cmooney | August 22, 2007Here 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 recorded Atlantic hurricanes in last 10 years (Mitch, Ivan, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Dean)
* By pressure, 5 of the 10 most intense recorded Atlantic hurricanes in last 4 years (Ivan, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Dean)
For Dean:
* Total insured damage going to be in the billions--latest estimate I've seen…
sheril | August 22, 2007It's that special time of year when involved parents everywhere rush out to buy the essentials: calculators, notebooks and the latest issue of US News and World Report. America's Best Colleges 2008 hit newsstands on Monday and no surprise...Princeton, Harvard, and Yale lead the pack with the usual suspects following suit. For about two decades, the magazine's been ranking schools based on criteria like graduation rates, SAT scores, and alumni gifts to determine which institutions deserve the top spots. To me, these rankings always seemed somewhat arbitrary considering they take a one-size-…
cmooney | August 22, 2007I'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 Georgia Tech and Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center, will also be on.
As you may already know, Webster and Landsea disagree pretty vigorously on this subject.
So it should be a pretty interesting segment, and it's a full hour long. Listen in--or even call in if you're interested...list…
sheril | August 21, 2007Yesterday, I mentioned our late night karaoke duet when SciBlings converged on New York City. Thanks to Coturnix's phenomenal camera work, the performance has been filmed for posterity in short segments which I've spliced together. [Note we do not actually appear on screen for the first half.] The camera is swung about liberally, so I should probably supply some kind of warning for women who are pregnant or those with sensitive stomachs. In fact, this entire video is not for the faint of heart...
That said, sit back, relax, and enjoy the Mooney-Kirshenbaum rendition of Dylan's 'The Times…
cmooney | August 21, 2007I'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 Andrew Sullivan readers...Sheril and I hope you'll stay a while here at "The Intersection"! And for a more in depth treatment of the subject matter, in addition to the link above see my book, Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming.
cmooney | August 21, 2007My 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 strongest hurricane anywhere this year, and by far the strongest at landfall. It is the tenth category 4 or 5 hurricane globally and the 3rd Category 5.
You can read the rest of the "Storm Pundit" post here.
Here's an image, courtesy of Weather Underground, of Dean at landfall:
* Clarification: The…
cmooney | August 20, 2007Dean 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 LOWEST ON RECORD FOR AN ATLANTIC BASIN HURRICANE...AND THE THIRD LOWEST AT LANDFALL BEHIND THE 1935 LABOR DAY HURRICANE IN THE FLORIDA KEYS AND HURRICANE GILBERT OF 1988 IN CANCUN MEXICO. DEAN IS ALSO THE FIRST CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE TO MAKE LANDFALL IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN SINCE ANDREW OF 1992.…
cmooney | August 20, 2007The 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 ENERGY PROVIDED BY THE DEEP WARM WATERS OF THE NORTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA THIS EVENING...AND HAS REACHED CATEGORY FIVE STATUS WITH AN INTENSITY OF 140 KT. DURING THE LAST PENETRATION BY THE AIR FORCE RESERVE UNIT RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT AT 00Z...A CENTRAL PRESSURE OF 914 MB WAS MEASURED. THE PEAK…
cmooney | August 20, 2007Here'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 can do is hope people are far from the shorelines tonight and, indeed, far from the landfall point. This isn't the kind of storm you want to try to ride out.
cmooney | August 20, 2007Here'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 Dean so far.
For comparison, 1995's Hurricane Opal had a minimum sea level pressure of 916 millibars--and this made Opal the strongest Atlantic hurricane not to be officially listed as a Cat 5.
So I'm still expecting this storm to be named a Category 5 soon enough, presumably at 11 ET. Then again, I…
cmooney | August 20, 2007Here'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.
sheril | August 20, 2007So, Chris and I arrived in style Friday night to find out what happens when SciBlings converge on the city that never sleeps...
The reason for our journey? SEED had invited all the bloggers to NYC--and sure enough, it was a weekend to remember! You may have already noticed photos of our mischief in The Big Apple appearing on some of the other blogs. I shopped 5th Avenue with Jennifer and enjoyed after hours adventures with Shelley and Karmen. Bora introduced me to Professor Steve Steve and Chris and I even sat down for good times with PZ.
Hey Chris, think readers would be interested if…
cmooney | 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 opportunity...
cmooney | 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, which could become a Cat 5 at any time and which is headed straight for Jamaica...
sheril | August 17, 2007
Loggerhead sea turtles captured the imagination of marine enthusiasts everywhere long before Crush made his big screen debut in Finding Nemo. They're among the oldest creatures on earth and have remained essentially unchanged for 110 million years. That's a pretty long time considering we boring 'anatomically modern' homo sapiens have only been wandering around for about 200,000 years. No contest. Loggerheads are endangered and the North Pacific population has been decimated by hunting, bycatch, and loss of nesting beaches. And yet, a chance to do something that might make a difference…
cmooney | August 16, 2007Here'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 two of our worst Atlantic hurricanes, Ivan of 2004 and Gilbert of 1988.
sheril | August 16, 2007I've received several emails voicing concern over fishing down food webs since posting last week about the Yangtze River Dolphin: the first cetacean species likely driven to extinction by human activity. Just remember, it's not a dismal picture when you hold the Montgomery Burns perspective!
Keeping economics in mind, there's arguably reason to question whether we should fret over the oceans' dwindling and altered stocks. Human tastes are malleable, so we adapt to what industry supplies. For example, lobster and skate - traditionally the 'poor fisherman's dinner' - are now featured at NYC's…
cmooney | 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 flood of callers who doubt human induced global warming and spout wild contrarian claims like the following (all of which I heard on the Jim Bohannon Show last night):
1. It's warming on other planets too, so isn't it something about the sun?
2. Sea level has been rising for 6,000/8,000 years.
3. Mt…
cmooney | August 16, 2007The 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 the end of the forecast period.
Here's the latest track, which is basically unchanged except that the Lesser Antilles are now under a hurricane warning:
As I put it in the latest Storm Pundit post: "Already, I think it's fair to say that this storm is going to provide us with much more drama than…
cmooney | August 15, 2007The 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 ANTICYCLONE NEAR THE CENTER OF THE HURRICANE AS THE SYSTEM TRAVELS INTO THE CARIBBEAN SEA. IN COMBINATION WITH VERY DEEP WARM WATERS...THIS PATTERN WOULD FAVOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POWERFUL HURRICANE.
Here is the latest track for Dean, which is supposed to be a hurricane within 24 hours: