SpaceBanter.com - View Single Post - ...Hurricane Felix Yet another Category 5.

**Al Bedo**

Al Bedo wrote:
Jonathan wrote:
Standard models earlier on predicted it would make it to a three by
landfall late next week. It not only smashed that prediction
but went from a category 1 to a 5 at over ...three times the predicted
rate..just today.

Global warming means we better get used to very large hurricanes,
they're becoming the norm instead of the exception.

I posted this in 2005 when the more excitable
were hysterical. The theory of AGW enhancement
of Tropical Cyclones comes from the observation
of strengthening when storms pass over warmer
waters, enhancing their convective potential energy,
and so the storm's intensity.

That does seem to explain the rapidity of the intensification
(note the area of high heat capacity north of Columbia):

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dataph.../2007244ca.jpg

First, while enhanced convection does increase the
surface inflow/outflow aloft of TCs, it is conservation
of angular momentum that gives TCs their intensity
and circular shape. Indeed the CAPE measurements,
(Convective Available Potential Energy) are surprisingly low
in Tropical Cyclones - much less than over the Great Plains
in early summer.

Second, AGW is modeled to DECREASE the lapse rate in the tropics,
stabilizing the atmosphere and suppressing convection.
That is not happening:

http://climatewatcher.blogspot.com/

So you see Felix and say - aha! global warming!

I see Felix and say - aha! no global warming!