Extreme tornado outbreaks are getting worse, but why?
"The number of tornadoes pounding the United States during the most extreme outbreaks has roughly doubled over the past 50 years, a new analysis shows. But the study also yields a big surprise: The increased severity of such tornado outbreaks, at least at first glance, doesn’t seem to be related to climate change.
“Either the recent increases are not due to a warming climate, or a warming climate has implications for tornado activity that we don’t understand,” says study author Michael Tippett, a climate scientist at Columbia University."
Tippet apparently isn't giving up hope on eventually pinning it on climate change. Brooks is hanging onto the preconception, too. Fix their model to explain the increase in SRH or shift the blame to a lengthier climate cycle culprit.
Quote:No, that doesn't mean climate change isn't behind the rise of extreme tornado outbreaks across the country, study lead author Michael Tippett, a mathematician at Columbia University, tells The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview. "We're just saying that it's not playing the role that we expected." http://m.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/1202...-outbreaks
Quote:But the team did find a substantial increase in another known risk factor for tornado formation: a parameter called storm relative helicity (SRH) [...] scientists may not fully understand the link between SRH and climate. [...] Brooks says. “We don’t really have a good conceptual model for why SRH should increase as the planet warms.” [...] The next big question, adds Brooks, is to sort out whether long-term climate cycles such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation are playing a role in those tornado trends. [...] Alternatively, researchers might find via further analyses that the increase in SRH is truly to blame. “My money is on the latter,” says Brooks, “but I want essentially even odds and small amounts being wagered.”
Oh, I'm sure they're mighty hopeful of being able to connect the two. I'm doubtful, since they've yet to show a mechanism for a rise in CO2 following warming (CO2 lag), instead of proceeding. Oceans as a CO2 sink would predict runaway warming, which we haven't seen.
(Dec 8, 2016 01:41 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Extreme tornado outbreaks are getting worse, but why?
"The number of tornadoes pounding the United States during the most extreme outbreaks has roughly doubled over the past 50 years, a new analysis shows. But the study also yields a big surprise: The increased severity of such tornado outbreaks, at least at first glance, doesn’t seem to be related to climate change.
“Either the recent increases are not due to a warming climate, or a warming climate has implications for tornado activity that we don’t understand,” says study author Michael Tippett, a climate scientist at Columbia University."
out of pure curiosity...
what quantifiable scientific definition is used to define the "climate change" to which it is not related ?
err go, the climate is always changing and the very nature of a tornado is the cusp of the climate changing between 1 type and another.
probably worth noting reporting rates of tornados and how that has increased in the last 50 years, matched with monitoring equipment.
now it is fair to suggest "most" tornados are registered via weather radar and people connected to the internet who may report them.
small jump but fairly relivent..
to then suggest the premise that they have increased (without any scientific measure) and then claim that increase is not due to another trend word to which also has no specified scientific measure..
is purely propoganda.
I would largely agree, RainbowUnicorn.
(Dec 11, 2016 09:29 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]I would largely agree, RainbowUnicorn.
out of curiosity & clumsy statistics i wonder what might be some factors for the equation ?
technology advancement for monitoring 6000%
civilian reporting behaviour of people with access to national networks 1200%
civilian network size 800%
population spread/population movement due to the 2008 collapse/economic migration 500%
= 8500 % increase (thats my un-educated rough guess) over the last 50 years
suffice to say...crypto-meteorology is not a mainstream hobby
I would assume the reported increase is accurate, since "The increase doesn’t seem to be related to better reporting in recent years..." But there are troubles for climate models: "One parameter meteorologists use to help identify regions at increased risk of severe weather is called convective available potential energy (CAPE). It’s a measure of the tendency for warm air at Earth’s surface to rise, and most climate models suggest that CAPE will increase as the world’s climate warms. But when Tippett and his colleagues looked at day-to-day estimates for CAPE over the contiguous United States between 1979 (the earliest data available) and 2015, they didn’t see any long-term increase. “This is an unexpected finding,” he notes."
(Dec 11, 2016 10:41 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]I would assume the reported increase is accurate, since "The increase doesn’t seem to be related to better reporting in recent years..." But there are troubles for climate models: "One parameter meteorologists use to help identify regions at increased risk of severe weather is called convective available potential energy (CAPE). It’s a measure of the tendency for warm air at Earth’s surface to rise, and most climate models suggest that CAPE will increase as the world’s climate warms. But when Tippett and his colleagues looked at day-to-day estimates for CAPE over the contiguous United States between 1979 (the earliest data available) and 2015, they didn’t see any long-term increase. “This is an unexpected finding,” he notes."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-Doppler_radar
https://www.revolvy.com/topic/Weather%20...type=topic
In May 1973, a tornado devastated
Union City, Oklahoma, just west of
Oklahoma City. For the first time, a Dopplerized 10 cm wavelength radar from NSSL documented the entire life cycle of the tornado.[5] The researchers discovered a
mesoscale rotation in the cloud aloft before the tornado touched the ground – the
tornadic vortex signature. NSSL's research helped convince the
National Weather Service that Doppler radar was a crucial forecasting tool.[5]
The Super Outbreak of tornadoes on 3–4 April 1974 and their devastating destruction might have helped to get funding for further developments.