After Hurricanes Helene & Milton, four experts on disaster storms during human-made global warming. Storm-chaser Meteorologist Jeff Masters; Senior Research Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Dr. Michael Wehner; highly-cited storm scientist Kerry Emanuel from MIT; Environmental Planner Patrick Marchman: will there be an exodus from the coasts – “climigration”? Welcome to a packed Radio Ecoshock special.
Listen to or download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (57 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)
HURRICANE HUNTING WITH JEFF MASTERS
Some of the most exciting and yet reliable weather reports come from Jeff Masters and Bob Henson. Dr. Jeff Masters worked for the NOAA Hurricane Hunters [from 1986 to 1990] as a flight meteorologist. He co-founded the Weather Underground. These days we find Jeff posting at Yale Climate Connections, with his “Eye on the Storm” series. His Hurricane Milton update with Bob Henson warned about a catalog of dangers including “torrential rains, inland floods, destructive winds, tornadoes, and a potentially catastrophic storm surge.” Hurricane Milton was not just one threat, but many.
Listen to or download this 16 minute interview with Jeff Masters
Weather reports from South Florida showed four days of heavy rain just days before Milton landed. One flashpoint for flooding in the Fort Meyers area of Florida: The Caloosahatchee River drains from the water-soaked swamps of the Okeechobee down to the Gulf of Mexico. Those inland flash-flood waters were expected to meet in-rushing waters of Milton’s storm surge rushing up the river. That is a huge flood in the making. My point is: hurricanes get complicated not just by different landscapes, but preceding weather events.
Scientists debate whether warming will generate more hurricanes, or just larger ones, Michael Mann of Penn State says either way hurricane “activity” is increasing. A few big storms might serve the same energy services as many smaller ones – or something like that. Do hurricanes serves a dynamic role, like a pressure valve for ocean heat? Do these storms have a role in Nature? Jeff Masters says “yes” and explains in this interview.
Veteran Florida Meteorologist John Morales from NBC Miami was emotional warning Floridians about Hurricane Milton. For one thing, this Hurricane would survive crossing the whole state – and still be a Hurricane going out into the Atlantic. Milton caused storm surges on both coasts.
Morales was also astonished to see a Super Cell appearing on the border of Milton, the kind of vertical winds seen in Kansas but not Florida. Deadly tornados spread from massive Milton like sparks from crown wildfires. Lightening filled the sky hundreds of miles away from the hurricane core. Are we seeing something new? Yes and no. Hurricanes have spawned tornados before, but never as strong as Milton generated (first reports up to EF3).
There were at least a dozen tornados reports on the ground in South Florida even before Milton officially landed. Some were EF3, which have never been recorded in that area before. (According to Al Roker on Deadline Whitehouse Oct 9).
Extreme politicians say the government has a hurricane machine that sends storms to Red voting states. There is a big climate machine: – in those refineries in Houston and Louisiana, and big oil rigs out in the Gulf. It can get tiring trying to tell people the real cause of the super storms.
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SHOCKED BUT NOT SURPRISED
MICHAEL WEHNER
Even long-time weather reporters were shocked by the one-two punch of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Dr. Michael Wehner is not. Michael is senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He testifies to Congress and appears in major media, as well as on Radio Ecoshock last February. Dr. Wehner has published extensively on hurricanes.
Listen to or download this 13 minute interview with Michael Wehner
An Atlantic Magazine headline reads “Milton Is the Hurricane That Scientists Were Dreading”. Dr. Wehner says the rapid development of Milton is shocking but not surprising. With sea temperatures in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico so much hotter than “normal” – it was almost inevitable that any tropical storm forming would spin up quickly to a large size. But I don’t know – Tropical Storm to Cat 4 or 5 hurricane in 24 hours, that doesn’t give weather forecasters or people much time to warn and prepare. It still seems dangerously new.
EXTREME RAIN
With two colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Michael Wehner issued a provisional attribution statement about extremely intense rainfall during 24 hours of Hurricane Helene. They said: “Our best estimate is that climate change may have caused as much as 50% more rainfall during Hurricane Helene in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas.”
On the subject of extreme rains, Wehner co-authored a paper in 2022 finding that both extreme 3-hourly rainfall rates and extreme 3-day accumulated rainfall amounts – are increasing. That title is: “Attribution of 2020 hurricane season extreme rainfall to human-induced climate change.”
THE FUTURE OF HURRICANES
Rubble from Hurricane Helene was still lining streets in coastal Florida as Milton barreled toward them. Research published February 2023 in Nature Climate Change was titled “Increasing sequential tropical cyclone hazards along the US East and Gulf coasts”. Scientists were already aware that multiple impact events are likely in some regions, as the climate shifts.
But Michael Wehner co-authored a June 2022 paper in the same journal, titled “Declining tropical cyclone frequency under global warming”. Should we expect fewer hurricanes but larger when they come?
A STABLE WORLD IS NOT GOOD
I presume hurricanes may decline in number because the atmosphere will become more stable as the planet warms. That is not a good thing by the way, if winds fail and ocean currents stop flowing, as they do. But how far off is that stabilization, and could we encounter more violent disruptions in the transition?
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MORE ON THE LATEST “DIVINE WIND”
KERRY EMANUEL
If there is a “hurricane man” in science, that may be Kerry Emanuel. For decades Dr. Emanuel published highly cited benchmark papers on Tropical Cyclones, as they are known in the field. His book “Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes” is here on my shelf. Dr. Emanuel is now Professor Emeritus Of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Listen to or download this 16 minute interview with Kerry Emanuel
BREAKING THE LIMIT
People are nervous about hurricanes or typhoons. Dr. Emanuel worked on the upper limits to hurricanes for decades. Could novel storms develop, bigger than anything recorded so far? We get answers in this interview.
