Recently in Weather Category

Tony Watts:

Using a well-accepted metric called the Accumulated Cyclone Energy index or ACE for short (Bell and Chelliah 2006), which has been used by Klotzbach (2006) and Emanuel (2005) (PDI is analogous to ACE), and most recently by myself in Maue (2009) , simple analysis shows that 24-month running sums of global ACE or hurricane energy have plummeted to levels not seen in 30 years.

This should be good news.

UPDATE: A hurricane version of the Gore Effect?

UPDATE: Killer tornados down by 2/3, 2009 deaths only 17% of last year's total... (View data)

Columbus Telegram:

Meteorologists are attributing the relative calm not to anything dire, like global warming, but to the shifts in the jet stream that happen from time to time.

Hope and change? *shrug*  Interesting bit here too:

He said tornado reporting has improved so much in recent years, especially with the adoption of Doppler radar by the National Weather Service in the 1990s, that comparing current totals and figures from decades ago is an apples-to-oranges exercise.

That should also apply to hurricanes too.

MORE on hurricanes at GlobalWarming.org. Interesting graph. Straight blue line is the trendline:

The 2009 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators is on the street. Here are some bits you won't find in the NY Times:

• Growing evidence that tropical rainforests may now be expanding faster than they are being cut down, though more data are needed to determine the nature and extent of reforestation trends.

• The world’s most severe environmental problems, as ranked by the Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland, are overwhelmingly problems of poverty in developing nations.

• Stratospheric ozone, the “good” kind of ozone—akin to “good” cholesterol in blood—appears to have reversed its long-term decline and is now increasing over the United States. The level of ozonedestroying chemical compounds in the atmosphere declined 12 percent from 1995 through 2006.

• Water quality monitoring efforts are picking up steam, though it will still be several more years before we have enough data to draw a clear picture of water quality trends on a national basis. However

— The U.S. Geological Survey sampling of drinking water drawn from surface waters in 17 areas around the continental United States found very low (nonhazardous) or no presence of 258 different man-made chemicals.

— Long-term monitoring of Lake Tahoe on the California–Nevada border has detected an improving trend in the clarity of the lake’s water over the last seven years, reversing decades of slow decline.

• The health of U.S. ocean fisheries has improved substantially over the last few years, according to the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service’s “Fish Stock Sustainability Index.”

• Flat or declining global average temperatures in 2008 have ignited new controversy over climate change. The data show that 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, and there has been no discernible warming for the last decade, after two decades of steady warming between 1978 and 1998.

• Public opinion data on advertising and marketing suggest growing public weariness with “green” messages in general and messages on global warming in particular. In recent polls, 58 percent of Americans declined to identify themselves as environmentalists; 78 percent so identified themselves as recently as 1991.

And a few tables:

Lightning strikes a wind turbine at over 30,000 degrees Celcius.  With all of the turbines popping up around the country, especially in areas prone to thunderstorms, folks are creating interesting ways to protect them:

“Protecting wind turbine blades against lightning is not about avoiding strikes, but attracting them,” states LM Glasfiber, a global blade manufacturer, on a section of its Web site devoted to lightning. “This makes it possible to direct the flow of the lightning and ensure that the components exposed to its effects can withstand the forces involved.”

Wouldn't have thought of that.  Sorta reminds me of how we protect aircraft wings and systems with static wicks.

ADM Denny Blair (ret), tapped by President Obama to be DNI, gave his testimony on national security to the Senate last Thursday. The New Atlanticist provides a forum for Derek Reveron's report on this annual event.

The good news: Terrorism is largely down, and Iraq is becoming a stabilizing presence in an historically-volcanic Middle East. The bad news? Eh:

Climate change, pandemics, and environmental stress round out his global assessment. Relying on a UN study, climate change could bring rising sea levels, food shortages, and disease outbreaks. All pose a threat to traditional notions of the state and effectively make weak states weaker (see section on arc of instability).  

Admiral Blair's complete 46-page testimony (.pdf) is linked here. Shall we add Blair to the list of senior active and retired military who are fully engaged in promoting climate change as a national security priority?

Maybe not. If you remember, the Senate directed DNI to include climate change in last year's appropriation and to use the IPCC data as a baseline for its assessment. Per Section 321 in the Fiscal Year 2008 Intelligence Authorization:

Section 321 requires the DNI to submit to Congress a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) within 270 days on the impact to U.S. national security of the geopolitical effects brought about by global climate change...

Section 321 directs the DNI to use as the baseline for the NIE the mid-range projections of the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IC would therefore have no requirement to assess the underlying science of global climate change or predict its immediate effects. Rather, the NIE would focus on the direct impact from global climate change on U.S. national security and strategic economic interests....

The Committee does not anticipate that producing an NIE will require the diversion of any collection or analytic resources away from other key priorities. In response to input from the DNI, Section 321 specifically directs that other entities within the federal government assist the Director of National Intelligence in the production of the NIE as appropriate....

Senator Rockefeller told DNI to do three things: (1) Put climate threat analysis in the NIE whether there is one or not; (2) Accept the IPCC report's climate change impact predictions in toto as baseline without further assessment, and (3) Use other federal agencies (NOAA et al) to help with the analysis because he wouldn't get intelligence funds to do an independent study.

So is climate a national security threat then as the NIE states, or is Blair delivering the mail the way Colin Powell did for Bush in 2003? And in either case, is it smart to accept the NIE's analysis and carry out its recommendations if you view the climate in flux whether from people, sun spots, or whatever?

Anyway, I excerpted the enviro and climate portion for your convenience; click the "read this post" link to see it.