8 ms·
Climate change is the most likely reason behind rising sea levels, however, Houston is far enough inland to not have gotten any storm surge. What happened was t
by chiph 9y ago
Climate change is the most likely reason behind rising sea levels, however, Houston is far enough inland to not have gotten any storm surge. What happened was the storm stalled over top of the city instead of moving on through. This meant that it picked up water on the south-east side of the storm and dropped it on the north-west side, right over the neighborhoods. And did it over a couple of days.
What it was .. was a severe rainfall event.
And the photo she led with, with the people walking along the highway divider? Houston's road network is designed to be a last-resort flood buffer to collect rainwater temporarily until it can drain to the east into the ship canal. So yeah, that's going to happen.
The good news is the $700+ million in FEMA money that was spent over the years since Katrina to prevent flooding at the city's medical centers appears to have worked. They stayed open.
- emodendroket 9y agoIt was my understanding that climate change made events like hurricanes and extreme rainfall more likely.
- cpr 9y agoExcept that the US has had 10 years free of serious storms. Doesn't quite fit the narrative.
- 0xfeba 9y agoPlease define "serious", as the US has definitely had multiple storms in the past 10 years.
- Turing_Machine 9y agoSee 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.
- emodendroket 9y agoI'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."
- Turing_Machine 9y agoHurricane Sandy was expensive because it struck a densely populated region, not because it was a particularly strong storm.
- emodendroket 9y agoSo what?
- Turing_Machine 9y ago1) 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 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 http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html
- emodendroket 9y agoIt 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?
- dragonwriter 9y agoAnd, also whether it changes where they occur, since places where they have usually occurred are more likely to be adapted to them.
- jmcqk6 9y agoWas Hurricane Sandy not a "Serious Storm?" There have been many others - winter storms, devastating tornadoes, etc. Also, the world is a bigger place than the US. There have been truly catastrophic storms in other parts of the world. So sure, if you define "serious storm" as "hurricane of cat 3 or higher" and "the world" is "US" then yes, you might have a point, I guess...
- chiph 9y agoPerhaps not more likely, but since they run on heat, hurricanes could possibly become stronger in the future. I haven't seen any articles which reference research on this, as it's hard to filter out the ones with bias (in either direction).
- dogruck 9y agoStrange how difficult it is to get a non-political unbiased view of man-made climate change, isn't it?
- 0xfeba 9y agoFrom major news outlets? No, not strange. Luckily the AAAS, NASA, NOAA aren't nearly as political.
- dogruck 9y agoI disagree that organizations such as AAAS, NASA, and NOAA aren't political. Perhaps you and I have different definitions of "political." Do you define it as "elected official?"
- emodendroket 9y agoAre newspaper editors elected where you live?
- dogruck 9y agoPretty much -- every reader and advertiser is essentially a voter. Many more layers of indirection for NASA officials. Still, I think NASA has heaps of politics.
- emodendroket 9y ago> Pretty much -- every reader and advertiser is essentially a voter. That is not the least bit similar to being voted for.
- dogruck 9y agoRemember when Dr Roger Pielke Jr was fired because he didn't think climate change intensified hurricanes? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_A._Pielke_Jr https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_A._Pielke_Jr. You might have that understanding because the media punishes disention.
- emodendroket 9y ago> Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Roger A. Pielke Jr in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dogruck 9y agoHuh. I think it's how HN parses the trailing suffix of '.' on the URL.
- emodendroket 9y agoOK. I was able to read it with that information. So even the martyr you're holding up believes global warming is real, and man-made, and that it would make sense to limit greenhouse gases on this basis. And it seems he was not merely in trouble because he "didn't think climate change contributed to hurricanes" but because others objected to the way he did and presented his research. Not really compelling, to me.