Good morning, today if you haven't heard is Earth Day. No doubt the news coverage will be all over saving the earth topics and stories about global warming and climate change. This is a good thing, we should be aware of our environment and how we can do things to make life better on this planet.
We are also approaching hurricane season rapidly. The Atlantic Season starts on June 1st. You may have heard about the group of scientists out of Colorado State University that puts out a hurricane forecast every year - it usually makes the news. This year they are predicting 15 named storms, 8 of which are forecast to become hurricanes, and 4 of those storms will be strong - Category 3 or higher. Dr. Gray and his team of scientists have taken a little heat over the last two years because their long range forecasts have not exactly panned out for various reasons. His team revises the forecast during the season depending on the weather factors and changes they see occurring. The last two years they have always revised downward. I will not knock Dr. Gray or any of his scientists as they are incredibly smart people who do a very difficult job. If you watch the local news on a regular basis you know that sometimes even 7 days out we have trouble seeing the exact picture of what is going to happen, and speak in more general terms, especially in the winter with snow storms. Weather is constantly changing, the atmosphere is a fluid and because of that forecasts do at times bust. Imagine trying to forecast out months in advance!
Dr. Gray and his team also said some very interesting things about the relationship between hurricanes and global warming. After the record breaking hurricane season of 2005 in which 31 tropical systems developed (one was Katrina in New Orleans) there were alot of people looking at the relationship between global warming and hurricanes. At face value, a warmer globe equals a warmer ocean, which equals more and stronger hurricanes right? Well not really, however the media and strong supporters of global warming latched onto this after 2005. Unfortunetly all the information and hype was not the complete science. Yes warmer oceans can make more frequent and stronger hurricanes. Hurricanes get their energy from warm water, but that is not the whole picture. For example, over the last two years there have been many fewer tropical systems, most not making landfall, and many others not even making it to hurricane strength. The warm water is still there, so what is the deal? Easterly trade winds over the Carribean were much stronger than the 2005, which inhibits tropical development because the individual thunderstorms cannot get organized. Some say El Nino - which is the warming of the Pacific waters off South America had something to do with that.
What bothers me, and many other meteorologists I know is that there is too much hype, most of it caused by people in our line of work....the media. What is unfortunate is that this topic and many that deal with global warming cannot be fit into a 30 sec or 1 minute soundbite. It is an extremely complicated topic. I heard a stock analyst on one of the 24 hour news channels say that because of warmer ocean temperatures and increased hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico (where there are alot of oil platforms) the price of oil will soar to all time highs. I looked into his qualifications, brilliant man - in finance, saw nothing of a meteorology or climatology degree. This is so dangerous! At the time there was no threat to the Gulf, nor was there a prediction of what he was claiming to be true. Do we really need to hype weather to make oil to rise any faster? That is just one example, but this is what the public hears and since "important" people on tv are saying it, often time people think it must be true.
I'll stick with hurricanes in this post, and maybe deal with my thoughts on global warming in a future one. For now, if your interested in these topics I encourage you to learn everything you can about them. Look at both sides of the issues, not just the "popular" ones that you read in the newspaper or hear on the tv. You can find the Hurricane forecast at http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/Forecasts
Celebrate Earth Day!
As always, thanks for reading and watching!
Brandon
