When I was a child, my grandpa, a WWII Naval Veteran, did not suffer my stupidity. Fire is hot. As it turns out, fire being hot is not a new scientific phenomena. So if he would grill he would point out to me, that is a flame, flame is hot, flame burns, do not expect random supernatural exceptions to protect against your foolishness.
Actually, more what he said was, “Fire’s on, stay away from it.” The idea being, that I had been well educated on the concept of fire, it was not fire’s fault if it burned me for me playing with it, and I know better. Same with bleach, or medicines, or anything else a kid could find themselves encountering. Florida is learning that there will be no supernatural exceptions for their stupidity. They were told.
We were told. We were told for fifty years or more. The climate is changing. We are responsbile. We will either take intelligent action as a species, or the climate will cook us like brisket and drown us like chicken fried steak under white gravy. My question to Floridians, especially Republicans is, why do they think when the Megacane comes, their homes will be spared? Because the insurers are leaving and we are witness to sight of water temperatures never before seen.
Ocean water temperatures pushing toward triple digits, however, doesn’t sound normal at all. And this is the case in Florida where the coolest water in the state has dipped into the low 80s (Fahrenheit). The highest water temperatures have been in the 90s.
“We didn’t expect this heating to happen so early in the year and to be so extreme,” said Derek Manzello, a coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch. “Ocean warming is only getting worse, bleaching events are getting more frequent, so it’s really an existential crisis for coral reefs as we know them.”
(Insert randomized sequence of “these numbers can’t be right” reactions from your favorite Hollywood disaster film.)
Right now, of course, with complete buffoons running the state, most Floridians are probably in the “this scale must be broken” mode. Let’s see how they feel about ten scales later.
Experts like Manzello warn that coral reefs are in significant danger if these water temperatures persist. But it’s not just Florida. Water temps in the Southwest Atlantic and across the Gulf of Mexico are reportedly about four to five degrees higher than normal while as much as 40 percent of our oceans are experiencing some form of an ocean heat wave. But still, a hot tub-like 90 degrees is a head-turning realization when it comes to a dip in the ocean. Coral are particularly vulnerable to these kinds of changes and bleaching can occur with temperature changes of just one degree Celsius sustained over a period of about four weeks. According to the NOAA, approximately 25 percent of marine life depend on reefs at some point in their life span, so you can see how the impacts can tally up quickly.
The focus on this story is hurricanes. The average American that might run into this piece can readily understand that vs. coral reef, something that sounds like it could be sold at Claire’s. But the long story short is, if coral dies, so does ocean life, so this next section is written for them.
Go ahead, yawn. But this means ecological damage. Yawning some more I see.
This could mean the complete total collapse of the oceanic food chain.
Ok, still not getting it. If ocean life goes away-
There would be no more Shrimp Fest at Red Lobster. Long John Silver’s goes defunct.
I didn’t want to have to mention this..
The end..
of the McDonald’s fish sandwich.
Of course if sea life dies, well..ok nah, I would rather have the brilliant Pakalolo expain it in a later diary.
Back to hurricanes.
The gold standard for modern disaster, as it relates to hurricanes, is Katrina. If we look at the water temps from that time frame, we will see that the storm hit a particularly warm sector in the mid-Gulf before drawing back its power just a tad near the coast. So if we take a look at those measurements, we could probably guesstimate a similar temperature pattern, right?
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) satellite data from the week of August 23rd to 30th 2005, the time period that gave birth to Hurricane Katrina, shows that the water temperatures were 82 degrees F and higher in a large part of the Gulf of Mexico.
Oh. 82. Huh. Uh..that is ten degrees cooler than now.
Hurricanes gain and lose wind speed based on the temperature of the ocean water below. It’s why they form in the tropics and break apart over cooler water and land.
And it doesn’t take a huge shift in the sea-surface temperature to make a difference. A one degree Fahrenheit rise in ocean temperature can increase a hurricane’s wind speed by 15 to 20 miles per hour – enough to shift a storm to the next category of severity.
Taken to the logical mathematical conclusion, this would suggest a hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 250-300 m.p.h. right?
