Elliot Abrams on Hurricanes and Wind Shear
Elliot Abrams has added a new entry to the Global Perspectives blog, this one on the issue of wind shear and hurricanes. You may remember my entry on this subject. Katie also briefly mentioned it in Headline: Earth. The University of Illinois has a web site with a brief animation that shows how decreased wind shear aids tropical cyclone development while increased wind shear suppresses it.
Again, any comments on Elliot's blog entry can be made here.
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Comments (4)
What is beginning to drive me nuts is that scientists are covering both sides of their bets, so no matter what happens, the cause will be global warming.
Posted by plish | May 1, 2007 8:12 PM
Plish,
Welcome to politics!!! CYA on both ends and you'll never be wrong. In 10 years when AGW is disproven, they will still take the credit, claiming it was their quick thinking that stops it. Unfortunately by then the poor or middle class will be wiped out by regulations and higher prices. Many will starve or lose everything due to not being able to afford gas, electricity, water, etc due to regulations.
Posted by Rose | May 2, 2007 6:25 PM
Upper level kinematics cannot be stressed enough when attempting to make forecasts. Whether it is severe weather forecasters assigned to SELS, or Tropical Storm Analysts working in Miami, an understandng of what happends to an air parcel once it begins to lift is paramount.
The dynamics of Tropical Storm development are very complex. Sea Surface temperatures can rise to 40 deg C, but without the correct high level wind profile, nothing will come about other than a lot of disorganized convection.
Posted by JP | May 3, 2007 9:24 AM
That's the thing that bothers me as a scientist. Climate models have been built with an acknowledgment that all the variables that influence the climate/weather feedback loop aren't truly known, and then models can be based on those models and lo and behold, they can always be used to explain something somewhere in the future...
Posted by Plish | May 4, 2007 9:58 AM