How Offshore wind turbines can win a david and goliath battle with hurricanes. Here is a lateral idea: build large offshore wind farms that provide electricity from day to day, but also substantially decrease damaging hurricane or tropical cyclone wind speed and storm surge.
With tropical cyclones forecast to grow stronger and more intense with climate change, if not in greater frequency, such an idea has definite merit to explore. Climate change is predicted to escalate Tropical Cyclone / hurricane damage costs particularly for US and China.
We wouldn't need to put offshore wind farms right along the coast, perhaps just where they can be most effective at lessening storm damage to human lives and infrastructure. And allow us to plant mangroves and cultivate coastal wetlands to store carbon, and provide fish nursery habitat, and absorb storm surges, rather than hugely expensive rock and concrete sea walls.
At least 54 people were killed by Hurricane Sandy in Haiti due to the torrential rains, flooding and destruction of essential bridges and roads. Many Concrete homes and tent camps in Port-au-Prince setup after the 2010 earthquake are largely destroyed leaving up to 18,000 families homeless according to Haitian authorities.
Substantial crop loss occurred due to the Hurricane winds and flooding, threatening hunger and famine in coming weeks and months. Staple crops such as bananas and breadfruit were severely damaged by hurricane Sandy. "We'll have famine in the coming days," Kechner Toussaint, the Abricots mayor, reportedly said. "It's an agricultural disaster."
In the three presidential debates between Mitt Romney and Barak Obama climate change was never mentioned, despite it being raised in all previous campaigns going back to 1988. And then came Hurricane Sandy from the Caribbean. A late season category 1 tropical cyclone that combined with a north-easter from the Arctic to pummel the northern eastern coast of the United States, one of the most populous and industrialised areas on earth.
The Hurricane crossed the coast in New Jersey on Monday night, 29 October, at about 8pm not far from Atlantic City. The storm surge caused widespread areas flooded leaving coastal towns decimated. The winds of the hurricane caused trees to fall and whipped up a massive 3 to 4 metre storm surge. A full moon and a spring tide also exacerbated the storm surge. 10 metre waves were measured just outside New York Harbour entrance. (See Accuweather Superstorm Sandy Stats)
A recent study linked increasing air pollution over the Indian sub-continent to an increase in the intensity of Tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea. The air pollution over the Indian sub-continent changes wind circulation patterns reducing wind shear in the Northern Indian Ocean providing more potential for intense cyclones to form. This is combined with warm sea surface temperatures in the region, especially in the Bay of Bengal, to provide the conditions for more intense and destructive cyclones.
Image by NASA Earth Observatory - Category 4 Tropical Cyclone Gonu in the Arabian Sea in 2007
Filipinos are fighting for survival amid worsening climate change according to the Philippine delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) round of talks in Panama. The main island of Luzon and the national capital Manila have been blasted and battered in late September and into early October by two consecutive typhoons which have killed at least 76 people and caused at least US$200 million in damage to infrastructure and agriculture.
"Millions of Filipinos are already suffering yet we are only seeing initial climate change impacts. Progress must be made in the climate treaty negotiations," said Commissioner Naderev “Yeb" Saño of the Climate Change Commission (CCC) in a media statement. "We are here in Panama to tell the world that climate change is a matter of life and death for the Philippines," Saño said.
Melbourne experienced a hail storm March 6th that has done hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of damage. The storm has been labelled a "once in a century" event. What's not been mentioned is that the storm fits the predicted pattern of the impact of Climate Change on South East Australia.
Whilst the sceptics bellow their crap in the media and on the internet, the recent storm fits into a pattern of weather in Melbourne and Victoria that supports the growing impact of climate change on our region. The predicted impacts of climate change on South East Australia include changes to rain patterns and more extreme weather events.
Victoria is in the midst of a long term drought. This fits the predicted changes of more extended dry periods for Melbourne interspersed with major rain events. In addition to the lemon sized hail on Saturday was a major rain event which caused flash flooding across the city.
Only about 12 months ago Victoria was experiencing one of the worse heat waves and droughts on record culminating in Melbourne's hottest day ever of 46 degrees on Black Saturday 2009, a day when 173 people perished.
