Can we decide weather to be hopeful?
Posted by Heading Out on May 24, 2006 - 12:08am
"For the 2006 north Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA is predicting 13 to 16 named storms, with eight to 10 becoming hurricanes, of which four to six could become 'major' hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher," added retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.On average, the north Atlantic hurricane season produces 11 named storms, with six becoming hurricanes, including two major hurricanes. In 2005, the Atlantic hurricane season contained a record 28 storms, including 15 hurricanes. Seven of these hurricanes were considered "major," of which a record four hit the United States. "Although NOAA is not forecasting a repeat of last year's season, the potential for hurricanes striking the U.S. is high," added Lautenbacher.
And in that same mood, I see that Texas is thinking of an 80 mph speed limit.
To conclude let me just comment on a few points that were brought up in recent comments.
First, thanks to Todd I see that MIT are pointing out their connections to the world. The technology is not likely to have much significant impact, for a variety of reasons, but it does illustrate how the well-connected Universities can get funding more easily than more humble mortals. And if you think that disparity is bad now, wait until the crisis starts to bite and more serious money appears on the table. It will, as last time, first go to the National Labs and the MIT's of the world, and only later will someone realize that perhaps - since these folks are not in general at all clued up on what happens at the end of an oil bit in contact with rock, or a shearer pick in contact with coal, - will the residual crumbs be sent to those schools who actually know something about that. (Gasp, this can't be bitter experience talking, can it ?)
And in answer to PhilRelig who asks why we can't get more oil out of the ground. The answer is that, under the right circumstances we can. But the cost (to give but one way) of sinking mines down to the sand to mine out the sand, strip it of oil, and then put it back, are, in general way too high. There have been some attempts at this, and one weekend I will describe one or two of them to you.
And as for the question by cwilbur2000 on Oil tech there are significant problems that are glossed over. Pulverizing rock, as a general rule (there are technologies and rocks that get around this but these are neither) is very energy intensive, and the oil shale rock expands during this process, so that disposal is a very serious question and has been part of the discussion for the past 30 years. There are mining related issues that are glossed over, and the variability in the shale oil over a face is also not discussed. One of these weekends soon, (see I'm starting a list) I'll try explaining some of these.
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5424033
Once you click on link it will give you option of RealPlayer or Windows Media Player.
One (related) question I've been wanting to ask some of resident oil experts here on TOD is about Venezuela's heavy oil in the Orinoco basin. We hear so much about Canada's Athabasca tar sands, but almost nothing on Venezuela. Is Venezuela having any success at all extracting and refining this heavy/sour oil? And what are they using as a heat source to process it (natural gas, as in Canada?). In theory, they have lots of oil, but what chance is there that they are going to be able to produce any significant amount?
http://entropyproduction.blogspot.com/
It is a couple of posts down.
That, and how cheaply can you build your processing plant?
The key to knowing if it's practical would be to know that he's running the whole operation on energy he has extracted and isn't using vast quantities of water, natural gas, electricity, etc.
The neocons have appointed a landman from Midland, Texas to head up the agency. While I'm sure that he is a good friend of GWB, it seems a rather peculiar choice. I'm hoping that now Exxon has changed top management they will abandon their insane attempt to suppress global warming data, but I wouldn't count on it because they own through Carter Coal, a subsidiary, the second largest coal reserves in the world.
So, in reality, the hurricane center is predicting a stronger hurricane season than last year! ;-)
It's a strange spin the the MSM puts on the hurricane forecasts. The prediction is for a worse season than was predicted last year, but they spin it as "it won't be as bad as last year." I suppose they leave the scarier version for the Enquirer.
Your quote: "I suppose they leave the scarier version for the Enquirer."
....or for the insurance companies yanking coverage along the East Coast:
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_2629.shtml
Excerpt:
------------
In the meantime, the Allstate Insurance Company has decided to cancel, or not renew, insurance policies for 28,000--roughly 3.11 percent--of their 900,000 New York customers. According to a New York Daily News story published on Apr. 23, one other insurer, MET, has declined taking new business in the eight so-called hurricane counties, which encompass the five boroughs, plus Nassau, Westchester and Suffolk.