Let’s take a look at science from 2012:
How much faster could hurricane winds blow? A hurricane gains strength by using warm water as fuel. With Earth's climate warming, oceans may grow warmer, too. And so, some scientists predict, hurricanes might become stronger. Particularly, researchers have found the strongest storms should become even more intense as the planet warms, Live Science previously reported. By the end of the 21st century, human-caused global warming will likely increase hurricane intensity, on average, by 2 to 11 percent, according to a review by NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, revised on Aug. 30, 2017.
But physics dictates there must be a limit. Based on ocean and atmospheric conditions on Earth nowadays, the estimated maximum potential for hurricanes is about 190 mph (305 km/h), according to a 1998 calculation by Kerry Emanuel, a climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Well we know 190 m.p.h. is wrong because Hurricane Patricia blasted Mexico with 215 m.p.h. in 2015. Now it is believed that past about 156 m.p.h. the damage will look the same, with neighborhoods destroyed, so whether it is 156 or 256 it may not matter. But that can’t be right.
What Wind Speed Can Skyscrapers Withstand?
The skyscraper has been engineered to resist extreme conditions and can withstand a wind force of up to 100 to 170 miles per hour. It is built by considering the local regulations in order to be sure that the structure is made in accordance to the local conditions of that area.
It can’t be right because while the neighborhoods might look the same, Americans have never seen an urban infrastructure reduced to rubble. Is this hyperbole? In theory there is no upper limit to wind speed as the oceans warm. But wind could be the least of the problems.
- A new “Wall of Wind” facility will test winds of up to 200 miles per hour, and storm surges up to 20 feet high.
- Part of Florida International University’s Extreme Events Institute, the planned $12.8 million testing facility will be added to the U.S. National Science Foundation’s research infrastructure.
Hurricanes just keep growing stronger. Due to increased greenhouse gas emissions, the air is able to hold onto more moisture, and the oceans are warming, creating the perfect storm. A May 2018 study in the Journal of Climate estimates that if Hurricane Ike—which tore apart Galveston, Texas, in 2008—were to occur in the late 21st century, its would be 34 percent wetter, and its winds would be 13 percent stronger.
The biggest threat from hurricanes is actually storm surge, statistically speaking. 49 percent of all fatalities in a hurricane come from that.
So what does this all mean? It means that a highly populated area growing exponentially, because humans just don’t listen, is sitting on ocean temps ten degrees hotter than what fostered a storm that crushed New Orleans.
If a hurricane could choose where it wanted to hit, because it was hungry, Florida now represents the Wynn Buffet in Las Vegas. And it just added tableside lobster.
And what is Chef Ronny doing about this impending disaster?
While governor, DeSantis has adopted bills banning Florida’s cities from adopting 100% clean energy goals and barred the state’s pension fund from making investment decisions that consider the climate crisis due to what he called a corporate attempt to “impose an ideological agenda on the American people”. He has also attacked the US military for being “woke” for warning about the national security risks posed by climate impacts.
The fear is not that is just temperatures never before seen. The fear is that it is only July.
The peak of hurricane season is September 10.
Huh. So we have a state losing insurers, and what is left is doubling or tripling rates, a demented leadership, a vulnerable population, absolutely zero attempts at mitigation, and storms that might make for a good Leonardo DiCaprio film, if he weren’t on strike and fiction could out do fact.
Huh.
Ronny likes to say that freedom lives in Florida.
The problem is, as the climate shifts, the people might leave to let “freedom” live there by itself.
Florida as we know it, will likely be wholly uninsurable before it is completely uninhabitable.
But as the tides rise and the buildings crumble due to the inevitable megacanes, Floridians can’t rest knowing that no male wearing makeup shall ever read a nursery rhyme in a public library to a child. The Pride flag is torn asunder. The word gay shall not be uttered. And only girls, not defined by science but as by politicians who think Bud Light is snake urine, will be playing girls sports.
The trade off? Because of intransigence and depraved indifference, the only sport left might be swimming.
-ROC
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-ROC