WolfStock1

True enough - I wasn't really addressing landslides, just flooding water volume. In that respect yeah - the landslides will certainly be worse. River flow is a direct function of land area X rainfall rate/level right? While the normal flow might be higher on a per-land-area-served basis; presumably that's due to Jamaica getting more rain during normal periods than NC; given an equal amount of heavy rainfall though they both would flow the same of course. That said - one key difference here may simply be the very *fast* dumping of rain in certain areas; moreso than Helene where the rate of rainfall wasn't as fast as Melissa. So tributaries will probably be worse-off for short periods than Helene. FWIW - I've driven through a lot of the Helene areas. While the damage was really bad; it wasn't "wipe large areas off the map" bad. The bad thing about Helene was that the damage was spread over a *huge* area - like several dozen Jamaicas.

Yeah there have actually been over a dozen Cat 5 landfalls. So - asserted stat is just wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_5_Atlantic_hurricanes#Landfall

Perhaps, but in both case total destruction generally only happens in a small area; in the case of winds it's around the eye; in the case of rainfall it's low-lying areas - along rivers and such. River damage is only a couple hundred yards wide typically though; this eye is 20 miles wide. A house that's not along a creek or river will see no damage from rainfall but tons of damage from wind. Reality will be both of course. Bad hurricane flooding typically comes from storm surge. Helene was an exception last year of course - but that's mostly because the watershed areas are quite large for the rivers that did the big damage. E.g. the watershed for the French Broad in NC is about 10,000 sq miles. In Jamaica the watershed for say the Black River is about 100 sq miles, so even twice the rainfall as Helene would result in only 1/50 the flow. It's one of the advantages of being an island - it'll drain better. Not saying there won't be some catastrophic flooding - the will be, but I think wind will probably cause more overall damage.

OK then follow-up - why would non-straight-line winds be more destructive than straight-line? Same force isn't it? Perhaps it's that tornadoes' winds tend to swirl upward, and thus tend to lift more debris, than hurricane winds?

Labor Day was Cat 5 when it made landfall. And it was 1935 not 1932.

Official "landfall" is when *center* of the eye hits right? Seems like this eye wall - the strongest winds - is already making landfall right now, right? (based on the satellite loops)

Wow. Just... wow. One telling thing - put your mouse in the center of the eye at the beginning of the sequence, and watch what happens by the end. Ruh roh Shaggy. What comes to mind is that scene near the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark - where Belloch watches what's unfolding and declares "It's beautiful!!!".... right before his face gets ripped off.

I don't think it's an either/or thing. We can have both correlation with solar cycles AND increases due to AGW. Some people try to explain away general increase by saying there isn't really a general increase - what you're seeing is solar cycles. But if you believe there is a general increase you shouldn't just throw the baby out with the bath water and assert that therefore there *isn't* correlation with solar cycles. Based on what appears to be cyclical nature of bursts of Cat 5's it seems to me it's clear there is some there. (That jives with the paper actually; though the timing appears to be different to me.)

The tail end of that is just... scary.

Amazing. Have there ever been eye photos and videos like this?

That is a really good thing. The further west it goes, the less the key population areas like Kingston get hit - with wind and rain. Go West, young storm, go West.

There and Savanna-la-Mer, on the SW portion - will get the worst of the wind and storm surge. Montego Bay at least will be somewhat protected by the mountains; though will certainly get mudslides and such.

Not what I'm seeing (e.g. we're at a peak right now, and we've had five Cat 5's in the last two years). Spun off a separate thread though so as to not derail this one.

