Many have struggled in recent days to recall a period in history when weather systems developed to Category 4 & 5 before leaving the space of the Northern Caribbean. Clearly there is enough evidence to draw a reasonable conclusion that we have entered a period in which the region will have to contend with more intense weather systems. While it seems a simple conclusion for the BU household to make others argue that it is a manufactured idea.
CLIMATE CHANGE and the BIG CATs Irma, Jose & Maria
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314 responses to “CLIMATE CHANGE and the BIG CATs Irma, Jose & Maria”
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@ vincent haynesw September 23, 2017 at 9:52 PM
Au contraire! I am not at all dismissing GP’s ‘scientific’ analysis of the subject under discussion based on his knowledge of chemistry but his religiously-biased assertion that the current set of ‘unusually’ intense hurricanes can be explained by some reference to a fable written hundred of years ago by fictitious men who neither knew the meaning to H2O, CO2 or H2CO3 or heard about hurricanes or even Pelau’s flying fish and cou-cou served with rum and puddin & souse.
Let’s deal with science and not religious mumbo-jumbo or else I can quote from the same book to explain why global warming is his god’s way destroying mankind by divine design with or without any knowledge of chemistry or nuclear physics.
I am all for the chemistry lessons; not the religious dogma. Good thing religion is not taught in American schools, thanks to Thomas Paine.
“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them.
But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.
Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,” says the LORD Almighty.”
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@GP
The 64k question Ping Pong appears to be interested in the answer is if the natural sink of carbon dioxide is not keeping pace with emissions what are the possible scenarios that it could lead to climate change?
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WW\ wrote, “Times change. Possession is the law, as you have ably demonstrated above.
Be careful what policy you hang your hat on.”
That is why they have lost their dominant standing and are being left behind….hanging their hats on one policy fir 240 years……on miseducation from the 50s and 60s….on crap they themselves did not create….. hanging on to dead coattails for 400 years.
They are now weak and vulnerable.
True the Lunatic Leftist / Marxists have overplayed their utter ignorance and continue to accomplish little of substance on behalf of Americans besides BEWITCHING those that refuse to examine / audit the lack of results. Who do U believe the Hispanic migrants are competing with in the USA??? Multi millionaires??? Talking about defying logic.
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WW,
Skerrit is the CONSUMATE politician—his thinking is that these idiots want to believe in carbon footprint etc so that is how I will make my impassioned appeal for HELP! Gime the $$$$$$. I certainly dont find him culpable!Since Dominica has more forestation as a % of land area than any other Cbean island it is therefore the most advantaged by Carbon Dioxide emissions!!!!! Dom also sits high up off the sea so it is the least effected by potential sea level rise.
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Where were the hurricanes in the last 15 yrs???????????
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So are you saying that there has been NO sustained increase in measured carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere? Pingy.
Yes and a good thing too as we have less forests and require more growth, faster so more carbon dioxide helps. Indeed , it could double from here and still be a plus!
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Much of the talk on this subject has been perpetrated by Politicians like Al Gore who intend to make hundreds of $mns for themselves OR just want to control more cash at Government levels as that feeds their power. These Pols are not scientists they are corrupt though.
Solving the problem is simple CUT the Pollutants from being emitted. Everything else is SHYTE TALK! Who is going to go and tell the Chinese, Indians, Russians and East Europeans to CUT Emissions viciously??? Will they take appropriate action?
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There goes my favorite guy….
You got de ting yet? -
Please tell me how one proves a direct relationship between Climate Change and these Cat 5 et al Hurricanes this year?
Why cant it be just a hotter year in southern latitudes caused by Solar Cycles , Ocean current cycles OR??????
The most wicked Hurricane to hit Bim that we know of was the 1780 wildbeast that killed 4,000+ and eventually 22,000+ in the Cbean.Was that the result of man made Climate Change???????
What accounted for that? Could it be the same factors today?
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gonna leave you alone
but leh me know when you got de ting..
I kno dat u kno wha i talking about.
cough it up -
@Moneybrain
Your question is valid just like the others who are on the other side of the issue. What is common to both positions is that it appears the pressure bar for storm/hurricane activity has intensified in recent times. This is the common point that we should all be discussing.
