cmooney
Posts by this author
August 29, 2007
Sheril and I are going to give the blog over to the subject of Hurricane Katrina and its legacy today, in honor (and in mourning) of the two year anniversary. We're going to try to focus on lessons learned in particular, and as this is my particular bailiwick, I'll likely be doing most of the…
August 28, 2007
Lots of people are putting out reports and such. A brief rundown of some things that have come across my desk:
Center for American Progress (PDF). I really like the Center, but I must say I find their recently released hurricanes-and-global warming report a tad disappointing. Oddly, in my view the…
August 28, 2007
Well, this may be the best produced video segment that I've yet appeared in to talk about the book.
Nice work, huh? I'm told it will be up on YouTube shortly.
August 28, 2007
The Mooney-Nisbet show will be going back on the road this fall--our calendar has in fact filled up quite quickly. So we're pleased to announce the following confirmed events this September through November, with as many details as are currently available. Stops include Minneapolis, New York,…
August 27, 2007
I finally figured out how to create diavlog links. Cool. So here are the different segments of my Blogginheads.tv discussion with Henry Farrell, which I think came out quite well.
First, the main link: You can watch the whole diavlog in its entirety here.
Meanwhile, here are the segments:
Chris's…
August 27, 2007
There are inevitably plenty of typos, but after the jump I've pasted in the transcript of my Science Friday conversation with NPR's Ira Flatow about hurricanes and global warming. Callers raised several interesting questions.
Enjoy.
National Public Radio (NPR)
August 24, 2007 Friday
SHOW: Talk Of…
August 25, 2007
I haven't had time to see it yet, but Henry Farell did a longish book review-type interview with me on Bloggingheads.tv which has just gone up. Among other thrills, you get to see the inside of my apartment.
Seriously, though, I hope you'll check it out, Henry is a very smart guy and asked some…
August 23, 2007
Tomorrow I'll be talking with Ira Flatow for 30-40 minutes about Hurricane Dean, global warming, and the new book. You can figure out how to listen in here.
I don't know if it'll be as exciting as my BoingBoinged Science Friday debate with Tom Bethell of over a year ago...but I hope you'll tune in.
August 23, 2007
I just came across this nonsense from something called the Patriot Post, which dubs itself "the conservative journal of record." In the midst of a typical anti-Gore debunking of global warming, we get this:
Nonetheless, some of the most ardent global alarmists are starting to change their tune. In…
August 23, 2007
It's always amazing to watch what a Category 4 or 5 hurricane does to the ocean it passes over. So lets go over to Remote Sensing Systems and look at the Caribbean before and after Dean passed.
Here are the SST anomalies before Dean went through, on August 17th. Red means warm anomaly, blue means…
August 22, 2007
Here are some pretty staggering factoids I recently compiled. For the Atlantic:
* 8 Cat 5 hurricanes in last 10 years (Mitch, Isabel, Ivan, Emily, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Dean)
* 7 Cat 5 hurricanes in last 5 years (Isabel, Ivan, Emily, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Dean)
* By pressure, 6 of 10 most intense…
August 22, 2007
I'll be appearing on the NPR show On Point with Tom Ashbrook this morning at 11 ET to talk about hurricanes and climate change in the wake of Dean. I think it's going to be a fascinating segment because I won't be appearing alone: Two of the key scientists discussed in Storm World, Peter Webster of…
August 21, 2007
I've just done an entry at the Huffington Post discussing this subject. Short version: It's complicated (what else is new?), but we have every reason to be worried.
Here's Dean over land, now weakened down to Category 3 but still maintaining some semblance of an eye for the moment:
P.S.: Welcome…
August 21, 2007
My latest Storm Pundit column is up; it considers Dean in both Atlantic and global perspective. Some factoids:
1. Dean is the ninth most intense Atlantic storm by pressure, and six of the top ten (Wilma, Rita, Katrina, Mitch, Dean, and Ivan) have occurred in the past ten years.
2. Dean is the…
August 20, 2007
Dean made landfall a few hours ago while still intensifying, and set some scary records. As the National Hurricane Center details:
A DROPSONDE IN THE EYE MEASURED A CENTRAL PRESSURE OF 906 MB JUST PRIOR TO LANDFALL. SOME HISTORIC NOTES ARE IN ORDER HERE. THE 906 MB CENTRAL PRESSURE IS THE NINTH…
August 20, 2007
The National Hurricane Center has put Dean's official intensity at 140 knots, or 160 miles per hour--or Category 5. But the storm is intensifying just before landfall--a truly evil thing for it to do--and might be even stronger. Here's the latest, revealing forecast discussion:
DEAN HAS TAPPED INTO…
August 20, 2007
Here's the latest infrared. The National Hurricane Center confirms it--Dean is a Category 5 hurricane, 160 mile per hour sustained winds, 915 millibars central pressure and presumably still dropping.