Even though neither event can be 100% attributed to climate change, they fit the pattern of freak "once a century" events happening more and more often in South East Australia as the global temperature rises. Interesting there has not been one mention of climate change in all of the mainstream coverage of the event as even a possible contributing factor to the storm even though one reads in the Herald Sun that experts say the storm is more typical of tropical weather patterns. eanwhile down in the Latrobe Valley we continue to burn brown coal as politicians of both major parties adopt a business as usual approach. If events like this become more common the "economic costs" of doing nothing start to be put in perspective.
Image from Bureau of Meteorology event summary - http://www.bom.gov.au/inside/services_policy/public/sevwx/vic/20100603_thunder.shtml
My comment on this event:
Incidence and intensity indicate global warming
Any one weather event cannot be attributed directly to climate change, but the change in the incidence and intensity of such extreme weather events is an indication of global warming.
This particular storm was one part of a major weather event through Northern and Central Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. The Bureau of Meteorology described it as a 'An exceptional rain event' beginning on Feb 22 to march 8. The floods in Central Queensland were hailed as a 1 in 100 year event.
More records broken:
'The most remarkable aspect of this event was the area covered by the heavy rainfall and the total volume of rainfall that fell. Daily totals exceeded 100 mm over 1.7% of Australia on 1 March and 1.9% on 2 March. The latter is the largest area of 100 mm-plus daily totals on a single day in the Australian meteorological record, breaking the previous record of 1.7% set on 22 December 1956.
28 February was the wettest day on record for the Northern Territory with an NT-wide average of 29.23 mm, while 2 March set a new record for Queensland with a Statewide average of 31.74 mm1.'
On March 8, Yan Yean, with 86.2mm of rain, had its wettest March day on record since records began 130 years ago.
More Information:
National Climate Centre, 2010. A significant rainfall event for central and eastern Australia,
Bureau of Meteorology, Special Climate Statement 20 (PDF)
Severe Thunderstorms in Melbourne 6 March 2010, Event Summary
2009 is likely to be the fifth warmest year on record according to the World Meteorological Organisation, with the current decade being the warmest on record, eclipsing the 1990s, which in turn was warmer than the 1980s.
Above normal temperatures were recorded for most regions with North America experiencing conditions colder than normal in some regions. Global warming is producing more weather extremes, at greater frequency and intensity.
With the hacking of emails from the University of East Anglia there have been calls by climate deniers and some commentators like George Monbiot for scientific data to be made more public. In response, the UK Met Office has released station temperature records for over 1,500 of the stations that make up the global land surface temperature record. More data will be made available in the future and placed in the public domain for scrutiny.
The Temperature is Rising
The global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2009 (up to October) was estimated at 0.44°C ± 0.11°C (0.79°F ± 0.20°F) above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.2°F.
As the atmosphere and oceans warm up, more water vapour can be carried, storms will be more intense and more frequent. We will experience more extreme weather events. We are seeing more extreme weather events, with many precipitation and temperature records are being broken.
The year was the third warmest in China since 1951 and for some regions 2009 was the warmest year. A heatwave in July broke some local temperature records.
In Europe spring was very warm with temperatures 5 degrees above average during April in central Europe breaking several records. The European summer was also warmer than the long-term average. Spain recorded the third-warmest summer, and Italy suffered a strong heatwave in July with temperatures soaring over 40°C, and reaching 45°C at some locations. The July heatwave also affected the United Kingdom, France, Belgium , Germany, and Scandanavian countries setting new maximum records.
The year was marked by climate extremes with devastating floods, severe droughts, snowstorms, heatwaves and cold waves, recorded around the world.
Canada and Alaska experienced a hot July with Vancouver and Victoria setting new temperature records and Alaska recording the second warmest July on record. However, October proved to be the third-coolest October on record for the United States.
In the Southern Hemisphere autumn proved to be exceedingly warm across Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil with several temperature records broken.