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me nah wanna hear ya talk bout climate change, pocket change, lane change or small change
me expecting big change 🙂 -
Theo,
Dont Worry Be Happy!
Patience is a virtue. The Monmouth Rebellion occurred in 1685 and I did not receive $$$$yet so since wunna did looking for cash for a short while comparatively speaking it maybe another 50yrs MAX. When U get my endorsement on the cheque will U require a gas mask here on Earth? -
David,
Discussing is futile, reduce the pollutants!The science is too complicated for humans, the politicians too corrupt, the cycles far too long etc. Talk is far too cheap.
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David, pellucid and on point . It was said by others that there should be NO debate on the fundamental science of global warming… or rather should i say climate change…. because it’s as indisputable as the earlier Chem101 tutorial.
The debate can be joined on the political efforts and activity on approaches to the ‘chemistry/Science’ but for pols or us citizens to blow all the hot air on the fundamentals itself pis nonsencical.
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@Money
Reducing the pollutants will not occur in a vacuum. It starts with talk!
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David, talk has been on going for at least 30++years, we need ACTION that should be obvious based on what we know most emissions pollute (factories, autos, etc).
Surely there are methods to cut pollution, scrubbing??? concentrate and bury in containers ??? change processes??? (we use to use mercury in Gold mining but not the same now)
FFWD research on Electric vehicles, battery storage, use of opposing magnets for energy???
Focusing or concentration of solar energy and its storage? -
@ David September 24, 2017 at 1:27 AM
“The 64k question Ping Pong appears to be interested in the answer is if the natural sink of carbon dioxide is not keeping pace with emissions what are the possible scenarios that it could lead to climate change?”That is precisely the pivotal point around which the discussion should resonate to be the fulcrum of scientifically-established knowledge which only the key of mathematics can address.
We already know that that the major natural sinks for ‘natural’ carbon emissions have all along been the Oceans, ‘seas’ and rivers which make up approx. 70% of the planet’s surface along with the sustainer of life of all fauna, trees; especially in the form of the disappearing Amazonia a massive carbon-absorbing sink basin and the other rain forests’ circumferencing’ that vulnerably fragile jewel of an orb worn by a galactic goddess called Gaia.
So the question still remains as to where those ‘superfluous’ carbon emissions are ending up since the rate of absorption of those emissions caused by human consumption of fossil fuels to support a lifestyle of modern convenience over the last 200 years (and which took Mother Nature hundreds of thousands to absorb) is getting increasingly slower than the rate the overflowing sinks are able to take in.
Can’t it be, by a stretch of a fertile and highly ‘carbonized’ imagination, the fuel provided for the phenomena of rising sea levels and observably more consistently intense hurricanes and typhoons arising from both sides of the Equator belt depending on which time of the solar year mankind’s God is basking in full glory?
Somewhat an analogous question to that facing the rate of decline in Barbados’s foreign exchange reserves to prop up an already unsustainable rate of unearned conspicuous consumption of materially unnecessary imported goods like bottled water and gas-preserved exotic fruits.
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Let us agree it ends up in the atmosphere so that we have a higher concentration, then what?
Again, I repost
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/CO2-and-global-warming-faq.html#.WcfK9ciGNpkAlso read this
https://scied.ucar.edu/carbon-dioxide-absorbs-and-re-emits-infrared-radiationNot chemical, but physical properties are at play
Or could it be that earth is moving nearer to hell?
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Deniers cause prolong the debate and cause inaction.
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Deniers prolong the debate and cause inaction.
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Theo, spoken like a good Lawyer or politician!
Just cut the emissions that are likely to pollute so the air is cleaner—it is that simple.
Develop new and better technologies for Electrics etc -
@Moneybrain
Are you aware what is the contribution of our region (Caribbean) to the emissions fog?
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`Skerrit is the CONSUMATE politician—his thinking is that these idiots want to believe in carbon footprint etc so that is how I will make my impassioned appeal for HELP! Gime the $$$$$$. I certainly dont find him culpable!
