Who'll stop the rain?
POSTED BY: AaronAgassi
UPDATED: Sunday, September 11, 2005 22:16
VIEWED: 1982
PAGE 1 of 3
"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely only after they have exhausted all other alternatives."
--Abba Eban
So much for sweet reason! Because the best and most obvious solutions have been ignored utterly within the beltway, and by all political affiliations alike! Here is what should the political stump speech for Florida, reflecting true responsibility and ingenuity:
Good people of Florida, there has been enough suffering. Together let us put an end to those terrible hurricanes!
Questions?
Beyond adequate funding for implementation of the inexcusably long delayed crucial improvements and upgrades to the levees, floodgates and pumping stations of New Orleans, not to mention the return of the Florida National Guard from Iraq, our plan for national and global climate repair, consists of three additional vital points:
Firstly, there is the urgent restoration of the Thermohaline, the Arctic deep cold dense salty current which cools the costal waters. Because it is the warm moist rising air from the sea that spawns and feeds ever greater and more numerous tropical storms and hurricanes, not to mention over heating and killing the fragile living coral reefs functioning as a natural breakwater as well as actually increasing population of the Crown of Thorns starfish which eat the coral.
As it turns out, the refrigerating effectiveness of the Thermohaline can be restored, fed back into normal health and perhaps even further improved, by the simple return of salt to the ocean at strategic times and locations. Salting the surface ocean water will thereby make it more dense, heavier, and cause it to sink, cool in the dark depths, and then add to and invigorate the waning Thermohaline, to once again more effectively cool the costal waters and dampen the spawning of tropical storms and hurricanes from the sultry rising moisture. Clearly, a crash program of feasibility study and testing for quickest possible implementation is already long overdue.
The second part of the problem is, of course, is global warming of the atmosphere. My fellow Americans, let us deal with global warming the American way. We will act unilaterally and preemptively! Let us set and attain a goal of reducing the atmospheric percentage of greenhouse carbon gasses in order to lower global warming once and for all.
All that is required is adequate carbon sinks. Carbon sinks are any plant life that binds and incorporates carbon gasses as it grows. And the most efficient carbon sinks for the most cost effective allocation of land and other resources, is hydroponics.
Food and all manner of useful products and materials can be produced by hydroponics, to actually profit from significant and much needed economic growth and recovery, while actually reducing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere as a happy byproduct.
Of course, a major danger of global warming comes from destitute grinding poverty and subsistence farming in Latin America, the slashing and burning of the Amazon jungles. And it is this looming threat to the lungs of the Earth, which is to be addressed by the third point of our program to stop the hurricanes, responsible positive intervention to aid destitute Latin American subsistence farmers, change their practices and actually heal the Amazon jungles, the lungs of the Earth, while ultimate disaster may still be averted.
Subsistence farmers slash and burn their way, advancing into the old growth of the Amazon jungles, for new farm land as the lands they have already slashed and burned for farm land become useless and depleted.
Now, as it turns out, the reason that the jungle doesn't simply re-grow over the abandoned farmland all on it's own, is because the small animals that eat the jungle fruit and then excrete the seeds, will not venture into the clearing. But, amazingly, by simply spreading the appropriate manure, fresh jungle can be restored on hither to scorched, depleted and bare soil, within a scant three years!
If only the destitute Latin American subs
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Hello,
As a person who grew up in South Florida, I have to ask...
Are you seriously speaking of stopping hurricanes? I mean, global weather management with the aim of ending the hurricane menace?
Because if you are, I'm not sure that's a good idea.
Hurricanes have been around a lot longer than modern man. They are a natural part of the ecosystem.
You don't fight nature on that kind of scale. You live with it. You build a house that doesn't blow over, and you stock food and water.
Now, there is a real argument to be made for proper drainage, building code adjustments, and being careful what you build on the beach.
Weather control just seems a little 'evil mastermind' to me.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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It reads that AARONAGASSI is actually suggesting returning the Hurrican strangth and frequency back to their natural levels by trying to undo some of the enviromental damage MAN has done.
As a side note:
I really don't think we can effect the worlds weather to any great deal, but we maybe able to effect it just enough to destroy us and our civilisation. But hey, why protect the climate, the people in power will have made their millions and be long dead before that happens, so who gives a 
.
Zen Buddhist to the Hotdog Vendor:
"Make me one with everything."
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ANTHONYT, CITIZEN interprets my intention correctly.
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Do we have any information suggesting that hurricane strength and frequency are abnormal at the moment?
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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This is an essay I was able to find on the topic:
--Anthony
Downward trends in the frequency of intense Atlantic hurricanes during the past five decades
(Geophysical Research Letters, 23, 1697-1700,1996)
Christopher W. Landsea 1 and Neville Nicholls
Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre, Melbourne, Victoria Australia
William M. Gray
Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
Lixion A. Avila
National Hurricane Center, Miami, Florida, USA
Abstract
There is concern that the enhanced greenhouse effect may be affecting extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones. The North Atlantic basin offers a reliable, long-term record of tropical cyclone activity, though it may not be representative of tropical cyclones throughout the rest of the tropics. The most recent years of 1991 through 1994 have experienced the quietest tropical cyclone activity on record in terms of frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, and intense hurricanes. This was followed by the 1995 hurricane season, one of the busiest in the past 50 years. Despite 1995's activity, a long-term (five decade) downward trend continues to be evident primarily in the frequency of intense hurricanes. In addition, the mean maximum intensity (i.e., averaged over all cyclones in a season) has decreased, while the maximum intensity attained by the strongest hurricane each year has not shown a significant change.
