The Last Straw

Supporting Evidence that the media is driving the Global warming hysteria

I have long since said that the media is pushing the hysteria of Global Warming. This is supportive evidence that people are passing subjective judgement on data to get the results they want.

Truth will be revealed!!!


Decisions to name storms draw concern As season ends, some say center rushes to classify, which costs you!!!
By ERIC BERGERCopyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Some meteorologists say six systems during the 2007 hurricane season — Chantal, Erin, Gabrielle, Ingrid, Jerry and Melissa — might not have deserved tropical storm status because of relatively high central pressure.
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With another hurricane season set to end this Friday, a controversy is brewing over decisions of the National Hurricane Center to designate several borderline systems as tropical storms.
Some meteorologists, including former hurricane center director Neil Frank, say as many as six of this year's 14 named tropical systems might have failed in earlier decades to earn "named storm" status.
"They seem to be naming storms a lot more than they used to," said Frank, who directed the hurricane center from 1974 to 1987 and is now chief meteorologist for KHOU-TV. "This year, I would put at least four storms in a very questionable category, and maybe even six."
Most of the storms in question briefly had tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph. But their central pressure — another measure of intensity — suggested they actually remained depressions or were non-tropical systems.
Any inconsistencies in the naming of tropical storms and hurricanes have significance far beyond semantics.
The number of a season's named storms forms the foundation of historical records used to determine trends in hurricane activity. Insurance companies use these trends to set homeowners' rates. And such information is vital to scientists trying to determine whether global warming has had a measurable impact on hurricane activity.
Forecasters at the hurricane center deny there's any inconsistency in the practice of naming tropical storms.
"For at least the last two decades, I am certain most, if not all, the storms named this year would have also been named," said Bill Read, deputy director of the Miami-based center.
What everyone agrees has changed is the ability of meteorologists to more accurately analyze tropical systems, thanks to an increased number of reconnaissance flights with sophisticated tools and the presence of more satellites to monitor storms from above.
Scientists generally agree that prior to the late 1970s and widespread satellite coverage, hurricane watchers annually missed one to three tropical storms that developed far from land or were short-lived.
But this season's large number of minimal tropical storms whose winds exceeded 39 mph for only a short period has ignited a separate debate: whether even more modern technology and a change in philosophy has artificially inflated the number of storms in recent years.
Launch of QuikSCATA case in point is Tropical Storm Chantal, a short-lived system that formed in late July south of Nova Scotia and moved toward the northeast, out to sea.
Some meteorologists say the storm was never a tropical system at all, because it formed well out of the tropics. Others say it wouldn't have been named before the 1999 launch of the QuikSCAT satellite, which measures surface winds and alerted forecasters to Chantal's organization.
"Without QuikSCAT, Chantal might never have gotten named," said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist and founder of The Weather Underground Web site, a popular resource for tracking hurricanes.
As the technology to observe storms has grown better, the definition of a tropical storm has remained unchanged. Such systems have a center of low pressure with a closed circulation, organized bands of thunderstorms and winds of at least 39 mph. Storms are upgraded to hurricanes when their winds reach 74 mph.
In earlier years before widespread satellite coverage, the hurricane center placed more emphasis on measurements of central pressure than wind speeds in designating tropical storms and giving those systems names, Frank said. Central pressures and wind speed are related, but the relationship isn't absolute.
Frank said he prefers using central pressure, because it can be directly measured by aircraft dropping an instrument into a tropical system.
If a reconnaissance plane had measured a wind speed above 39 mph during Frank's tenure, the system would not automatically have been named. His forecasters might have waited a day to see if the central pressure fell, he said, to ensure that the system really was a tropical storm.
That practice probably would have prevented some systems, such as Tropical Storm Jerry, from getting named this year, Frank said. After being upgraded, Jerry remained a tropical storm for less than a day in the northern Atlantic.
"In the past, we would have waited to see if another observation supported naming the system," Frank said. "We would have been a little more conservative."
Data inconsistenciesThe apparent change in the philosophy of naming systems has rankled some longtime hurricane watchers. Jill Hasling, president of Houston's Weather Research Center, said comparing the number of tropical storms and hurricanes today with the historical record is almost impossible.
But Read, of the hurricane center, believes wind speeds are the true indicator of a tropical system's status. Now that more accurate wind measurements are available, it only makes sense to use the best technology to quickly determine if a system has reached tropical storm strength, he said.
"An oncologist today would use the latest technology for determining and assessing one's cancer," Read said. "Would you use a doctor who only used X-rays instead of the latest MRI?"
Inconsistencies with the data have plagued scientists trying to determine whether global warming has increased the number or intensity of hurricanes.
In fact, there are reasons to believe that historical storms have been overcounted as well as undercounted, said Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Before satellites, scientists had few ways to tell the difference between tropical systems and non-tropical storms. As a result, some non-tropical storms probably were named.
"The bottom line is that, yes, we do have errors in tropical cyclone counts," said Curry. "But it is not clear whether this adds a net negative or positive bias to any trend."
http://eric.berger@chron.com

posted by Vick @ 11/29/2007 03:51:00 PM