cmooney | August 17, 2006We often forget who really did in New Orleans: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with its ridiculous projects like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet ("Mr. Go"), which quite literally welcomed storm surges into the city. But you won't forget after reading Michael Grunwald's great feature in the latest New Republic. You need a subscription or something, but believe me, it's worth it. The article puts me in mind of lyrics by Mike West, a fantastic New Orleans singer songwriter whom I now suspect is displaced, in a song called "Corps of Engineers":
there's been a lot of talk
about widening the…
cmooney | August 16, 2006Well, summer has been fun, but it's time to get back in business. So I just agreed to debate anti-evolutionist Jonathan Wells on the Alan Colmes Show on Fox Radio, next Tuesday, August 22, from 11:00 to 11:30 ET. Wells, you may or may not know, is author of Icons of Evolution, and now he's got a new one out with Regnery Press (publisher of Tom Bethell) entitled The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. I will be reading his book soon and posting some of its arguments for your reactions...in the meantime, here's where all of you get to tell me I'm crazy for agreeing…
cmooney | August 16, 2006There's a widespread notion that hurricane basins across the world take turns having active and inactive years. It's epitomized, for example, in this 2005 NOAA press release anticipating a slow season for the East Pacific:
"There tends to be a seesaw affect between the East Pacific and North Atlantic hurricane seasons," said Jim Laver, director, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md. "When there is above normal seasonal activity in the Atlantic there tends to be below normal seasonal activity in the Pacific. This has been especially true since 1995. Six of the last ten East…
cmooney | August 15, 2006Tudo bem? Muito obrigado.
Those are about the only things I learned to say while in Sao Paulo (plus a few things that I can't mention here). The wedding ceremony was beautiful, and I'm the type that generally doesn't care much for Catholic rituals. As for Brazilians, after dining at a churrascuria I think it's safe to say that Americans aren't the only ones with a super-sizing problem. (And yes, I also drank plenty of cachasa. Now it's seriously time to get back to work.)
The weirdest thing of course is that while I was in Brazil, the news about the foiled British terror plot came out. I…
cmooney | August 7, 2006Today I head up to New York, where I'll be doing this event tomorrow. Then, tomorrow night, my brother and I are flying down to Brazil to attend his wedding. This will be my first ever trip to the Southern Hemisphere; and yeah, I know the water in the toilet or sink doesn't really rotate clockwise down there because of the earth's rotation--even though the winds of hurricanes certainly do. But I digress. The main point for this blog is that I have no idea what kind of web access I may have in Brazil, so I may not be able to post anything here before around August 14 or so....
cmooney | August 6, 2006Here they come, surfing atop the literary swell generated by the upcoming one year anniversary of Katrina: The first two popular books (that I'm aware of, anyway) that put global warming and hurricanes in the foreground. Neither book is exclusively devoted to the subject, as far as I can tell; but both books discuss it, and indeed, that's obvious from their titles:
Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms, by John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein
The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities, by…
cmooney | August 5, 2006Well, 15.9 actually, 7.9 of them hurricanes and 3.5 of them intense hurricanes (Cat 3, 4, 5). See here (PDF). We can now do a comparison with the latest Klotzbach-Gray forecast, which is slighly lower: 15 storms, 7 hurricanes, 3 intense hurricanes. Really, the two aren't that far apart.
What's most interesting perhaps is that while the Klotzbach-Gray forecast has clearly come down from numbers that were previously higher (i.e., 17, 9, and 5), the Saunders forecast has fluctuated up and down slightly but with no particular trend. In June, for example, Saunders forecast just 13.9 storms, so…
cmooney | August 4, 2006One of the best known seasonal hurricane forecasts comes out of Colorado State University courtesy of William Gray (although Gray's student Phil Klotzbach is now lead author of the forecast). Another one comes out of the University College-London Benfield Hazard Research Center courtesy of Mark Saunders and Adam Lea. Both groups update their forecasts monthly; the August Klotzbach-Gray forecast is now out and the August Saunders-Lea forecast will be out tomorrow (I think). So let's see what the first group says...
Gray and Klotzbach are no longer calling for 17 tropical cyclones in the North…
cmooney | August 3, 2006Next Tuesday I'll be appearing at the following event at the Century Foundation:
Drop It Like It's Hot: The Politics of Global Warming
SUMMER POLICY BROWN BAG LUNCH FORUM FOR NEW YORK CITY INTERNS*
Featuring:
Brenda Ekwurzel--Climate Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Union of Concerned Scientists
Emily Figdor--Director, Clean Air and Global Warming programs, U.S. PIRG
Chris C. Mooney--Author, The Republican War on Science; Senior Correspondent, The American Prospect
Robert B. Semple--Editorial Board Member, The New York Times (moderator)
When: Tuesday, August 8, 2006 12:30 p.…
cmooney | August 3, 2006
I just got my author's advance copy of the paperback The Republican War on Science. Man, this is so exciting. It looks great, and I think the new preface, updates, and revisions make for great additions--the preface especially really lays out the big picture in a much better way than I think the book did in its original hardcover version. I think it's essential to the full package.