Dean is as strong as any storm on earth this year and still seems to be getting stronger. All we…
August 20, 2007
Here's the latest image of Dean, looking more menacing than ever:
Yet despite this staggering satellite appearance, the NHC has not yet pronounced the storm a Category 5. However, the last aircraft report put the sea level pressure at 918 millibars--pretty darn low, and the lowest measured for…
August 20, 2007
Here's a truly sublime image:
And here's a just plain scary one:
My latest "Storm Pundit" discussion of Dean is here. We're looking at a probable Category 5 landfall in the Yucatan but the U.S. is probably going to be spared.
August 20, 2007
Last week I did an interview with D.J. Grothe of the Point of Inquiry podcast about the new book and other issues. It just went online, and you can listen here.
This is a great podcast that all defenders of science and reason should be subscribing to, so if you don't already, now's your…
August 18, 2007
...just kidding, Dean is now a strong Category 4....but I think the other title would also be appropriate. My latest "Storm Pundit" post on Dean, drawing parallels between its track and that of 1988's devastating Hurricane Gilbert, is now up at The Daily Green.
And here's the latest picture of Dean…
August 16, 2007
Here's a picture of the strong Category 1 storm, soon to be even stronger in all likelihood, and approaching the Lesser Antilles:
UPDATE: Dean is now a Category 2 storm. Jeff Matthews has a long post on potential damage in the Caribbean. He compares Dean, in its projected track and intensity, to…
August 16, 2007
So: Whenever I have a new book out--or an old one out in paperback--I tend to do a lot of radio shows. And as a result, I've noticed a particular phenomenon that has started to get on my nerves a bit: Some hosts like to throw open the telephone lines, and whenever they do, you suddenly get a huge…
August 16, 2007
The tropics sure are giving me a lot to write about. My latest "Storm Pundit" post, entitled "Nothing But Land to Stop Hurricane Dean...and Supertyphoon Sepat," is now up. Both of these storms are scary, and Dean, now officially a Category 1 hurricane, is predicted to be as strong as Category 4 by…
August 15, 2007
The latest National Hurricane Center forecast discussion, from forecaster Eric Blake, is blunt:
BASED ON WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW ABOUT INTENSITY CHANGE...THERE DO NOT SEEM TO BE TOO MANY INHIBITING FACTORS TO A FUTURE INTENSIFICATION OF DEAN. GLOBAL MODELS UNANIMOUSLY DEVELOP A LARGE UPPER-LEVEL…
August 15, 2007
I'll be appearing on this popular late-night radio program tonight, in studio, at 10 pm ET to discuss Storm World. You should be able to listen live from this link. I hope you'll tune in.
Meanwhile, thanks to some amazing helpers, my entire talk on Storm World at the Yearly Kos science panel is now…
August 15, 2007
MIT hurricane theorist Kerry Emanuel pioneered a mode of analysis known as hurricane maximum potential intensity theory (MPI theory)--essentially, an equation that can calculate the maximum surface wind speed, and the minimum sea level pressure, achievable by a given hurricane in a given climate. I…
August 14, 2007
The worst case scenarios for the now weakening Hurricane Flossie seem unlikely to be realized--this storm will affect Hawaii, but will not strike it head on.
In the Atlantic, though, our "D" storm--Dean--was just named by the National Hurricane Center. Indeed, you can see Dean starting to wrap…
August 13, 2007
The latest discussion from Central Pacific Hurricane Center forecaster Sam Houston (yes, that's really his name) says it all:
HURRICANE FLOSSIE IS NOT WILLING TO GIVE UP. DESPITE HINTS THAT THE HURRICANE MIGHT MOVE OVER COOLER OCEAN WATER TEMPERATURES...AND THAT IT WOULD EVENTUALLY ENCOUNTER…
August 13, 2007
Hurricane Flossie continues to approach the Hawaiian islands, although it remains quite hard to predict precisely where the storm will go or how strong it will be when it gets there. But we know this: Flossie has already made quite a habit of defying forecasts and expectations. This storm has now…