The size of Milton seen from space is amazing. But we have seen much larger hurricanes in area covered. Hurricane Sandy was three times bigger. It sounds when storms become super-giants that also weaken. Tightly organized hurricanes could be stronger in winds speed and more deadly.
This Live Science article By Stephanie Pappas Oct 8, 2024 has more help on size and power of hurricanes:
“The exact dynamics of the eyewall aren’t fully understood, Wehner said. Milton’s weakening came after an eyewall replacement, which happens when a new band of thunderstorms forms around the storm’s eye, choking off the moisture to the original eyewall. The shift deconcentrated Milton’s energy, increasing the overall size of the storm but also diminishing its peak winds. It may be that, at extreme wind speeds, these storm-weakening phenomena become inevitable, but that isn’t well understood, Wehner said.”
SEE ALSO: “How climate change is rewriting the rules of extreme storms” October 9, 2024, BBC, by Martha Henirques.
WHAT DOES AI SAY ABOUT LIMITS TO STORM SIZE?
I asked the Microsoft CoPilot AI about upper limits to hurricanes. CoPilot provided this helpful answer:
“The concept of hurricanes approaching a limit in atmospheric physics is often associated with James Kossin, a climate scientist who is retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He has extensively studied hurricane intensity and the potential limits imposed by atmospheric conditions.
James Kossin has conducted extensive research on hurricanes and their intensification due to climate change. In a 2020 study, he found that the intensity of storms has increased by about 6% per decade between 1979 and 2017. Additionally, storms are now 25% more likely to reach the threshold of 111 mph (180 km/h) required to be classified as a major hurricane.
Kossin’s work suggests that hurricanes are approaching a theoretical limit in atmospheric physics, but climate change may be pushing this “speed limit” higher. His research highlights the growing strength and frequency of extreme weather events as the planet warms.”
GETTING TO ANSWERS
I have been telling listeners we still do not know why hurricanes actually start. Even when seas are record hot and conditions ripe, hurricanes may not appear, as happened in August this year. They are like wildfires, which may not start in hot dry times, without a spark. Kerry has have been working on this question for years. In 2020 Kerry Emanuel co-authored a reassessment of projected hurricane response to anthropogenic warming.
ATLANTIC MYOPIA
There is a media storm about Milton because it struck the United States. One of your early fact sheets said less than fifteen percent of Tropical Cyclones rise in the Atlantic. The Pacific is much busier. Almost unknown to Western news and the public, massive storms brought death and wreckage to the Philippines, and China in recent years. We discuss monsters of the Pacific. It is not surprising to find increasing funding and research in this field by China and Chinese scholars.
PREVIOUS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW with Kerry:
Giant Storms In A Hotter World? Kerry Emanuel Posted on February 16, 2022.
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AFTER THE STORMS: “CLIMIGRATION”
PATRICK MARCHMAN
An insurance expert ball-parked property losses in Florida to reach 250 billion dollars after Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Only about $5 billion dollars of that is covered by private companies. The majority of Florida property owners are not covered by any flood insurance at all. People already living close to the line, including working families and millions of seniors, will be wiped out. Those without relatives or resources may become homeless, unless some kind of new temporary camps emerge from the government. That kind of happened with FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina.
Others will leave the state and start over somewhere else. They are “Climigrants” as Patrick Marchman calls them. Marchman has a Master’s degree in Marine Affairs from the University of Washington. He is a Certified Environmental Planner. Patrick is a member of the Agenda Setters for the Climigration Network. He founded the Climate Migration and Managed Retreat Member Interest Group, at the American Society of Adaptation Professionals.
Listen to or download this 12 minute interview with Patrick Marchman
Within days of Helene and then Milton, media found plenty of people saying they “had enough” and planned to leave Florida. But it’s not just people. It may be companies.
Patrick managed big-budget government programs, and now advises private companies. Maybe we could call it “corporate survival plans” during a big climate shift. We see governments doing so little to prepare. Are corporations aware of the risk and getting ready?
Even very large companies can be mobile if it saves them money. Headquarters and factories move from one state to another. Do you foresee company migrations, say out of Florida or Houston to higher ground, further inland?
IT COSTS MORE THAN WRECKED HOMES…
Hurricanes cost much more than property damage. Among hidden costs: Port Tampa Bay, a major shipping hub, closed for days during these storms. Big cruise lines canceled out. Tourists fled and Disney World shut all operations. Goldman Sachs analysts calculated Hurricane Milton will cost Disney somewhere between one and two hundred million in earnings. Climate change is costing big business big money.
As a young man, I lived in Bradenton Florida and my dad in Bradenton Beach. I worked building cypress-wood piers on Anna Maria and Longboat Key. The area has huge beauty and attraction, with the sea as the center piece. These hurricane stories hurt me too. I do not see how that coastal network can be rebuilt, over and over. It is time to retreat from the Keys and beach-fronts simply because climate change turbo charges formerly natural disasters.
See also this May 2024 interview.
Patrick was a guest on Radio Ecoshock in March 2019.
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COMING UP NEXT WEEK
Next week we get out of America – to the world. Tune in for top UK scientists warning the world is “in peril” – and you can’t go back from overshoot. We also get one more report on the nasty after-effects of Hurricane Helene in the Appalachian mountains with Mike Tidwell, author of “The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America’s Coastal Cities.”
I’m Alex Smith. Thank you for listening – and caring about this shocking, wonderful world.