Prompted by Hurricane Melissa - what's the correlation of extreme hurricanes and AGW, and solar cycles? When looking strictly at Cat 5's - they definitely seem to be getting more frequent over time, but also seem to correlate heavily with the solar cycles; specifically being more frequent during peaks of solar cycles, with perhaps some lag (more frequent on the "back side"). Here's list of Cat 5's by year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_5_Atlantic_hurricanes Haven't charted yet, but there definitely seems to be strong correlation with the peak and/or back side of the peak of solar cycles; specifically cat 5 frequency peaking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle Haven't charted the correlation (maybe someone else has) but it definitely seems to be there; looking at the list of Cat 5's at least. The correlation seems to be strongest in recent years: 1924 1928 - solar cycle 16 peak 1932 - solar cycle 16 backside 1932 1933 1933 1935 1938 - solar cycle 17 peak backside 1944 - off-cycle 1953 - off-cycle 1955 1961 - solar cycle 19 peak backside 1961 1966 1967 1969 - solar cycle 20 peak 1971 1977 1979 - solar cycle 21 peak 1980 1988 1989 - solar cycle 22 peak 1992 1998 2003 - solar cycle 23 peak backside 2004 2005 2005 2005 2005 2007 2007 2016 - solar cycle 24 peak backside 2017 2017 2018 2019 2022 2024 2024 2025 - solar cycle 25 peak 2025 2025 Odd thing is that a google search mentions *anti-correlation* of hurricane activity and solar cycles - but that's not what I see here, at least looking at the Cat 5's. Perhaps during peak periods there are less overall hurricanes, but more Cat 5's (?).

"Decades" is a bit hyperbolic - longest recorded stretch (in the modern-day satellite era at least) with no Cat 5 is 9 years; but yeah they're definitely increasing in frequency. They generally seem to follow the solar cycles actually, and since we're at the peak of one...

Wouldn't area also be a factor? E.g. reduced area during EWRC could theoretically result in increased wind speed while keeping kinetic energy the same right? (or vice versa - total kinetic energy could be increasing while wind speed remains about the same?)

So - nowhere do you explain why it's a dishonest "tactic" though. Are the facts incorrect there? Given that they seem to be correct, then yes, that does mean that the climate change threat is, in fact, overstated. It proves that yes - even though the planet may be warming, it in fact has not made life more dangerous. It may in the future, but per the data it has not at this point. Your case is a circular argument. You're saying that what he says isn't true because... what he says isn't true. That's not a valid argument.

I don't see anywhere it saying that deaths have declined because of the climate becoming more stable - if you do please show it. "Benign" however is another matter. Yes part of the reason at least that deaths have decreased is in fact because it has become more benign. This is not due to the climate changing, but rather our ability to deal with climate-caused problems, like flooding, hurricanes, etc. has increased many-fold over the last 150 or so years. So in that sense yes - the climate has become more benign, and yes that has resulted in fewer deaths than otherwise. And yes - that is due in large part to the burning of fossil fuels - e.g. machinery in construction of dams to control flooding, construction of better buildings to withstand hurricanes, etc. It's due to better weather prediction capabilities due to satellites that are put into orbit by fossil-fuel-burning rockets. In short - greater prosperity brings less deaths, and the burning of fossil fuels has brought about greater prosperity. That is the point. You say "without these four variables the claim would be indefensible" - but you can't just remove variables that are key parts of the interconnected system like that!

Thanks a ton! Great tips.

(facepalm) You have got to be kidding me. You left out the context qualifier: "If the whole world was experiencing what Delos is experiencing" which was specifically done as an absurdity said to point out the absurdity of YOUR claims. Look - just nevermind. You obviously just can't follow discussions and logic. So - just nevermind.