Anyway, once again, you can preorder the paperback here. It should be officially "out" within a few weeks. I'll have a lot more to say about it as the date nears....
cmooney | August 3, 2006Over at Skeptical Inquirer online, two of your ScienceBlogs denizens have teamed up in a major article about the pitfalls in the way the press covers the issue of hurricanes and global warming. And this isn't simply some pat story about avoiding robotic "balance" in coverage, such as one might tell about reporting on evolution or reporting the basic issue of whether we're causing global warming. Matt's and my argument is much complex and nuanced this time, because the subject requires it:
Although journalists have framed the story from three main angles--an emphasis on breaking scientific…
cmooney | August 3, 2006Yesterday Jeff Masters had some amusing comments about previous tropical cyclones that have been named Chris:
There were storms named Chris in 1982, 1988, 1994, and 2000. Each time, Chris has been an insignificant storm that either never made it to hurricane strength, or in one case, barely made it to hurricane strength but stayed out to sea and never had a nice photogenic appearance. However, the 2000 incarnation of Chris did set a record--shortest amount of time as a tropical storm. Chris in 2000 lasted just one advisory before wind shear tore it apart. I've happily needled my friend Dr.…
cmooney | August 2, 2006The big story about Tropical Storm Chris, at least from a U.S.-centric perspective, is that it could wind up hitting Florida or intensifying in the Gulf of Mexico, and then going God knows where. AccuWeather put that plainly with its latest report:
Those residing in South Florida and the Keys need to monitor the storm's approach carefully. There is a good chance that Chris will be churning through the Straits of Florida over the weekend and could bring strong winds and some heavy rainfall. Chris should then move into the Gulf of Mexico by early next week. It is possible Chris' eventual…
cmooney | August 2, 2006I wake up this morning, rub the grog out of my eyes, and find that this storm is still stronger and better organized. The winds are up to nearly 65 mph, the pressure down to 1001 mb. You can even see what looks kinda like the beginning of an eye in the satellite imagery. In short, just a little more strengthening and we're going to have a hurricane on our hands, perhaps as early as later today.
The NHC, meanwhile, keeps upping the predicted intensities. Now they've got Chris up to 70 kt within 4-5 days. (Knots to mph conversion here.) What's most troubling is the possibility that around that…
cmooney | August 1, 2006This storm is intensifying more than expected. Winds are at 60 mph already. Meanwhile--and I know it's dangerous to do this, but I will do so anyway--there's certainly a distinct possiblity that this one could end up in the Gulf. Of course, uncertainties in the long range forecast are massive.
P.S.: For more on this storm, check out this great website from the University of Wisconsin...
P.P.S.: Just noticed that the NHC's forecast wind speeds now take Chris up to 65 knots over the 72 hour period. If that's right--a big if--then this will be our season's first hurricane....
cmooney | August 1, 2006I am not a forecaster. In fact, the forecasters will be putting out their August outlooks during the next couple of days, and I'll report what they say here. But in the meantime, with Tropical Storm Chris in the Caribbean, let's look at some statistics that will help set whatever happens this month in context.
As everyone remembers, July 2005 was an extremely busy month in the North Atlantic by historical standards. We had a Category 5 storm, for Christ's sakes, in Emily (PDF); and Dennis hit the U.S. as a Category 3 (PDF). Before August had even begun, we had seen 7 total storms and were up…
cmooney | August 1, 2006My namesake tropical cyclone is kicking it east of the Leeward Islands, having developed from a much-watched tropical wave in the past 24 hours, and may be heading towards Puerto Rico. But the system might not last long; Jeff Masters already puts it this way:
Chris could become a hurricane late in the week, but I put the chances of this at 10%. Dissipation is a more likely scenario, since there is so much wind shear around. The most likely scenario of all is that Chris will remain a tropical storm over the next five days.
But Stacy Stewart, the lead forecaster at the National Hurricane…
cmooney | July 31, 2006Well I've just returned from the UK, and am currently writing from a coffee shop in Queens. I'll head back to D.C. this afternoon or tonight. The flight was easy, no hassle; the only disappointment was that although we flew very close to Greenland, if not over it, there were too many clouds for me to see any of the ice.
Despite the fact that I managed to visit London right in the middle of a heat wave, I had a wonderful time. In particular, let me commend the stylish Hempel Hotel just north of Hyde Park and near Notting Hill. Every room is different. The hotel also has one of the only private…
cmooney | July 30, 2006Check it out here. In my view, the piece is kinda all over the place. It argues that left and right are both bad when it comes to the treatment of science, but really the only case study adduced on the leftwing side of things is the attack on E.O. Wilson and sociobiology from way back when. I too agree that the left is not immune from criticism when it comes to its treatment of science; I merely ask that we keep a sense of perspective when weighing the sins from the different sides on this subject.
I appreciate that the author of the National Journal piece, Paul Starobin, cited my work.…
cmooney | July 27, 2006On my last weekday here in England, I'm heading to the UK Met Office to interview some of their scientists. Then, I head back to the US Monday morning. I doubt I will blog again before then, although I suppose it's possible. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit deSmogBlog, which broke the latest news about apparent industry efforts to influence the climate debate. ABC News has more. Ok, I'm outta here....