Hurricane Irma now looks like it will hit Florida in a few days after first pounding Caribbean islands. That is predicted to be the second major hurricane strike on the US mainland of 2017. That comes after a twelve year period with no strikes of that sort at all. In other words, things are returning to normal. Major hurricane strikes have hit the USA about every 3 or 4 years over the past century. That's why the 12 years without one was extraordinary. Our luck had to end, and between Harvey and Irma, it sure looks like it has done so.
When the media starts trotting out "experts" to tell you, however, that the two hurricanes are proof of global warming, try to remember the difference between weather and climate. A hurricane is "weather". It is a one time event that occurs, in general, at a certain frequency. If you look at the map for the next five days provided by the National Hurricane Center at NOAA, you see that the location of Irma five days from now is not specified but rather is said to be somewhere on a range about 250 miles wide. Simply put (and NOAA would agree with this), our best scientists really don't know where Irma will be in less than a week from now. A great many hurricane seasons put together is needed before the transition from weather to climate takes place. That means that scientists who can't even predict the location of a storm five days from now with accuracy and supposed to tell us what hurricanes will be like in 20 years.
When the media starts trotting out "experts" to tell you, however, that the two hurricanes are proof of global warming, try to remember the difference between weather and climate. A hurricane is "weather". It is a one time event that occurs, in general, at a certain frequency. If you look at the map for the next five days provided by the National Hurricane Center at NOAA, you see that the location of Irma five days from now is not specified but rather is said to be somewhere on a range about 250 miles wide. Simply put (and NOAA would agree with this), our best scientists really don't know where Irma will be in less than a week from now. A great many hurricane seasons put together is needed before the transition from weather to climate takes place. That means that scientists who can't even predict the location of a storm five days from now with accuracy and supposed to tell us what hurricanes will be like in 20 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment