etudiant

56 minutes ago, Windspeed said:

Edit: I might also add that the Younger Dryas still took several thousand years to unfold, not ~200. 

I don't believe that that is true.

Afaik, the actual swings in temperature are so fast that they are mushed by the process of ice forming and melting , with the associated gas diffusion.

Basically, the cores show very abrupt changes, which we are struggling to understand. 

1 hour ago, Windspeed said:

1 hour ago, Prospero said:

Climates have been changing since the beginning of our planet. Obviously what we are doing as a species has some kind of effect on our environment. We know we can kill a river or lake very quickly, etc. We cut down forests and plant fields. We cut into mountains and build roads. We build large cities. We definitely change the atmosphere on some level.
But maybe the climate is changing anyway as it always has.
I get curious, if the oceans keep heating up and hurricanes become less effective at cooling them down, what happens?
More storms, bigger storms, so on at first. But I suppose a hurricane can only become so big or so powerful.
I wonder if on the Earth over the past billions of years there were storms more powerful than hurricanes. What would they be like? A Jupiter like storm maybe?

Note that I stated "anthropogenic"; that was for a reason. Clearly climates change over time, but very slowly and on the geological scale of ages such a glacial and interglacial periods. 

I'd been under the impression that very sharp climate swings were the norm, as evidenced by the very abrupt temperature changes during the most recent ice age and the 'Younger Dryas' cold snap. 

6 minutes ago, yotaman said:

Leaders were listening but the people were not. Many of those who died lived in basement apartments. People were driving thru flooded roads like the water wasn't there. 

I'd like to believe that, but I don't recollect any actions by the NYC government taken in advance. No road closures, no suggested evacuations, not a hint of concern about the impending downpour. Just post storm blather about global warming.

3 hours ago, Roger Smith said:

Thanks, very interesting. I have looked at old newspapers on line a few times before, but I found some different features in this one. A lot of advertising was composed of large letters made up of smaller letters, like a huge E that was made up of two rows or columns of small Es. That seemed to be a short-lived fad that I didn't find in 1895 (went ahead to see how they reported on the May-June 1895 heat wave, it was quite extensively covererd).

Naturally I went back in the files to the March 1888 blizzard. This was also fascinating. The storm hit on the night of March 11-12, which was a Sunday night. Now this paper as you probably noticed was usually four pages of eight columns of type, but on Sundays it extended to sixteen pages of four columns. Anyway, on the Saturday March 10th they had a weather forecast (from Washington via telegraph) saying that Sunday would see increasing cloud and a rain-snow mix by evening. That was correct. The Sunday paper repeated that as the forecast which seemed odd to me (later on I figured out why, the storm had hit already to the southwest and destroyed the telegraph line so there was no new forecast). The Monday edition (this paper appeared after 3 p.m. because they had hourly temperatures in their little weather section that ended at 3 p.m.) had extensive coverage of the blizzard. In those days they called them "western blizzards" because they were more typical of the "west" which began in Ohio and extended into the plains states (the Midwest to us now). What we now call the west was on another planet I think. Anyway, the coverage on the 12th spoke extensively about stalled trains,  stranded trains, people gone missing between morning and lunch time, etc etc, and two feet of snow with drifts "to the second storey of houses" on side streets. A few trees had come down and winds estimated as high as 60 mph. A row of houses had all lost their roofs during the storm. (it makes me suspect our historical weather map recreations of the 1888 blizzard might be a bit underdone). They also mentioned a stronger wind on Feb 27, 1886 with a much less productive snowstorm (a few inches, that wind was apparently NNW in direction because it helpfully blew straight down the length of the Brooklyn Bridge and damage to it was avoided).

Back in 1888, the news was all on page three into parts of page four of this paper, most of first two pages and part of page four was advertising, classified ads and minor news or gossip. The main news was all on page three or the back page. And news varied from the death of the German emperor and reports from city hall, Albany and Washington, to a disclaimer from some dude who had met "Miss Harrison" in Dayton Ohio but it wasn't planned and there was no affair.  (the paragraph didn't mention why this information appeared or who the dude was other than his name which I suppose meant he was prominent enough to attract speculation, probably a politician or a minister perhaps) ... Also Mrs Jones had taken Mr Jones to court, he wasn't giving her enough money for shopping and made her do the boarders' laundry, and he threw a pail of hot ashes at her, but the judge said there was still hope of reconciliation and advised them to settle their differences. 

