantic. The reduced salinity causes the water to NOT sink as fast and slow down or stop the gulf stream. I hope I got that right.

[BeFree]

13. Yeah, that's right. Granny

The fresh water floats on top of the heavier salt water, forming, as I postulated, a dam against the warm water from rising up and dispersing it's heat to the atmosphere. That very same heat that has been keeping Europe warm all these years.

I further postulate that since the heat no longer is dispersed northward, that it remains at lower latitudes causing a warm-up in the Atlantic bordering southern states. It could be why last year's hurricanes were so numerous, and if correct, portends more of the same if the gulf stream is being dammed. We coud be seeing the first climatic changes even now.

[mn9driver]

11. The site below has some interesting discussions

regarding real climate science, including this thread regarding Michael Crichton's latest fiction pooh-poohing global warming.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74

[Liberal Grant WI]

14. .

yeah this is crazy stuff..first i heard of these storms today

[newyawker99]

29. Hi Liberal Grant WI!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Dogmudgeon]

15. North Atlantic currents (and some lunatic raving)

Scottish scientists -- along with scientists from the other countries in that area -- have been watching the changes in the ocean currents for a couple of decades now. That is the area where any major thermohaline current change will first show up. And guess what? Those changes are happening.

The next major change is likely to be a reversal. When the water reaches some yet-undefined critical salinity point, the smaller currents will fail. They will be able to tell (probably) by a drop in dissolved oxygen and a fish die-off. Since there will be no way for warm water to flow into the Northern Atlantic, the temperature of the water will also fall, reversing the process -- ice-melt runoff from Greenland will stop, the salinity of the North Atlantic will increase, as will dissolved oxygen levels. Cold-water oceanic fauna will probably show up, like King and Snow Crabs. At that point, the Little Ice Age will have begun.

Since we're so close to a natural cyclic point for a major ice age to start, I think it will be the lead-in to the next great Ice Age, although that's much less certain, since the ocean/climate dynamics are not well established over long periods.

We do know that wholesale climate changes happen quickly, over time spans of less than a decade. I personally think that 400-450 ppm CO2 marks the "tipping point", and we're at 395 ppm CO2 right now, adding about 3 ppm per year.

I also don't think we can stop this process. Our technological blunder kick-started the cycle, but it's well entrenched in natural processes now. The entire Arctic has changed from a carbon/heat sink to a source, as trillions of tons of newly-warmed soil have become biologically active.

If you live in Scotland, it means increasingly destructive gales for the next 10-20 years, followed by 9 month long winters for a century or more. Not quite The Day After Tomorrow, but bad none the less.

That's only a wild-assed guess, and I've left plenty of the details out, but it fits in with the observations. Which is why climatologists have gotten so cautious all of the sudden. Nobody wants to risk their PhD credentials being this era's Cassandra. Fortunately, I'm a lone loon without a PhD and with an internet account.

In addition, if this happens about 20 years from now, it will be taking place during an era of radically higher energy costs, social changes from the effects on the economy, and increased pressure from the "Third World", which is likely to be suffering famine from the climate change.

This era could be a decent into a new Dark Age, or it could be a time when we, as a world, get our acts together and start working toward a real global civilization. I personally feel that only the development of space resources will help us cope. Simply moving industry into space and powering it with sunlight will cut our petroleum use by 90%. Directing sunlight and/or low-density microwave energy to "energy farms" would reduce our reliance on oil even more.

Even allowing for a generous 50-year transitional period, intelligent planning and well-managed use of nuclear energy (with radionucleide recycling and containment, as NNadir advocates) could cut the tough years down or eliminate them altogether.

Some people look at these problems as arrows racing toward the heart of the modern world. I look at them as challenges to be met and overcome. The era of petro-crusades and shari'a and mass authoritarianism will be coming to an end -- either through universal misery and mass death, or a renewed spirit of clear-eyed optimism. "Muddling through" will not be a choice.

--p!

[sweetheart]

16. 1 decade?

