Katrina... A Fluke?

[Evan]

I was reading the USA today while waiting to go to class and found something very interesting. They had a few articles related to Katrina and a poll about Katrina itself.

 

I can't find the poll online at the moment, but I will try and find it later tonight (if someone finds it thank you!)

 

The question went along something like this

What caused Hurricane Katrina?

66% believed it was a random chance

6% Don't know

28% believe it is global warming

 

It would seem appropriate that there should be some more choices. Very odd poll

 

What do you all think?

[Taphophilia]

Hurricanes start as thunderstorms in Africa and the storms are blown out to the Atlantic. The sun heats the ocean and the warm water fuels the storm. Usually, they are storm clusters and if they don't organise, they hit land as a tropical storm. However, if the storm organises the spinning of the Earth makes the storm spin causing an eye and you have a hurricane.

 

With Katrina, it was already a hurricane when it hit Florida, but then when it went into the gulf the storm was heavily fueled by very warm water of the gulf before it hit the coast making it not only grow to huge proportions but added massive strength to the storm.

 

Yes, it was random. However, did Global warming have anything to do with it? I don't know. The water has to be at 80 degrees for it to fuel a hurricane. The gulf is notoriously that warm in summer, however, did global waming contribute onslaught of tropical storms in Africa from where Katrina originated. I don't know.

[Amanda]

Yes, it was random. However, did Global warming have anything to do with it? I don't know. The water has to be at 80 degrees for it to fuel a hurricane. The gulf is notoriously that warm in summer, however, did global waming contribute onslaught of tropical storms in Africa from where Katrina originated. I don't know.

Thanks Taphophilia! I live in Florida and am not informed on the cultivation process of hurricanes as well as you!

 

I will say that we have been getting hurricanes for a long time, some more intense than others. The only thing I could add to your insightful post is that we are now more populated than in the past. The more things there are to incur damage, the more publicity it gets, therefore the worse it seems.

[Robbobrob]

Since records of storms have only been kept for what, I'll be generous and say 400 years (and only tracked closely in the past few decades), that is not a lot of time to determine anything about whether storms are larger or smaller today than in the past, whether this is a time of more storm activity, or of we are actually in a lull of activity.

 

Maybe it was a fluke of a storm, for say most people's lifetimes. But maybe it was below average for the age of the earth, even in fundieworld (6000 years).

 

Plus, not much of a fluke that it did so much damage...people build too close to the water, and in flood plains and other low lying areas, it is always just a matter of time before a flood comes that shows why there is a flood plain to begin with.

[Evan]

Very well explained Tapophilia! Thanks for sharing, I kinda wish I knew that when I had to talk about Katrina last year for Speech and debate

 

I hope they do a follow up because it seems rather limited. The storm may be coming from all natural means (and not global warming), but the fact that unusually warm water in the gulf could help produce that is astounding.

[Grandpa Harley]

I thought Ellen De Generes caused Katrina...

[Kelli]

All I know that this is one of the reasons I am glad to be up here in good ol' Upstate NY. Our economy may not be the greatest, and we may get snow in winter, but I'd much rather deal with that than what other people deal with in other places. At least after a blizzard my house is still standing. Up here we have no hurricanes, very, very few tornadoes (1 about every 12 years), no major floods, no earthquakes, no wildfires burning entire neighborhoods down, and no poisonous snakes and other beastly critters. I'll take it!

[Taphophilia]

A hurricane can hit anywhere along the Eastern coast, even as far north as Nova Scotia and Greenland. However, the North Atlantic isn't going to fuel a hurricane to a catagory five, because the water isn't that warm. Though, if a catagory one hurricane hits Manhattan, it was cause a lot of damage.

 

The gulf however, is a lot more shallow and the sun heats it up like a shallow pool in the summer. This doesn't have anything to do with global warming anymore than the sun heating a swimming pool. The hurricane that decimated Galveston, TX and altogether wiped out many coastal towns was in 1900.

 

When scientists talk about global warming causing more hurricanes, they are talking about so many storms originating from Cape Verde, Africa. of course this could just be normal climate changes that the earth continuously goes through. Not that all the storms will turn into hurricanes or anything more than a tropical storm. If you throw cards at a hat, the more cards you have to throw, the more chances you have of them ending up in the hat. It's the same with hurricanes, the more storms that are blown across the Atlantic, the more chance it will turn into a hurricane.

[Ouroboros]

The question went along something like this

What caused Hurricane Katrina?

66% believed it was a random chance

6% Don't know

28% believe it is global warming

 

It would seem appropriate that there should be some more choices. Very odd poll

 

What do you all think?

Yup. I think one option should have been "nature" or "the weather".

 

And why did they leave out "God made it" from the list??? Someone said the reason was that "God was angry on the homosexuals", so maybe that should have been one option too?

 

It was not a random chance, but an event caused by a chaotic weather system. If chance started it, I guess the meteorologists should start having predicting the weather with a set of dice instead. Chance just doesn't sound right.

 

Another option should have been "natural changes in global climate", and one more option of "multiple reasons" or "complex reasons" maybe? The reason could be global warming and natural changes in weather patterns, combined.

[R. S. Martin]

All I know that this is one of the reasons I am glad to be up here in good ol' Upstate NY. Our economy may not be the greatest, and we may get snow in winter, but I'd much rather deal with that than what other people deal with in other places. At least after a blizzard my house is still standing. Up here we have no hurricanes, very, very few tornadoes (1 about every 12 years), no major floods, no earthquakes, no wildfires burning entire neighborhoods down, and no poisonous snakes and other beastly critters. I'll take it!

 

Yup! snow and cold I can take. I know how to get warm enough to sleep in a house with little or no insulation and a lot of cracks around the windows. I've never slept in a room that was cold enough to freeze the johnny under the bed but I've felt the wind coming through the crack around the window and seen snow drifts on the window sill. That I can cope with. It's the oppressive smog in summer I can't take. So long as I have a choice I'm not moving closer to the equator.

 

And the "tail-end of hurricanes" we get adequately water our lawns and fields. The odd twisters that upturn trees and flatten buildings are greatly feared but come around only every so often. There have been several in my lifetime but I personally have never seen one.

 

The most treacherous weather we get--and it has proved once in my lifetime to cause severe and wide-spread damage--is freezing rain also known as ice storm. Most people prefer rain to "the white stuff" but freezing rain is what fills up the emergency rooms in hospitals. Back in the late nineties, as some of you may remember, Eastern Canada and perhaps part of the US was coated with ice so thick that powerlines broke and major sections of the land was without electricity for perhaps a week--and this in the dead of winter. My area wasn't hit, but that was frightening because it could just as easily have been our area.