Maria brushes Bermuda; 24-hour blitz by Climate Reality Project underway
Tropical Storm Maria is roaring past Bermuda, bringing winds near tropical storm force. At 11 am local time, winds at the Bermuda airport were sustained at 36 mph, just below the 39 mph threshold of tropical storm strength. Outer spiral bands of Maria have brought a few brief heavy rain squalls to the island, as seen on Bermuda radar. The core of Maria is now at its closest point of approach to the island, about 150 miles (240 km) to the west, and the island may yet see an hour of two of sustained winds of 40 - 45 mph. Maria is headed north-northeast, and will brush Newfoundland, Canada on Friday afternoon. Since Newfoundland will be on the weak (left) side of a rapidly weakening Maria, I'm not expecting much in the way of wind damage from the storm in Canada, though heavy rains may cause isolated minor to moderate flooding. Top sustained winds in St. Johns will probably be in the 25 - 35 mph range Friday afternoon, though a few hours of tropical storm force winds of 40 - 45 mph are possible if Maria ends up tracking farther west than expected.
Figure 1. Radar image of Tropical Storm Maria taken at 10:13 am EDT September 15, 2011. Image credit: Bermuda Weather Service.
Elsewhere in the tropics
Even the busiest of hurricane seasons have lulls, and we're hitting one this week during what is traditionally the busiest week of hurricane season. A westward-moving tropical wave a few hundred miles south of the Cape Verde Islands, off the coast of Africa, has a modest amount of poorly organized heavy thunderstorm activity. This wave is under a moderate 10 - 20 knots of wind shear, is in a moist environment, and is over warm waters, so has the potential for some development, though NHC is currently not mentioning it in their Tropical Weather Outlook. The UKMET and NOGAPS models predict this wave could develop into a tropical depression 5 - 6 days from now. The NOGAPS model continues to predict the Western Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua could see the development of a tropical depression 6 - 7 days from now, but the other models are showing little support for this scenario.
Figure 2. Heidi Cullen of Climate Central introduces Boulder, Colorado teacher John Zavalney, one of the presenters of the Climate Reality Project's 24-hour live streaming special.
The Climate Reality Project
The Climate Reality Project (climaterealityproject.org) is a little more than halfway through their live, 24-hour streaming video effort that features 24 different presenters for 24 hours, representing every time zone around the globe. The presentations began last night at 7 pm EDT, and will end tonight at 7 pm EDT. It's worth checking out; there have been some interesting presentations and some dull ones. Interspersed with the presentations are panel discussions with some slick Google Earth graphics; last night's discussions were led by Heidi Cullen of Climate Central, who is a rarity--a very personable and well-spoken scientist, and someone you'll be seeing on TV much more in coming years. The Climate Reality Project showed one excellent video tracking the history of industry-funded denial of science that began with the tobacco industry, something I've discussed as well in post called The Manufactured Doubt Industry and the hacked email controversy. Also shown were two cute 15 - 30 second comedy videos. But while the Climate Reality Project's 24-hour blitz has already gotten 3 million people to tune in, its documentary-style tone and Powerpoint lectures will not be engaging enough to keep most visitors around for more than a few minutes. Ph.D. oceanographer Randy Olson, who left a tenure-track professorship to become a Hollywood film maker, has written an excellent book called Don't be Such a Scientist, about the failure of scientists to communicate in way that will engage people (I thought so highly of the book that I bought 20 copies of the book to give away to students at the University of Michigan's Department of Atmospheric Science this year.) In the latest post in his blog, The Benshi, Olson outlines how the climate community has failed in the main way needed to engage an audience: create a likable voice through the effective telling of stories, which is a less literal means of communication and is less cerebral and thus reaches a mass audience. Future efforts at communication by the climate science community really need to work on using the telling of stories by likable voices in order to get their message across, and I highly recommend that all climate scientists who do public outreach read Olson's book "Don't be Such a Scientist."
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Rice University has already set up a condensation collection system for their new unit. They claim they will capture 15 gallons per hour of condensation, off of this one unit. This will allow them to water their trees, among other things. They are currently looking to capture the condensation from all of their AC units and estimate that they will save 2,000,000,000 gallons of water per year, once the process is complete. This is money they will not have to pay for water each year.
I do not have a link to this. This is something I heard a spokesman, for Rice University, say on a radio program the other day.
Thought this was a democracy. Since when has it become a criminal offense to hold a differing viewpoint.
Both the far right and the far left need to get a clue.
I do not think it is right for some congressman to decide what kind of energy solution to use when they have a stake/investment or take campaign contributions from the many different energy providers.
Instead of looking at things in an unbiased way, they will vote what is in their own best interest.
I fully agree that we need to find other means to generate power with out burning coal, oil, Natural gas. But I am not aware of any technology that can take it's place at the current cost level. Everything we eat or buy has used fossil fuels.
So we have to gradually reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
Then why did you write it that way? :)
Left side:
1)
Right Side:
1) TampaSpin
This is the GFS's imagination at work, in other words, long range isn't accurate.
I have pondered this idea for a while. Every time I go to water my garden I see my ac dripping. Sump pumps. used toilet floats 5 gallon buckets rain barrels.
Thank you! For people who want to engage in an intelligent debate, the fact that they can't seem to look past the two words global warming to what it actually entails makes me question why they should even have a voice in the conversation. When you come to a debate armed with nothing but misinformation about climate science you heard on Fox Noise or Glenn Beck's radio show, I think your credibility goes out the window.