"It's not right--and it's not fair--and it's time New York gets tough on regulating these out of control insurers," argues N.Y. State Sen. Jeff Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester), in a press release...."Brooklyn consumers are running scared," Mr. Vines admitted, adding, "This is out of control."
------------
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I guess they are basing this forceast on a cooler Atlantic, but remembering last year that a cooler Atlantic didn't matter. Storms were getting stronger in cooler waters and the talking heads were saying things like "how this storm is still intact over these cool waters I have no idea".
Folks I'm going to lay it out here, this year will be just as bad as the last, there is no doubt in my mind. I have been watching storms over the Pacific this winter and I have never seen tightly spinning Eastern Pacific storms with "eyes" in the 10 years I have been a weather nut. These storms were forming in 50 degree water! For some reason the oceans are pissed off at the moment. Whether it's the onslaught of carbon from fossil fuels or my collection of catalytic converters, our planet is out of balance at the moment and we have only seen the beginning.
Give ya a bag'a Fritos if you go look it up.........
What makes me nervous is that I think the climate people are lowballing it. The whole 'hot towers' thing, and the increased incidence of lightning in hurricanes last year make me worry we are about to fall through a transition point.
Not that it matters. If we start getting Saffir Six hypercanes, it's way to late to do anything about it.
Also, I live in California.
However, every-time new data becomes available it seems to always be pushing the predictions to their upper limits. The more we know about the problem the worse it appears to be. Worst case scenarios from 15 years ago have now become best case scenarios.
From schlumberger's oilfield glossary which I continue to find helpful even after many years in the business.
here's what they predicted...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/05/31/csu.hurricane.outlook/
I'll save you the click-through. As the story says:
"For the 2005 season, the NOAA predicted 12 to 15 named storms, seven to nine hurricanes, with three to five of them being major hurricanes."
But NOAA isn't the only ones who lowballed last year. I wrote about it on my blog, here: http://redhotresources.blogspot.com/2006/04/hurricanes-part-2-heaven-help-us.html
And here's a post I wrote about when (historically) the first hurricanes of the season usually come around ...
http://redhotresources.blogspot.com/2006/05/when-does-hurricane-season-really.html
27 named storms in the Atlantic Basin (a record).
Three Category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin (a record).
A tropical storm (T.S. Zeta) formed over a month AFTER the official end of the hurricane season (a record), and was still roaming around the Atlantic in January of this year (a record).
I know they look drastically different (visually) but this is due to the color/temp scale as they changed it, I'm guessing to show more contrast between different water temps?
SST 1 week avg ending May 24 2006
SST 1 week avg ending May 24 2005
--Enjoy
Overall it looks like there is not much change. It must have got cooler over the last few weeks. The April SST were 2-3 degrees warmer than last year.
The striking feature of that map is the huge warm anomaly around Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Any TOD readers from there have anecdotes?
Let's all hope Nawlins is lucky this year, they could really use the break. Even more so, I hope that we see zero hurricanes in the GOM. Just one passing through there could damage rigs / refineries and that's all it would take to tip the scale.
Why would you knowingly put yourself in harms way?
Subsidizing people to live in a flood plain or along hurricane prone coastlines has got to quit being acceptable. I live in Seattle and if you want to buy earthquake insurance, you are going to pay through the nose. If insurance companies can make thousands of people living in an earthquake zone pay dearly (if you can get it at all, after our last moderate quake, it wasn't even available for a few years)why can't they enact some of these same sort of "market forces" on these people? And why should the government pay people to rebuild in the same dangerous place?
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-05-24-voa25.cfm
excerpt:
----------
NASA scientists, working with 10 years of satellite data, find a dramatic thinning of ice around the edges of Greenland, and Antarctica too.
Using satellite technology and various measurements, NASA scientists confirm the earth is melting at both poles. In the north, at the Arctic, the melting of Greenland's three-kilometer thick ice sheet had been expected, though not as dramatically as it is now happening. But in the south, many believed the far more massive ice sheets covering Antarctica would increase in the 21st century. That's not so, according to the NASA observations and data. Despite increasing snowfall, Antarctica's ice sheets are shrinking.
Research Scientist, Dr. Isabella Velicogna is with the University Of Colorado explains the evidence of melting. "What is unique about what we found is that for the first time, we are able to say, we are sure that the Antarctic ice sheet is losing mass, and at a significant rate."
---------
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?