China is in its worst drought in 50 years. One the weakest monsoon seasons for India caused severe drought in many districts. Severe drought continues in East Africa decimating crop harvests and livestock, leading to food shortages. Exceptional drought was also recorded during October in Mexico, the US Southwest, and Argentina. The Murray Darling Basin, Australia's food bowl, is in its 9th year of drought. The South west corner of Western Australia and South eastern Australia continues to receive below average rainfall.
The WMO has also warned that the frequency and severity of droughts are likely to increase. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has noted that: "The combination of record heat and widespread drought during the past five to ten years over large parts of southern and eastern Australia is without historical precedent and is, at least partly, a result of climate change."
While the Copenhagen COP15 talks are underway, meteorologists, climatologists and other researchers are meeting at the University of Nebraska from 8 to 11 December 2009 at the 'Inter-Regional Workshop on Indices and Early Warning Systems for Drought'.
"There is a critical need to establish best practices for drought early warning systems throughout the world. This requires that we develop a better understanding of the tools and data sources that are important components of these systems. Drought is a serious problem in virtually all countries. Projected changes in climate for many regions suggest that droughts are likely to become more frequent, of longer duration, and more severe. Our ability to lessen or mitigate the impacts associated with drought is contingent on putting in place comprehensive early warning systems.", said Dr Don Wilhite, Director and Professor, School of Natural Resources of the University of Nebraska, at the opening of the workshop.
Storms
Intense storms affected Spain and France in January; severe damage by a winter storm in western Europe resulting in serious disruptions to air and rail traffic across the region. Thunderstorms and extreme rainfall events across Europe and Turkey, culminating in a record rainfall in 24 hours for Great Britain in November resulting in flooding and damage to bridges.
In South America heavy rainfall occurred in Colombia at the start of the year, producing landslides and widespread floods. Later, North-east Brazil experienced heavy rainfall and flooding, and in Winter the worst snowstorm for 15 years hit the southern part of Argentina. Intense rainfall breaking monthly precipitation records and flooding ocurred in north-eastern Argentina, southern Brazil and Uruguay in November.
A record number of tornadoes were witnessed in Ontario, Canada, and Canadian avalanches were almost double the yearly average for the past decade. The United States experienced its wettest October in 115 years, with record flooding during March in the northern plains region.
192 people died in El Salvador when an intense storm associated with Hurricane Ida, produced deadly floods and landslides.
Southern India experienced incessant rain resulting in severe flooding during September and October.
A severe snowstorm in Northern China in early November, one month earlier than normal, broke local weather records.
Torrential rain and flooding ocurred in Western Africa, Zambia and Namibia. Burkina Faso experienced 263 mm of rain recorded in less than 12 hours, breaking a record set 90 years ago. Flooding affected over 100,000 people in West Africa and a further 1 million people in southern Africa.
While extreme heatwave and bushfires hit south eastern Australia in February, at the same time large parts of Queensland and coastal New South Wales were subject to torrential rain and flooding. In September and October eastern Australia was affected by dust storms carrying dust from central Australia, reducing visibility.
Arctic Sea Ice
The Arctic experienced its third lowest sea ice extent over the Northern summer, with only 2007 and 2008 being lower.
More importantly, sea ice thickness is also in rapid decline, with much of the purported multi-year ice as detected by microwaves from satellite proven by new research to be 'rotten' ice unexpectedly thin that electromagnetically fools the satellite measurement instruments. The Research was conducted by Dr David Barber, a professor of Environment and Geography and Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science from the University of Manitoba.
"Our results are consistent with ice age estimates that show the amount of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere was the lowest on record in 2009 suggesting that multiyear sea ice continues to diminish rapidly in the Canada Basin even though 2009 aerial extent increased over that of 2007 and 2009," Dr David Barber concludes in his paper which has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters.
This latest research was conducted In September 2009 by Barber and others in the southern Beaufort Sea aboard the research vessel (NGCC) Amundsen. Much of the ice encountered, sometimes 6-8 metres thick, was so heavily decayed the Amundsen easily broke through the floes. For much of the journey the ship sailed at close to its open water cruising speed of about 25km/h.
"This has significant implications for assessment of the speed of global climate change impacts in the Arctic and for increased shipping and industrial development in the Arctic," said Barber.
