Does climate change have any hand in Ike and the annihilation of Galveston?

Quite possobly it does. Hurricans seem to be natures' way of cooling off the Earth, giving way ot increased storm activity. The Gulf coast is in a tough spot - very flat land, warm Gulf waters, large masses of people living there (IE: Houston is U.S. 4th largest city).

Combine all of the above, its' not "if", but "when" will a major storm hit that area.

Dbcassidy

 

Hurricanes are weather...

Climate change's biggest contribution will probably be sea level rise as storm surges will be even more destructive. Significant sea leve rise (> 0.5m) is still a ways off however.

 

Most studies have indicated that IF there is any link it is in the strength of storms, but not so much in the numbers of storms.
Very up in the air still, at this point I would say minor if any.

 

One thing I did find curious about Ike was the fact that the storm surge was truely massive for a Cat 2 storm. The storm surge was more characteristic of a Cat 4. I don't understand how the surge could be that large but the windspeeds comparatively low. Perhaps it was a function of the shear size of the storm.

 

The more heat in the atmosphere, the more energetic the storms.

 

Does Galveston have the same coastal dilemma that New Orleans and MIssippi had with Katrina in that the coastal marshes have been virtually eliminated, resulting in nothing to slow down the storms battering?

 

galveston was flattened in 1900 - was that global warming / climate change 108 years ago? i'm not saying we don't have global warming going on, just that this is hardly a unique event. it has happened before in exactly the same place.

dcb -
huh, what???
how, exactly, does a hurricaine 'cool off the Earth'?
i'm not a weather expert, but by what mechanism do hurricaines radiate planetary heat out into space?

Priu - I think Galveston is mostly barrier islands, not so much marshes - the islands definately get eroded by storm action. most of the problem in louisiana is that the much of the coast is mississippi delta - marshy, very close to sea level. the topography is different on the texas coast - mostly barrier islands. i think. maybe. been awhile since i studied the subject.

 

Tripp, part of the reason for the big storm surge is the geometry of the bay leading into Galveston. It works like a tidal race, forcing the waves to be bigger and steeper.

Tom

 

It's probably not the entire story, but it might be hard to claim that sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico are driving storms this year, given that the temperature charts show those areas to be cooler than normal. However, there are other hotspots nearby in the Atlantic and the Gulf along the coast of Mexico and Texas. To what extent are excess warmth in those areas a result of CO2, nobody knows. But I doubt it is the primary factor. More likely ocean circulation changes.

 

The heat is not radiated into space, it is converted into 'work' (using the definition of 'work' from Physics).
Hurricanes take heat from the water and produce 'work' (blowing winds shoving huge quantities of water, etc). The energy to do this work comes from the heat. So you do get a net cooling affect.
As an example of this just look at water surface temperatures before and after a hurricane passes by.

 

I'm believe in AGW, but also believe that one can't attribute any particular hurricane to AGW. And while it seems agreed that AGW will increase hurricane strength, the extent of that increase is disputed, by scientists like Chris Landsea (1-2 mph increase in wind speed) on the small end and the IPCC on the large end.

This is one issue where I throw up my hands and decide to wait until the science is more settled.

 

This isn't because the hurricane cooled the water down....hurricanes mix the water column to much deeper depths than normal, and below that relatively thin (100-200m) warm tropical surface layer is colder water. The hurricane just produced big enough waves to churn up the colder water from deeper depths.

I've not heard that hurricanes cool the planet down either. What they do is help even out the difference in temperature between the equator and the poles. Hurricanes transport a lot of heat away from the equator, "cooling" the equator (relatively) and "warming the higher latitudes.

I believe the large storm surge with Ike was due to how massive the storm was, and how slow it was moving. The longer it churns around out there the more energy it imparts to the water and the bigger the storm surge it can generate. Galveston Bay's geography didn't help.

And yes, hurricanes are weather, not climate. But warmer surface waters in the tropics (due to climate) could certainly have some effects on hurricanes.

 

More heat makes things cooler? No, I don't see the logic in that. A few ice cubes might cool your drink, but there's more to it on an oceanic scale. The less ice there is to reflect the Sun's rays, the more heat is absorbed.

 

Good point on the mixing.
However, it is still a fact that that warmer waters give hurricanes more energy. I don't see anyway for this to happen if the hurricane isn't drawing away some of that energy and converting it into mechanical energy (wind).
However, I don't believe that the amount of heat drawn out of the oceans by hurricanes is significant compared to the total amount of heat energy held in the oceans.
I was simply responding to someone that asked what mechanism was responsible for cooling.

As for ice melting cooling the oceans, it does happen to some extent. Melting ice takes a fair amount of energy. The resulting water from the melt will be very cold. Adding more cold water to the system will lower the average. The heat gain from lower albedo will take a short time to allow the temperature to 'catch up'. Just how short that time lag is (i.e. minutes, days, months, years) I don't know.

 

It's not that simple. We know that the weather is basically a heat engine, and if you feed it more heat it can do more work. We can't point at any one storm and say "Hey, that one, that one there, that's a global warming storm!" Warming the planet will tend to generate more weather, but you can't really say that one particular storm wouldn't have happened anyhow. You can say that the frequency or severity or duration of storms in general will go up, but you can't say Ike yes, Katrina, no.

 

Wow - we might actually be close to agreement Scott!

 

If interested in the energy transferred from the ocean surface to hurricanes, here is an excellent link:

Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential Page: Global Fields

You can compare tropical cyclone heat potential (TCHP) maps for the Gulf of Mexico before and after the passage of Ike and get an idea of how many Joules were transfered. Hint: lots.

As for warming vs. hurricanes, the ongoing dispute is outlined in previous posts. The other significant factor is wind shear in the atmosphere which can inhibit the formation of these storms, or weaken active ones. It remains unclear whether wind shear would respond in a predictable way to warming.

Hurricane do transfer equatorial energy to higher latitudes, and in some ways this can counteract global warming. They also bury biological carbon, increase weathering rates of minerals, and change forest structure so as to accelerate C sequestration in them. So far there are very few studies of those 3 processes but I consider them fascinating. Increased number or intensity of hurricanes can act as a negative feedback on atmospheric CO2 increases.

 

Does anybody know if this site is believable?

Climate Progress Blog Archive Resources for Ike, hurricanes, and global warming