Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Talk about Climate Change

Re:Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Ta... by Turing_Machine on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @10:12AM (#15132264)

See the link I posted above. Before this storm, the last hurricane of Category 3 or greater to strike the United States was Wilma, in 2005. The last Category 5 storm to strike the United States was Andrew, in 1992.

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Re:Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Ta... by emodendroket on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @10:23AM (#15132338)

I'm sure the various people losing a collective $75 billion in effects of Hurricane Sandy will be pleased to know that it wasn't a "major storm."

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Ta... by Turing_Machine on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @10:30AM (#15132385)

Hurricane Sandy was expensive because it struck a densely populated region, not because it was a particularly strong storm.

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Re:Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Ta... by emodendroket on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @10:36AM (#15132425)

So what?

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Re:Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Ta... by Turing_Machine on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @10:52AM (#15132568)

1) The definition of "major hurricane" is one of Category 3 or greater. Sandy was only a 1.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutgloss.shtml#m

2) The actual topic of discussion here is whether climate change makes hurricanes worse. Unless you have some evidence that climate change was responsible for Sandy's track, its connection with the topic is dubious at best. Do you have such evidence?

Edit: No, they're not "more frequent", either.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Ta... by emodendroket on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @10:56AM (#15132614)

It is not just whether it makes them worse but also whether it makes them more frequent. If the country is experiencing more highly damaging storms who cares whether they're category 3 or not?

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Re:Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Ta... by dragonwriter on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @02:24PM (#15134637)

And, also whether it changes where they occur, since places where they have usually occurred are more likely to be adapted to them.

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Re:Harvey Didn't Come Out of the Blue. Now Is the Time to Ta... by emodendroket on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @04:47PM (#15135866)

It's a good thing practically no large cities are built around ocean ports, or else it would be real cause for concern that even minor storms becoming frequent could wreak havoc.

[ Parent | on HN ]