In every other instance, we seek out the advice of an expert on the subject we need help with. For automotive matters, a mechanic. For air conditioning matters, an A/C company. Computer issues, an IT person. Health problems, a doctor, etc. etc.
Why is it that we have an overwhelming number of "experts" in a field that agree on this but there are so many who would rather consult with an 8-ball for the answers on climate change rather than the experts?
Climate scientists are the experts we should consult with on climate science! I have never seen a subject cause so much brainlock!
Surrounded by dry air and spinning away very nicely.
Raining here at 11n 61w.
Nice!
I agree with this whole heartedly! People think it's so easy to just shut down fossil fueled plants and rely on renewables. Well that may work for states with those resources available. As far as Texas is concerned, this just will not work yet. Until we can get people to ease up on their energy consumption, we need reliable baseload generation to power the masses.
Wind isn't reliable and usually isn't available in the areas with the largest populations. Transporting wind energy from west Texas undergoes huge loses, making its generation a minimal addition to our thirsty grid system.
Hydro power is another hard one to utilize. We just "flat" out dont have enough elevation relief to build giant hydro-electric facilities to make large quantities of MW's from. Excuse the pun.
Solar is a great idea if we could figure out a good way of storing this energy. The sun will only be reliable for half of the day for most of the year. What will be do on those cold, overcast days of winter when demand is skyrocketing?
Geo-thermal power is just not available for Texas in abundance. Sorry...not an option.
The bottom line is this...we don't have the resources or technology available yet to shut down fossil fueled plants in the power thirsty state of Texas. Demand is just too high. Until we get there (and I hope we do someday), natural gas, nuclear, and yes...coal fired plants will have to keep providing us reliable, cheap power. Building them clean, safe, and efficient should be the thought process for major utility companies futures.
With luck, this will be my only taste of the storm season.
Debate? Seems like my way or the highway. EVERY climatologist agrees? Broad brushes cover much, detail nothing.
Aside from the formation of an armed UN Climate police force with the authority to use force, I don't see how this is going to work. We can pass all the UN resolutions we want, we can boycott and levy penalties until we are blue in the face. Governments are not going to slow down their economic growth because that would guarantee their removal by their populace.
You raise a point that seems to stick with so many people as an obstacle - cost. We spends hundreds of billions of dollars per year on a bloated defense budget that is greater than the next 16 countries combined, corporate tax subsidies for corporations who don't need it, corporate advertising abroad and the list goes on. Many people seem OK with their tax dollars going into those black holes but lose their mind when presented with the thought of using that same money to radically change our energy portfolio for positive reasons. I can't understand it.
How does installing a Generator underwater diminish the energy of the ocean?
LOL! Yeah who knew that when it got to mid September, it would, (gasp), get cooler outside...
Don't think for a minute they get that money with no strings attached.
Cuz most of us lurking don't want to get involved in the Left vs. Right spew that comes out of the mouths of many here. You would think they would agree to disagree and move on. You know who the Independents are on here because they are all lurkers till the season heats up and never get involved when the GW crap Roller Derby starts between the Left and Right. This site always blows when it gets to the point.....I will go back to lurking until the tropics heat back up.
Cool...Mossyhead....I'm in FWB. Another local on this forum...:)
Out for now...
I know you don't like the idea of big defense budgets, but without the military there's no one to keep the bad guys from coming in and blowing up all your shiny new technologies.
Also...remember that a huge proportion of the technologies you need to solve these problems come either directly or indirectly from research funded by the military and NASA.
Link
A few weeks back I read an article about a company that wants to use recycled Toyota Prius batteries at the base of wind turbines as backup. The idea was to take batteries that no longer had sufficient charge capability for car usage, wire them together, add some control circuitry and produce cheap back-up power packs. I thought it was a great idea.
+10000000
No more info on tropics, more info on a debate. I'd rather see endless loops of wind azimuth displays.
It put the Central/Southern Lesser Antilles in danger of a hurricane with a weakening high that will put PR/DR at high risk.
200 PM AST THU SEP 15 2011
...MARIA MOVING BY BERMUDA...TROPICAL STORM WATCH ISSUED FOR
NEWFOUNDLAND...
SUMMARY OF 200 PM AST...1800 UTC...INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------
LOCATION...33.8N 66.5W
ABOUT 145 MI...230 KM NW OF BERMUDA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...70 MPH...110 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 25 DEGREES AT 32 MPH...52 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...991 MB...29.26 INCHES
Sill at
14-2-2
but for how long?
Right from the beginning you can see that this is spin, not a blatant fact oriented article. They are SELLING this to an unsuspecting public. I haven't made a personal decision on right or wrong, but the methodology reeks of the same stuff we have been sold in the past...
your post will get lost in the GW discussion..I stopped trying hours ago to talk about tropics
Interestingly the Nogaps was the first to show development of a tropical system in the CATL while moving it west. Also, the system seems to be the result of two disturbances merging together, which the Nogaps also showed.
GFS is now agreeing with such scenario. Not that it is going to happen for sure, but there is the probability of something threatening the Eastern Caribbean.
That's why the GW discussion took over, people gave up.
Come on weather!
Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Digust Over GoreBull Warming
I've learned to ignore the AGW debates. People have picked their sides and no amount of typing in the comments section on a blog is going to change that.
The problem is that when the tropics are quiet, Dr. M discusses AGW in his update, AND they've banned most of the people who can actually make these lulls entertaining -- this place really sucks.
Is interesting to see that scenario by GFS,but I would wait for more runs and more model support to then be a credible possibbility. By more model support I would like to see ECMWF on board.
Amen!!!
I would like to see persistence. The GFS has been jumping all around with CV storms.
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