The next several days of news coverage were mostly about the recovery from the blizzard which was about three or four days, they fixed the telephone and telegraph lines within two or three days, they got the snow off the train tracks but out on Long Island some trains were still stranded in three feet of level snow and bigger drifts. Food was running scarce because it all used to come into the city on trains. A slow melt started around the 15th and I got the impression the sun was clearing the snow faster than the armies of men sent out to clear the business streets and the train stations etc. They stopped talking about it by about the 17th, and their weather section resumed a forecast eventually when the connection was restored. I don't know if there would have been an accurate forecast on the Sunday for the overnight storm and Monday's outcome or not, but I noticed there was an accurate forecast of a cold wave approaching later in that month.

By 1895 they had figured out that news should be on page one. The coverage of the heat wave was fairly extensive, people were passing out on the streets from heat prostration and a police parade had to be cut short. By then, there was a New York City weather bureau and a guy you could go and interview about the weather, and he gave this paper a forecast with a lot of accurate details for the days ahead (on May 31st, which by the publication time had turned out to be hotter than the previous record from 1880 at 95 F) including a thunderstorm on the evening of June 1st and a slight cooldown followed by more heat. He had nothing to go by except weather reports from the rest of the continent, and probably a very sparse network west of the plains states too. He did mention to the reporter that the only cold place in America was Cheyenne WY at that time (it was 32 degrees there). 

I think I will dive back in and see what they have to say in the February 1899 snowstorm and cold wave. And wondering how the Jones couple made out with their reconciliation. 

Thank you Roger Smith,  for this exceptionally informative posting.

Your insight about the way newspapers were laid out makes one recognize that their current format maybe should again change, now that the web handles the breaking news. 

Imho, the WSJ, the Wash Post and the NY Times have long adapted and view the front page as an editorial  page. But without the ads, it is only the view of the 0.01%.

Honestly, you guys should take a victory lap, you did good.

That said, I think we did not look beyond landfall enough. This storm killed way more people up here than down there, because people here got surprised.

I know the mets were screaming, but the leaders were not listening, they could not tell the difference.

1 hour ago, hudsonvalley21 said:

and the 18z NAM

 

Seems the bulk of the system will bypass the metro area to the north.

3 minutes ago, Rjay said:

I'll take the under.  Central Park doesn't count.  

Does too, us Manhattanites build our world around it.

2 minutes ago, AChilders said:

They have a $50B flood wall. New Orleans will not flood. A few roofs may get ripped off. But no surge. And we all know that is what causes loss of life. I apologize if this should be in banter thread. 

A $50B flood wall built in New Orleans is a $5B project elsewhere. The graft is impressive, superbly organized and pervasive throughout.

I'd have very little confidence that anything has really changed since Katrina, so I hope we will not see.

1 hour ago, MJO812 said:

Insane rain amounts here in NYC and inland areas.

Think that reflects the poor track forecast for this storm, which has  just kept chugging along rather than make the sharp right turn to the east that the models all agreed on.

I've no idea what that was based on and the models did correctly call for the shift from mostly west to mostly north earlier, but in this instance, they were badly caught out. None forecast Henri would meander around CT and the Hudson Valley. Frankly not a great advertisement for our meteorological forecasting skills.

Cab someone more expert in meteorology help us understand this egregious modeling failure to predict the record precipitation generated by this storm?

It seems to me that the focus on the exact landfall and the peak intensity caused everyone to lose sight of the real issue, but honestly the models did not handle the moisture element well.

4 minutes ago, nycsnow said:

Complete model failure with the rainfall half of them don’t even have nyc getting this rain today let alone what happened last night 

The rain band that impacted NYC and NJ last night sort of reached way out from the storm.

It seemed unusual, but it is still surprising that the models did not recognize the precipitation potential. Wonder what lessons will be learned from this.  

6 hours ago, gravitylover said:

Ahh, thanx for asking  I spent an hour or so staking and tying the tomato plants up a little better because a bunch of them had flopped over. I should know if the kinks in the stems and stalks affect things but as of now they look pretty good. I did manage to pull a half dozen nice ones today so that's good. The peppers are mostly ok but one shed all of it's blooms and the small peppers that had already set  I think the melons are in love with all the water and the warmth, the bees are totally enjoying it! Strawberries are happy (and tasty) and the raspberries set another whole round of berries  

Looks like I hit 2", highest total in a few months. 

Amazed the raccoons have not found your garden yet.

They were on the case in short order when I was gardening in CT. Early ripeness evaluators for corn, berries and tomatoes. Not so much for asparagus.

Surprising errors for a system in our back yard.

Helps understand the Ukie failure to initialize Henry correctly.

7 hours ago, gravitylover said:

Flooding - check

Tornado warned - check

1.5" so far, gutters overflowed, street was a river that completely overwhelmed the storm drains and ran over into the downhill side yards. I'm afraid to look at the garden...