1 Introduction
Two hypothesized impacts of anthropogenic climate change due to increasing amounts of "greenhouse" gases that may occur [Houghton et al., 1900] are increased tropical sea surface temperatures (moderate confidence) and increased tropical rainfall associated with a slightly stronger inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) (moderate/low confidence). Because of these possible changes, there have been many suggestions based upon global circulation and theoretical modeling studies that increases may occur in tropical cyclone frequency [AMS Council and UCAR Board of Trustees, 1988;Houghton et al; 1990; Ryan et al; 1992; Haarsma et al; 1993], area of occurrence [Houghton et al; 1990; Ryan et al; 1992] ,], mean intensity [AMS Council and UCAR Board of Trustees, 1988; Haarsma et al; 1993] , and maximum intensity [Emanuel, 1987; AMS Council and UCAR Board of Trustees, 1988; Houghton et al., 1990; Haarsma et al; 1993; Bengtsson et al., 1994] . In contrast, there have been some conclusions that decreases in frequency may result [Broccoli and Manabe, 1990; Bengtsson et al., 1994] and that any man-made changes in tropical cyclones will likely be "swamped by natural variability" [Lighthill et al., 1994] . One report [ Leggett, 1994] has suggested that increased tropical cyclone incidence and severity have already taken place, but provided no quantitative evidence. Indeed, so pervasive is this idea that even the reported that even the U.S. Senatorial Bipartisan Task Force Force on Funding Diaster Relief [1995] reported that "hurricanes...have become increasingly frequent and severe over the last four decades as climatic conditions have changed in the tropics." It is essential with such suggestions and pronouncements that there be a thorough analysis of what the climate record actually shows. This report provides such an analysis of the trends in Atlantic tropical cyclone frequency and intensity.
2 Five decade long trends
Tropical cyclone is the generic term which comprises hurricanes of the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific, typhoons of the Northwest Pacific, and cyclones of the Indian and Southwest Pacific. Most tropical cyclone basins have a very limited period (i.e. since the late 1960s) of reliable records to analyze for trends. However, the Atlantic basin, including the North Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea, has an accurate five decade long record of storms due to the use of aircraft reconnaissance [Neumann et al., 1993; Landsea, 1993] . It is this dataset that is examined for recent changes of tropical storminess and for multi-decadal trends of f
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation Thermohaline circulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/WorldNF.asp?ArticleID=181086 Hurricane fuels global warming storm
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/onpi/webextra.nsf/web/climate?OpenDo
cument A Closer Look at Global Warming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming Global warming - Wikipedia
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"The hurricane catastrophe in the United States should be a wake-up call for all of us."
Mr. Agassi,
This is the kind of statement that is the sensationalistic kind of nonsense that anyone can use for anything. It appears in the articles you referred to.
The hurricane catastrophe in the United States should indeed be a wake-up call. But it is a wake-up call that has nothing to do with global warming.
And mind you, I am not saying that global warming is not an issue. Not at all. But to use the ravaging of a hurricane as evidence that global warming is bad is akin to using the freezing of a homeless man to prove that winters are evil.
Hurricanes are a fact of life. They have been here since before we have been here. They have struck land and exacted cruel and terrible damage throughout history.
The Hurricane Katrina disaster, or any other disaster caused by a Hurricane, has very little to do with climactic trends and very much to do with the stupidity of man. I am not speaking of a stupidity that spans centuries of greenhouse gasses. I am speaking of a stupidity that spans the building and maintenance of a city within our own lifetimes.
When Andrew ravaged South Florida, we did not point at the sky and say, "Ye foul global warming. Were it not for ye, we would have been safe." To do so would have been rediculous. Hurricanes such as Andrew and Katrina have ALWAYS EXISTED and they will continue to strike our nation.
No, we pointed fingers at ourselves and said,
"If we had built structures in a different fashion, they could have weathered this storm."
And, "If we had better drainage, there would be less flooding."
And now with Katrina, we can add, "If we choose to live in a bowl, we had best invest the time, effort, and resources necessary to A) Ensure that the levy is well built and B) Evacuate the region adequately before a storm."
By all means, crusade against global warming. But do not blame New Orleans on global warming. Not on greenhouse gasses. Not on centuries of ecological misconduct. Blame it on very identifiable and concrete causes, right under our noses, that do not need a hundred years of ecological debate to prove.
The New Orleans disaster was preventable. Not by eliminating hurricanes, or changing the weather. It was preventable by adjusting our reaction and anticipation of the weather which has always existed, and will always exist.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Anthony, you come across as disconnected as the government itself! You impugn my motives nonsensically, which is entirely irrelevant. The truth is that I advocate specific measures which you do not address at all to problems that you barely acknowledge, Anthony.
No, I do not assert value judgments from ordinary circumstances, however tragic. Indeed, nor do I actually argue any conclusion from any premise at all, save in my simple analysis of the natural mechanisms at work, and further, as to how the remedies I suggest would actually improve climate and comfortable survival for us human beings on this planet by lowering the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, most particularly off the Florida coast although the same principles apply around the world.
Colder waters and less atmospheric carbon means fewer and less intense hurricanes. Salt conveyance is key to water temperature, hydroponics is best carbon sink and jungle animal manure and positive intervention for subsistence farmers are key to maintaining the Amazon jungle, the lungs of the Earth, as a renewable resource.
All piecemeal engineering, couldn't be less ideological. No virtuous sacrifices involved! A profitable win-win proposition all around.
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Dear Mr. Agassi,
There are decent and good reasons to prevent the continuing pollution of our world. There are real concerns involved in the possibility of global warming. There are excellent ends to be found in restoring and maintaining the jungles and rain forests of the Earth.
"Together let us put an end to those terrible hurricanes!"
This isn't one of them.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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