Time To Stop The Hurricane Climate-Change Babble
Florida is one of America’s fastest-growing states, with four million people moving in since 2005. I pick the starting date for a reason: 2005 was the year Hurricane Katrina showed a global audience what happens when a powerful storm lands directly on a large U.S. population center.
And yet four million people moved to Florida.
Any hurricane that doesn’t directly hit Jacksonville, Miami, or Tampa is a good outcome for Florida.
Ian landed on Fort Myers and Naples, also booming but not as densely settled. So far, 120 people are known to have died, mostly from drowning.
Ian is both Florida’s deadliest storm in decades and also a demonstration of how much better Florida has become at surviving hurricanes.
Example: The Category 4 storm that landed on Miami in September 1926 killed 372 at a time when Dade County’s population was barely 100,000.
Since then, the sea off the Miami coast has risen 10 inches [see chart below], the CO2 component of the atmosphere has increased by 50 percent—and Miami-Dade County’s population has grown 27-fold.
This suggests something: The declining menace to life and safety from hurricanes is a major factor explaining Florida’s population growth despite the known risk of tropical cyclones as well as the widely heard forecast that such storms will become more deadly because of ‘climate change’.
People are wealthier and better able to manage even a growing risk. Building standards are better. Emergency services are better. Most crucially, information is better.
Anyone with a smartphone can now know with great precision when the moment has come to gather up the kids, dog, and family photos and head for higher ground.
For comparison’s sake, Texas reports 246 died from its 2021 winter blackout, with private estimates as high as 700 based on excess mortality figures.
Grid failures, unlike hurricanes, are not (yet) assumed by the public to be a routine, seasonal threat, though this is changing as signaled by the proliferation of private generators (whose emissions are left out of state utility accounting).
Grid failures can’t (yet) be predicted by looking at a weather app but outages increasingly are a focus of TV news weather reporting.
Inordinately, climate change intrudes in the media discussion of hurricanes but not grid failures that arise partly due to climate-driven energy policies. Think about it: The role of climate in creating Hurricane Ian is speculative and impossible to determine.
For the record, both the United Nations climate panel and the U.S. government say no clear signal is yet visible in storm frequency and severity.
In contrast, the decision by Texas and other states to prioritize renewables over grid resiliency is a human decision—as shown again last week by a New York grid operator report warning of a shrinking margin of safety because of the state’s mandated phaseout of conventional energy sources.
Let’s have a moment of realism. Weather is always a product of climate: If we had a different climate we’d have different hurricanes, but we’d still have hurricanes.
Even if less CO2 were in the atmosphere, the chances of a storm landing on you would be basically unchanged from today and still remain beyond anyone’s control.
The least random, most controllable factor, on the other hand, is the adaptation and learning of human beings in the face of predictable risks, making it possible for 21 million now to enjoy Florida’s low taxes, strong business climate, and readily available healthcare, as well as the presence of the many relocated friends and neighbors from elsewhere despite the well-advertised tropical cyclone danger.
Before and after Ian, a cornucopia of news stories correctly dwelled on the huge increase in Florida’s population and mostly harrumphed aimlessly about it.
Few bothered to notice the one unambiguously perverse government role, namely the provision of taxpayer-subsidized flood insurance and generous rebuilding aid to encourage more people to put themselves in harm’s way than would do so otherwise.
A Washington Post contribution to the genre, in its first sentence, chose to frame Florida’s development boom against the “existential” threat of ‘climate change’.
This is a word, Oxford tells us, “relating to existence” or “theories of existentialism.”
None of these meanings seem to fit the Post’s usage, which implies that ‘climate change’ poses a threat to humanity’s continued existence without actually saying so because then the paper would have to produce evidence.
The rather more obvious truth is that climate processes, even when influenced by ‘greenhouse gases’ released by human beings, operate on much longer time scales than human adaptation and innovation do.
With so many people and their wealth arriving in their state, Floridians will be well-supplied with the means and incentive to adapt to the risks that come from living in hurricane alley.
See more here climatechangedispatch
Header image: Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers and Commenters,
I urge you to go to (https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/salem/97301/weather-radar/330144) and scan the Earth as to where precipitation might falling at latitudes between 23N and 23S during a short time span as these observations are made from satellites which circle, as I understand, the globe about every 90 minutes.
I consider this precipitation to be important because I consider to be the exhaust of the atmospheric heat engines which stir the atmosphere. And as I compose this comment I am not sure where I will submit it. But as I question where I have decided it probably does not matter as I plan to submit this multiple times. For I know this information has never been available to me much before. And I have not read anyone referring to it as I am doing now.
Have a good day, Jerry
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T. C. Clark
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I like https://wunderground.com This site does not have an edit function so I hesitate to put links. Exxon Mobil just announced a new carbon sequestration scheme….apparently Exxon has surrendered and just trying to make some kind of profit even if it is for doing a wasteful procedure.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi T.C. and PSI Readers,
I see I made a serious error in not clearly stating the likely precipitation even seen are over oceans as well over the common land based radar observations. And the yellows and reds are very likely due to thunder stormed which lift the humid air over warm ocean surfaces in the tropics. Because you can go to the link and see where where these storms are being observe, you need to and I should not need to tell you what I have seen. For if you what to learn you must do the work yourself.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Charles Higley
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In reality, we have the gift of hurricanes mainly due to the dust clouds from the Sahara. As CO2 greens the planet and makes plants more efficient with their water usage, the Sahara has been greening, mostly northward, which means that dust clouds are likely to be smaller and/or less frequent.
Many years ago, when the Sahara was green, for which there is much evidence,, there were likely very few hurricanes. in the west North Atlantic.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi T.C., Charles, and PSI Readers,
Why did you two waste your time coming to PSI and ignoring what you read? For there is no evidence that either of you went to the link suggested to see where precipitation was likely occurring over 70% of the earth’s surface.
“Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.” (Galileo as translated by someone)
Have a good day, Jerry
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