MoneyB…have you seen the damage done to Dominica….have you seen their rain forest before Cat5 Maria and then after….well it does not resemble a rain forest anymore and it was one of the most beautiful, outside of the Amazon…
while the island has a centuries old history of brutal hurricanes, they are normally spread out over 60…70…80 year periods and one,maybe 2 at a time, but not a series…
besides…..the climate change and carbon emission deniers are only denying without bringing any credible alternatives outside the findings of credible scientists.
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WW,
Actually, I was in Dominica in Mar 2015, went across the island especially to see the forests AND even more importantly the Native Carib Reserve( which I traversed with a qualified guide). Nature has a tendency to work in series eg major Earthquakes in Japan, Haiti etc. Proves nothing scientifically.
Please note I did say Skerrit is not culpable!!! -
David, I dont have the numbers on C’bean emissions BUT with all the hot air and verbal excrement it could be humongous pollution lol
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MoneyB…dont know if you noticed, but hurricanes and earthquakes seem to be working hand in hand, even more so than centuries ago, there were at least 7 or 8 in a 2 week period 5 in 5 different countries and 3 in Mexico alone…
but you get tremors outside of hurricane season mostly, since faultl ines run through the earth, they are most likely to happen everywhere individually or simultaneously…..so that puts them in a different category…..
but….this season seismologists could not tell the difference between Cat5 Irma, Maria and an earthquake, they both registered on the seismometer richter scale as earthquakes….both times..
so explain that.
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WW,
Telling the difference between an Earthquake and a Hurricane should be very easy. Scientists should conduct a very detailed check of their equipment something must be broken! -
MoneyB…nothing that simplistic..
nothing was broken…both hurricanes were so powerful, they registered as earthquakes…if you spoke to people throughout the islands they say the same thing, even in Barbados certain areas people`s houses were shaking as in an earthquake…even worse in the destroyed countries..
none of this can be taken lightly.
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WW,
Obviously at 150 mph winds will shake everything like an Earthquake!!!!How many large, strongly built concrete buildings pancaked down as in an Earthquake?
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I was thinking about the data which shows the increase of CO2 so I decided to take a look.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-last-time-co2-was-this-high-humans-didnt-exist-15938
https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/
The graph of CO2 in the atmosphere is a representation of samples taken at an observatory in Hawaii.
So I thought to myself, what would the corresponding graph look like if readings had been taken in the middle of the Amazon Rain Forest where there is an abundance of trees.
Then I thought, from where does the comparative data come?
The answer “Ancient air bubbles trapped in ice enable us to step back in time and see what Earth’s atmosphere, and climate, were like in the distant past”
Then I said, but from where on earth were these tiny bubbles taken?
Answer, unspecified.
… but probably not in the same place as the observatory.
What strikes me more than the rise in the graph is the cyclical nature and its disappearance.
So I thought, if trees and vegetation absorb CO2 and produce oxygen the cyclical nature of the graph pre now could be the appearance and disappearance of ice ages.
What happens when everything freezes?
Trees and vegetation are covered by ice,
Perhaps most living organisms are wiped out.
So, looking at the graph with that thinking perhaps the periodic lows are attributable to the appearance of green matter the concentrations of which grow with time leading to a fall in the levels of CO2.
Enter an ice age.
CO2 rises because earth’s lungs are killed.
… and the process repeats itself.
Hence the cyclical nature.
Suppose we are killing earth’s lungs by rapid deforestation of the planet?
The CO2 levels will rise.
But, does it mean the temperature will rise?
Perhaps what we need to try first if we want CO2 levels to fall is stop the deforestation and plant trees …. nuff of them.
So, I will do my little bit.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deforestation-and-global-warming/
“By most accounts, deforestation in tropical rainforests adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than the sum total of cars and trucks on the world’s roads. According to the World Carfree Network (WCN), cars and trucks account for about 14 percent of global carbon emissions, while most analysts attribute upwards of 15 percent to deforestation.”
By doing this alone it may be possible to cut CO2 concentrations by half.
This would get the level into the range from the past.
Going to electric cars is no use because the electricity source that recharges the batteries is from the burning of hydrocarbons … and ….
https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/
“In fact, manufacturing an electric vehicle generates more carbon emissions than building a conventional car, mostly because of its battery, the Union of Concerned Scientists has found.”
