Every morning at sunrise, here at the Cape Coral Yacht Club where Nereis and I live (Nereis is my partner (boat) on which we have cruised over twenty five thousand miles around North and Central America) I walk around the municipal pool, the senior center and several buildings in the complex to the beach where some newspaper machines are located in front of K Cs River Stop, the small open-air restaurant which sometimes lures me with a Corona con limon.  It is there that I purchase a News-Press, the local Fort Myers, Florida newspaper, which has the New York Times crossword puzzle that puzzles me before breakfast.  Then I continue walking around along the canal that leads to the Caloosahatchee River, it's three miles to the Gulf of Mexico, and back to the comfy confines of my water-borne home.

On the front page, above the fold, must be important, the headline, "WARMING TO BRING STRONGER STORMS" leaped out at me.  


          

                                                                           THE FIERY SUN                   

Heat from the sun is responsible for much of the weather events on earth.  Many believe MAN is responsible for increased warming of EARTH and brings us back to today's headline in the News-Press.         

See previous article in this blog for more on global change-warming and the continuing controversy.                                                                  

                                                                            
                                                                                                               

                       PALMS IN KATRINA'S WINDS    


Perhaps we could read these palms for future events.  Or not.  You decide.

The article mentioned the publisher of the pronouncement regarding increased hurricane strength as the on line journal NATURE GEOSCIENCE.


                                                                                             

You can purchase a year's subscription for $159.00 or read abstracts of articles in the on line version.

I'd paste the abstract here but it's copyrighted material so here's the gist.  The article and authors. 

              Tropical cyclones and climate change

                                 Published on line: 21 February 2010

Thomas R. Knutson¹, John L. McBbride², Johnny Chan³, Kerry Emanuel⁴, Greg Holland⁵, Chris Landsea⁶, Isaac Held¹, James P. Kossin⁷, A. K. Srivastava⁸ & Masato Sugi⁹

By the year 2100, that's 90 years from now for those numerically challenged, overall strength of hurricanes will rise by 2 to 11 percent.  However there will be between 6 and 34 percent fewer storms.  (In a previous blog article I mentioned this reduction in the number of storms is due to increased heat producing stronger mid level winds that shear off the tops of developing storms.)

Here's the interesting factoid.  An 11% increase in wind strength would result in almost a 60% increase in damage.  This is because the strength of wind is, similar to the strength of earthquakes, it's exponential, not arithmetic.  That is it's not  4, 6, 8 but  4, 16, 64, the square of the number.  Which makes an 11% increase significant.

The article goes on to say that by the end of the century category 4 and 5 hurricanes would almost double but authors of the study also say that, "It doesn't make clear whether global warming will lead to more or less hurricane damage."  Isn't that interesting.

Interested in knowing more e-mail Thomas R. Knutson at    Tom.Knutson@noaa.gov

Whether or not this information is factual remains to be seen.  However those wishing to be prepared for any eventuality go to www.globalweathersolutions.com and look at the hurricane survival guide.  It may save your life when electronics fail


                                                      


                   That's that for this.  

                          Take care, 

                                JB