Hmmm. Well, how exciting, to have some serious winters coming then!!
:-) That last storm was quite a blow, even picking up pieces of stone
off the ground, tossing around 5 meter sections of timber and generally
being quite nasty.... but i can handle the blows, as in the middle of
that storm, the temperature was warm, 50 farenheit, at 58.5 degrees
north... not far from the arctic circle.

The ocean during the storm was so magnificently beautiful... as the
magesty of massive waves smashing against the cliffs causes me to
just stare in awe... the spray was breaking over 150 foot cliffs
with normally flat sections of sea turning in to massive rollers...
and it looks like slow motion they're so large.

I guess the lesson is to do construction with 3x the insulation of the
building codes and prepare for winters of more canadian proportions.

[Fovea]

17. Possible Jumbo Ice Age-possible Age of Storms...

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/14/143210&tid=14

Add the double whammy of upper stratospheric increase in albedo and subsequent heat trapping in the Stratosphere/Thermosphere due to increased particulates. This will also increase the absolute humidity of the Stratosphere, the reason I suspect we hear stories about 'jet trails' and some sort of seeding program. It is really just an upper air that is already wetter on the average.

Now add the increase of albedo from larger, more severe winter storms to the damage from a hurricane season that extends from late February to late June, in the gulf, and a second temperate zone (a phrase that will be a bit anachoronistic by then) series of June hurricanes in the North Atlantic which will be shorer lived, and may actually follow near circular recursive paths due to greater Coriolis effect and the post dilution zonal flow of the North Atlantic. This pattern of violent seasonal changes will diminish will diminish as we break either to runaway heat from CO2 or runaway cold from increased albedo.


England, the NE US and Canada, Iceland, and the Continent may find themselves getting grazed by the same storm twice during the near term.

An ice age would be hard on us hairless monkeys, but a meltdown scares me too. I don't care if folks think I am crazy, I have been thinking a bout this a lot. I may have only got 6 hours of metorology/climatology, just enough to be dangerous, I guess. But enough not to be certain about what our current situation really is, but to be certain that it is going to be worse if we do nothing.

[nashville_brook]

26. man! thanks for this 'lunatic raving..."

very insightful!

i'm with you up till the fuel and famine part. i think (hope) that in the 3 to 15 years it will take for the CO2 to reach critcal mass, we will hop on a new technology. some "carnegie" or "rockefeller" will figure out how to distribute energy as a radio wave or there'll be hydrogen cells -- something will prompt rapid technological and cultural change.

and conversely -- i don't think these advances will come about until there is an emergency (b/c of market forces).

weird -- i'm more optimistic given the "doomsday" scenario.

[bananas]

28. Gulf stream current display online

You can see the gulf stream current here,
if anyone is interested.
http://www.deos.tudelft.nl/altim/gulfstream/

[newyawker99]

30. Hi bananas!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[damntexdem]

18. Kim STnaley Robinson has a great Sci Fi book out:

"Forty Signs of Rain," about worsening storms as global warming advances. Good politics, too. Now don't be like Republicans and take fiction as evidence (as they confuse themselves with the 'Left Behind' books and other conservative trash fiction); but fiction can affect how we think about issues.

[420inTN]

21. Back in the mid/late 80's before Global Warming...

the big climate scare was Global Cooling. All kinds of predictions about how the next Ice Age was coming (and would be preceded by a warmer than usual period).

[shadowknows69]

23. upstate NY

we had 60 degrees 2 days ago and tonight it's going to be a wind chil of -35

[Matilda]

25. Climate change is nothing to worry about, nothing at all.

Dubya says so, and he's backed up by that scientific expert John
Howard.

It's all a left-wing plot to stop corporations making so much money.

[Rush1184]

27. I am currently studying in Glasgow, Scotland...

I live right by the river clyed, and the weather has been shitty, but not disasterous, at least so far. Last week we had what seemed like tropical stormish weather with winds of 98mph, and now we have about an inch of snow, with reports of worse weather to come soon.