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I saw many in St. Maarten, Martin…..hotels split in half…or pulled out of their foundations…Bransons buildings were flattened, every island that felt the outer walls of those hurricane”s eyes….the photos were everywhere, how did you miss them.
http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/100772/tyson-reality
“Six months ago, Tyson Henry would never have imagined telling the tale of surviving the ordeal of living through a Category 5 hurricane. It is now almost a week after Hurricane Maria hit Dominica and Henry is still reeling from the effects of the devastating tropical cyclone. Henry migrated to Dominica earlier this year to take up a new post, working alongside Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit.”
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Less pollution should be the objective not wasting time trying to figure out what causes global warming, which maybe a result of Solar Cycles. We have had cycles of cooling ie ice sheets grow and then cycles of warming when Ice sheets melt for thousands and maybe millions of years. There was a mile of ice thickness over Toronto 12,000 years ago.
Did man cause that to melt by Global Warming? Think about that my friends?
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The 1887 Atlantic hurricane season was the third most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, tying with the 1995, 2010, 2011, and the 2012 seasons for third most number of storms. Wikipedia
Hurricanes: 11
Total storms: 19
First system formed: May 15, 1887
Last system dissipated: December 12, 1887
Total fatalities: 2
Total fatalities: 21886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890. The 1888 Atlantic hurricane season ran through the summer and the first half of fall in 1888.
Hurricanes: 6
Total storms: 9
Major hurricanes (Cat. 3+): 2
Total damage: $2.7 million (1888 USD) -
Money Brain, September 24, 2017 at 4:17 PM #
Yup…..on point.
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@Moneybrain
Who is it that promised to restore coal mining jobs again?
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David
Chuckle…….you gotta get a laugh sign for these posts…….that was a good one.
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@ Moneybrain who wrote ” The most wicked Hurricane to hit Bim that we know of was the 1780 wildbeast that killed 4,000+ and eventually 22,000+ in the Cbean.”
Please tell me how many stone buildings existed in the Caribbean in 1780.
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David some fool wants to restore those jobs and there are other fools that dont understand that Nuclear plants properly designed, located and built, of the G5 variety, dont pollute!!!
G5s use a higher % of the Uranium and the French use Nuclear for 80% of their power generation and know how to store the little that remains unused. (in very deep “swimming pools”designed for that purpose. -
Hants,
The winds are estimated to have been 200+mph in 1780.
Obviously the number killed does not equate with Cat rating / wind speed.
Hurricane Mitch killed 11,000+ in Honduras/ Nicaragua in 1989 because it stopped moving forward for 2 days and therefore dropped plenty water on the mountains which caused flooding and mudslides.
Water is the key along with forward movement, total size, terrain involved etc. -
So, if vegetation is one of the keys to reducing CO2 levels then the worst offender in the Caribbean has to be …… Haiti.
You hear there is a stark dividing line between Haiti and Santo Domingo visible from the air.
Then I thought let me really take a look and see.
https://news.vice.com/story/one-of-the-most-repeated-facts-about-deforestation-in-haiti-is-a-lie
It seems to be a lie!!
That is the most pleasant revelations I have had for a while.
Has anyone been to Haiti and walked in the mountains?
Can any one contradict or confirm the article above?
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John September 24, 2017 at 5:35 PM #
I was in Santo Domingo in the ’90s and went to the border between the two and after driving through lush greenery all I could see from the border town on the other side was barren land,totally denuded.
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Let’s hope there was a change in the past 20 years.
The land is fertile
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Over the next five years, as Wampler crisscrossed Haiti for his research, he began to undergo a cognitive dissonance. “I heard that 2 percent number quoted everywhere,” he said. “All the news outlets had this narrative that it’s the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has 2 percent forest cover. But I’d been to these mountainous areas and seen forest cover that was more than 2 percent. I could see it with my own eyes.”
He began searching for the original source of the forest-cover statistic. To his surprise, he couldn’t find one. The few citations he discovered in scientific studies couldn’t be substantiated. Some scientific and development literature used a 4 percent estimate that came from the Food and Agriculture Organization, a United Nations agency. That number also struck him as too low.
