Friday, September 15, 2017



Another predictive failure

If they can't predict a day ahead, how can they predict decades ahead?  The weather is just too complex -- and climate is just the sum of weather. It's the same stuff

Estimates for the damage Hurricane Irma would inflict on Florida kept mounting as it made its devastating sweep across the Caribbean. It was poised to be the costliest U.S. storm on record. Then something called the Bermuda High intervened and tripped it up.

“We got very lucky,” said Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground in Ann Arbor, Michigan. If Irma had passed 20 miles west of Marco Island instead of striking it on Sunday, “the damage would have been astronomical.” A track like that would have placed the powerful, eastern eye wall of Irma on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

By one estimate, the total cost dropped to about $50 billion Monday from $200 billion over the weekend. The state escaped the worst because Irma’s powerful eye shifted westward, away from the biggest population center of sprawling Miami-Dade County.

The credit goes to the Bermuda High, which acts like a sort of traffic cop for the tropical North Atlantic Ocean. The circular system hovering over Bermuda jostled Irma onto northern Cuba Saturday, where being over land sapped it of some power, and then around the tip of the Florida peninsula, cutting down on storm surge damage on both coasts of the state.

“The Bermuda High is finite and it has an edge, which was right over Key West,” Masters said. Irma caught the edge and turned north.

For 10 days, computer-forecast models had struggled with how the high was going to push Irma around and when it was going to stop, said Peter Sousounis, director of meteorology at AIR Worldwide. “I have never watched a forecast more carefully than Irma. I was very surprised not by how one model was going back and forth — but by how all the models were going back and forth.”

In the end, Irma landed on the Florida Keys as a Category 4 hurricane with 130-mile (209 kilometers) per hour winds, then as a Category 3 at Marco Island. It reached the Tampa Bay area as a Category 2. By contrast, Hurricane Andrew in 1992 plowed into the east side of Florida as a Category 5.

“With Irma, little wobbles made a huge difference,”said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research in Savannah, Georgia. With a tightly-wound storm like Andrew coming straight into the state, “a 30-mile wobble isn’t going to matter.”

Still, when it comes to damage, “Irma may bump Andrew,” Watson said. The company’s most recent estimate is for $49.5 billion in Irma costs for Florida; Andrew’s were an inflation-adjusted $47.8 billion.

The price tag for Hurricane Harvey, which struck southeastern Texas on Aug. 25, could end up between $65 billion to $75 billion, according to AIR Worldwide, a Verisk Analytics risk modeler based in Boston.

The top spots at the moment are held by 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, at $160 billion, and 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, at $70.2 billion, according to a list compiled by the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information.

Those are modern storms. Simulations based on the paths and powers of some that rammed the U.S. 100 or more years ago show they were far more disastrous, or would be if they arrived today when the population is much more dense and there is far more, and far more expensive, property to destroy.

SOURCE



Melting of Himalayan glaciers is nothing new

There was even some melting during the Little Ice Age

Himalayan glaciers experienced significant mass loss during later phases of little ice age

Mayank Shekhar

Abstract

To date, there is a gap in the data about the state and mass balance of glaciers in the climate-sensitive subtropical regions during the Little Ice Age (LIA). Here, based on an unprecedented tree-ring sampling coverage, we present the longest reconstructed mass balance record for the Western Himalayan glaciers, dating to 1615. Our results confirm that the later phase of LIA was substantially briefer and weaker in the Himalaya than in the Arctic and subarctic regions. Furthermore, analysis of the time-series of the mass-balance against other time-series shows clear evidence of the existence of (i) a significant glacial decay and a significantly weaker magnitude of glaciation during the latter half of the LIA; (ii) a weak regional mass balance dependence on either the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) taken in isolation, but a considerable combined influence of both of them during the LIA; and (iii) in addition to anthropogenic climate change, the strong effect from the increased yearly concurrence of extremely high TSI with El Niño over the past five decades, resulting in severe glacial mass loss. The generated mass balance time-series can serve as a source of reliable reconstructed data to the scientific community.

Sci Rep. 2017; 7: 10305




Fracking getting underway in England

North Yorkshire County Council has today agreed planning conditions with Third Energy which will enable the company to begin operations to frack for shale gas in the vicinity of Kirby Misperton.

The conditions relate to traffic management; to the prevention of mud on roads and to the financial commitment required of Third Energy, or any subsequent owner of the site, to deliver the restoration and aftercare of the development.

The county council gave planning consent subject to planning conditions to Third Energy to undertake hydraulic fracturing for shale gas on the Kirby Misperton site over a year ago.

This was a single decision on a single site in North Yorkshire which already has existing conventional drilling for gas on it. The decision does not have a bearing on future applications.

However, local councils must work within the national policy that indigenous oil and gas are key to energy security, while facilitating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. They must also consider the need for economic growth to provide jobs and sustainable communities.

North Yorkshire’s planning committee was satisfied that in this particular application, mitigation of the effects of the development with regard to safeguarding the natural environment, protected species and habitats, the amenity of local residents, the protection of ground and surface water quality and traffic management could be achieved through the discharge of the planning conditions.

These conditions have now been agreed and will be carefully monitored throughout the operation. Third Energy is today delivering to the county council the formal seven day notification of commencement of development.

SOURCE



'Mini' nuclear reactors could help solve Britain's energy crunch and cut a third off bills, ministers hope

Ministers are ready to approve the swift development of a fleet of “mini” reactors to help guard against electricity shortages, as older nuclear power stations are decommissioned.

The new technology is expected to offer energy a third cheaper than giant conventional reactors such as the ongoing Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Industry players including Rolls-Royce, NuScale, Hitachi and Westinghouse have held meetings in past weeks with civil servants about Britain’s nuclear strategy and development of “small modular reactors” (SMRs).

A report to be published by Rolls-Royce in Westminster this week claims its consortium can generate electricity at a “strike price” – the guaranteed price producers can charge – of £60 per megawatt hour, two thirds that of recent large-scale nuclear plants.

SMRs are a fraction of the size and cost of conventional plants and were earmarked for funding from the £250m pledged by the Government in 2015 to develop “innovative nuclear technologies”.  It is hoped a fleet of these small reactors could be cheaply produced to guarantee Britain’s energy supply, with further ambitions for the technology to be exported worldwide.

Whitehall sources confirmed that ­officials from the Department for Business were whittling down proposals from consortia keen to work with government to develop SMRs, with an ­announcement on the final contenders for funding expected soon.

The report to be published by Rolls-Royce, entitled “UK SMR: A National Endeavour”, which has been seen by The Telegraph, claims SMRs will be able to generate electricity significantly cheaper than conventional nuclear plants.

The mini reactors are each expected to be able to generate between 200 megawatts and 450 megawatts of power, compared with the 3.2 gigawatts due from Hinkley, meaning more of them will be required to meet the UK’s energy needs.

SOURCE




Greens Defeated As Norwegian Voters Snub Anti-Oil Push

An election seen partly as a referendum on Norway’s future as an oil-producing country went solidly for the status quo.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg of the center-right Conservative Party and her main coalition partner, the Progress Party, won 89 seats in Norway’s 169-seat Parliament, defeating a group led by the Labor Party that was projected to win 80 seats.

Before the election, weakening of the Labor coalition was thought to have created an opportunity for the Green Party to gain influence. The Greens campaigned to halt oil and gas exploration and to phase out the Norwegian oil industry in 15 years. But the party only retained its single seat, winning an estimated 3.3% of the vote.

No Conservative-led Norwegian government has retained power in an election since 1985.

The Labor Party was projected to lose 6 of its 55 seats but to remain Norway’s largest single party.

SOURCE

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