So how did the garden fare? We're all now invested in its health.

On 8/17/2021 at 11:17 PM, LibertyBell said:

looks like we'll have a new supersonic jet next year to replace the Concorde, but this time it will use 100% sustainable fuel.  I'll have to read up more on it to see how it works.

 

These are projects fueled by supersonic cash courtesy of the Fed.

There is zero real world utility for these fantasies, the time saved flying is used up by the airport vaccine checkin.

Too much money chasing too few ideas.

Just astounding flooding from what had been seen as a second grade storm. Stay safe!

1 hour ago, Rjay said:

Very nice shot of a Carolina Wren family.

They are astonishingly loud for such a small bird.

2 hours ago, BxEngine said:

That just means Brazilian coffee will be almost as expensive as the Hawaiian shit my wife orders. 

Just switch to the African Robusta coffees, they are more potent as well as cheaper.

The Hawaiian Konas are sinfully expensive, but if you can afford the Peaberry, go for it, you only live once.

21 minutes ago, Bhs1975 said:

If we see several degrees C of temperature rise then civilization would collapse with the eventual extinction of any remnant populations on a planet to hot to adapt to.

Why do you think that is the case?

India is much hotter than the expected median global temperature after the most extreme Global Warming, yet seems civilized to me.

I've no argument that things will not get very messy, but find the 'we'll all collapse' scenario deeply implausible.

6 hours ago, Bhs1975 said:

Yeap headed for extinction on a soon to be uninhabitable planet.

Think that is over the top, extinction is not in the cards even with the outlier scenarios.

Huge losses and major disruptions though are pretty much baked in the cake.

We could help keep the damage to a minimum, but would need to convince China and India that climate change has greater risks than dire poverty.

Thus far, that has been a ' no sale'.

Ideally, there would to be an alternative, ideally a cheap and reliable nuclear power design, fusion, fission or whatever. so no greenhouse emissions and the capacity to power an electric surface transportation system. Nothing has materialized as yet though.

1 hour ago, jburns said:

We won’t do shit about climate change. Oh, the government might try to implement some changes but I have zero faith that a population that can not even agree to wear a mask during a pandemic will make major changes in their way of life to save the planet.

The trade press is reporting surging Asian coal shipments and notes parenthetically that China is building more coal power plants than currently exist in the rest of the world outside of the US and India.

https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/asia-coal-demand-surge-in-stark-contrast-with-u-n-climate-warning/

I guess they are skeptical about the seriousness of climate change.

7 minutes ago, cptcatz said:

Am I the only one that doesn't understand 99% of AmpedVort's posts?

I don't either, but as that is true for many other well regarded posters, it surely reflects my ignorance.

Frankly, this stuff just is not easy, so kudos to those who catch a glimmer!

14 hours ago, Will - Rutgers said:

fun fact, if you find a mantis, it's very likely to be one of two invasives, most probably the Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis but also perhaps the European mantis Mantis religiosa.  seems from what i've read that the native Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina is a bronze medalist in its own backyard.

cats are the ultimate invasives though.  keep your cats inside please.

Nobody keeps bobcats any more apparently, even though they are efficient and non discriminatory predators that eat cats and rats both as available.

Agree on the mantis part, our home grown variant seems to be doing about as well as the native humans did, not so good.

Have to wonder whether there is some genetic difference that makes the locals more vulnerable.

5 hours ago, bdgwx said:

If 8/6 ends up being the minimum that would be epic indeed.

Have to say that extent never seemed like a useful measure to me, but perhaps specialists could clarify that aspect.

Area is where it is at imho, while also recognizing that PIOMAS is really the ground truth.

4 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

it's 8 pages and includes a bunch of graphs and maps, so it's plenty.

Is there access outside of the paywall? I could not find it.

4 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

If there's going to be a paste, might as well paste from the summary of the paper itself

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major ocean current system transporting warm surface waters toward the northern Atlantic, has been suggested to exhibit two distinct modes of operation. A collapse from the currently attained strong to the weak mode would have severe impacts on the global climate system and further multi-stable Earth system components. Observations and recently suggested fingerprints of AMOC variability indicate a gradual weakening during the last decades, but estimates of the critical transition point remain uncertain. Here, a robust and general early-warning indicator for forthcoming critical transitions is introduced. Significant early-warning signals are found in eight independent AMOC indices, based on observational sea-surface temperature and salinity data from across the Atlantic Ocean basin. These results reveal spatially consistent empirical evidence that, in the course of the last century, the AMOC may have evolved from relatively stable conditions to a point close to a critical transition.

I did just that, quoting the last sentence of the summary, which you've helpfully added in full.