Wampler, a professor at Michigan’s Grand Valley State University, uses geographic information systems and satellite imagery frequently in his work, and he decided to employ them to satisfy his curiosity about the trees in Haiti. He enlisted several students and began gathering high-resolution imagery of the island from LandSat, the database operated by the United States Geological Survey. Stitching together images from 2010 and 2011, he formed a mosaic that covered the entire country. He combined the images in three wavelengths to highlight vegetation and then trained a computer to spot trees in the images. To check the accuracy, he manually compared the computer’s automated analysis to random samples chosen from Google Earth.
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When the results came back, his first thought was that he had to do the whole process again. “Let’s check this 10 times to make sure it’s right,” he told his colleagues. According to their analysis, Haiti’s forest cover was more than 32 percent.
Wampler wondered whether they had set a sufficient minimum area for tree cover. So they used the FAO’s definition of a “forest,” which includes trees higher than 5 meters (about 16 feet) covering at least half a hectare. He ran the analysis again. The computer estimated Haiti’s forest coverage at nearly 30 percent, a number similar to the coverage in the United States, France, and Germany, and far higher than in Ireland and England. Wampler had discovered a rarity in today’s world: a good-news environmental story in one of the planet’s poorest countries. But then he had a troubling thought: “People won’t like this.”
“It doesn’t fit the narrative” that poverty causes deforestation and deforestation exacerbates poverty, he said. Foreign governments, charities, development banks, and the foreign media tend to present this relationship as an indisputable fact. “Organizations use this statistic as a lever to get funding and help. For them, it’s a lot more convenient to have a narrative that works.”
He had discovered a rarity in today’s world: a good-news environmental story in one of the planet’s poorest countries. But then he had a troubling thought: “People won’t like this.”
Environmentalists and development experts have drawn a connection between overpopulation, ecological devastation and poverty for decades. “The narrative about overpopulation — and deforestation is usually not far behind — is what’s called a blueprint narrative,” said Jade Sasser, a professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of California, Riverside. “It gets applied in a variety of different development settings regardless of local history and situations.” Blueprint narratives, first described by policy analyst Emery Roe in 1991, proffer ready-made diagnoses of environmental problems — overgrazing by cattle in Africa leads to desertification, for instance — but the solutions are often unsuited to local contexts and conditions.
Such narratives can also dehumanize. One area of Sasser’s research looks at how Western NGOs portray the poor, often communities of color, as environmentally unaware and in need of outside intervention. In reality, she said, local communities often use “nature” in ways that just don’t fit the notions of pristine wilderness at the heart of many conservation policies.
Paul Robbins, a political ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, called the environmental movement’s blaming of the poor for deforestation an “obsession” that is both “ironic” and “empirically questionable.” In West Africa, for example, the idea that local communities have caused deforestation is orthodoxy among development and environmental policymakers, but analysis of historical data and first-person accounts rarely support it.
Wampler had debunked the myth of how many trees were in Haiti, but his findings, published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation in 2014, didn’t gain much traction among environmentalists or development agencies. The World Bank, USAID, Oxfam America and multiple United Nations agencies still cite a stat of 1 to 4 percent for forest cover in Haiti. (A USAID spokesperson who was aware of Wampler’s study agreed that the correct figure for tree cover is likely between 32 and 40 percent but defended the 2 percent statistic as referring to “original forest cover,” meaning before European contact.)
“It’s been controversial in some circles,” Wampler said. “Some people don’t want to talk about it. It’s not the story that they want to tell about Haiti.”
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So the Environmentalists are LIARS about Haiti, they had no basis whatsoever for the quoted stat on forest coverage being 2-4%. Research showed 32 % BUT they wont acknowledge this fact either as it does NOT fit their narrative.
This what is wrong with the Western World today the Left encourages fantasies and then tries to stop intelligent debate and discussion! Honesty, the truth are irrelevant.
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Thanks for that info John.
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MB
It is from the Internet.
Caveat Emptor
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https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/opinion/who-will-speak-for-haitis-trees.html?mcubz=1
NY Times seems to be confirming.
Amazing how truth can get bushwhacked!!
Given the level of misinformation around I now even doubt the articles.
If true though, this is great news.
The blogmaster invites you to join and add value to the discussion.