Exactly, which is why we are criticizing your thesis of doom in your post the other day. Continental drift is constant. It operates over tens of millions of years, but it also operates over tens of seconds. As such it is very much not scientifically irrelevant. In this case specifically it is operating faster than climate change, with regards to how it is affecting the land/sea level relationship at this one location. Why are you ignoring that simple fact? You can't just ignore it away. I have made no such suggestion. It's not "political" - it's economic. It's about the welfare of society. Reducing the extent of warming will be *hugely* expensive and painful. It's not just a matter of people arguing in a room somewhere - it's about the prosperity of the world. Including, BTW: lives. Yes - it will certainly cause greater loss of life to reduce CO2 to a level that you're wishing for, than not. Just look at the life expectancy rates of developed countries vs undeveloped countries. What's one key component of that? Reliable electricity and transportation. What's a the primary input to reliable electricity and transportation? Fossil fuels. What's a key attribute of poverty? They tend to have *much* higher pollution - including many still using wood and charcoal for most cooking (look it up - Africa and India especially). This causes health problems, including premature death due to lung conditions. This is in part because they don't have fossil-fuel-driven electrical power plants. Yes there a couple of notable small exceptions - e.g. Norway gets almost all of of its electricity from hydro and not fossil; they won the topography lottery. But the rest of the 99% of the world relies on fossil fuels for their prosperity. Even Norway does for transportation; despite winning the electricity lottery. Yes this can, and will, change slowly over time. It has to, because fossil fuels are limited. But it will be painful, because of physics. And it will take hundreds of years - not dozens. Trying to push the changes by policy mandates, rather than letting them happen organically as technology evolves just increases the pain and reduces prosperity.

Sorry but think about this statement. Yes the "result is the same" but ONLY FOR DELOS. (that place where only 25 people live, and that at the current rate will be fully underwater in about 120,000 years.) For the vast majority of the world the result is NOT the same. Not only that but the policy implications are completely different. If the whole world was experiencing what Delos is experiencing - faster water level rise due mostly to tectonic-movement-driven subduction - then any attempts to halt sea level rise via CO2 reduction are simply pointless. Even if CO2 increase was stopped today and reversed - we would all still be doomed. Thus - why bother? Unless perhaps you think we have the ability to stop continental drift (?) You really need to consider your stance here - you're sounding quite foolish IMO.

?? No no - you just erected a complete strawman. I made no claim that sea level hasn't been rising at Delos over any period of time. If you think I did - please show me where. Otherwise - you need to retract that.

Yes - and? You didn't read what I wrote. I'm not doubting that the level is rising relative to the the land at Delos. However the point is that it's not that the water is rising fast there - it's that the land is sinking. That shows for instance a delta of about 80cm in the last 134 years. But that's far faster than the general rate of sea level rise over that same period which is roughly estimated to be 20cm. So the Delos case doesn't extend to the rest of the world. The population of Delos is about 25 people, in case you're wondering. Even in their extreme case of "sea level rise" (which is mostly land sinking) I seriously doubt they're standing and watching with horror as their homes are consumed by the sea at a rate of less than a centimeter a year. Likewise it's ludicrous to propose that the rise (or sinking, rather) of 5 meters over the course of 5000 years was a crisis. I'm not doubting whether your information is verifiable - I'm saying that it's not applicable.

Re: Delos - Well except for one thing - Delos demise wasn't because of sea level rise - it was because it was destroyed by attacks and looting, and also due to much of the island sinking due to tectonic plate movement, which is *much* faster (~2.5cm per year) than the sea level rise (~2.8mm per year). Delos is right on the Hellenic Arc - the main border of the African and Eurasian plates, where there is significant subduction happening. You might want to check facts like that before you post things like you did. While I think ChescoWx is wrong with much of his positions here - he's right about the climate change scare being discredited by playing loose with facts and principles in scaremongering. He's right about the terminology you've been using in your post. You present as if there is some sort existential crisis happening, when there very much isn't. Yes it's a slow motion problem - but it's a *lot* slower than you present. In general societal infrastructure - houses, businesses, roads, etc. - are re-built due to simply aging out *much* faster than they will be threatened by rising sea levels; every century or so for most things. So the solution is simply - when something gets torn down and rebuilt, due to being very old (say 100 years or 200 years) - simply build the replacement a bit higher - either inland or by literally adding new land (it's quite easy actually - e.g. ask the Emirates, Dutch, Bostonians, Manhattanites, etc.). Yes there may be some additional expense (beyond the normal expense of rebuild). But IMO it will be *far* less expensive than trying to actually prevent sea level rise; especially since such prevention is most likely futile.