Katrina

It has been a while since I commented on this blog. I made a trip to my childhood home in Rochester, NY, among other things. But I could see this one coming. First there is peak oil, coming in a few years. Then weather people said that the oceans were unusually warm last spring. This makes for bigger and better hurricanes, of course. Then a blocking Bermuda high forces tropical cyclones that form to the south, where they go in the Gulf of Mexico and hit the oil-producing areas near Louisiana. Then there is New Orleans, which was unusually vulnerable, since much of it was below sea level.

And then it happened. A weak little dribbler of a depression going north suddenly veered to the south and hit Miami with surprising force. Then it went into the Gulf, and with all that warm air there, it exploded into a hurricane similar in strength to Camille, but about three times bigger. It devastated not only ther area devastated by Camille, but also Biloxi, Mobile, and most of all, New Orleans.

The experts said much of New Orleans could be under water if it sustained a direct hit. It nearly did, and here we have it happening. It is filling as I speak, and much of the rest of the region was devastated. There is a huge human toll in terms of deaths and suffering. But the main impact of this storm will be on oil and gasoline supplies.

The question is whether this disaster will take so many refineries and oil rigs out of service that it will cause shortages at the gasoline pumps. Opening up the strategic reserve will not help with gasoline at the pump if it can’t be refined. I am hoping instead for a dramatic increase in price, causing consumers to finally conserve. So far they have been reacting to higher gasoline prices by cutting back on other things, not gasoline. That will cause a recession and gasoline prices will still continue to go up. Hopefully customers will cut back on gasoline consumption and help ease this situation.

Katrina could be a blessing in disguise, as it could slow production of oil and delay the peak of production.

In any case, it is inclusive whether global warming can be blamed for Katrina. There are certainly factors in favor of this conjecture. Global warming warms the seas. Warmer seas mean more and stronger hurricanes. That’s the connection. But then you have to explain why the Pacific hurricane season, which is usually prolific, has been such a dud, and you have to explain 1933, which was well before the time of global warming. 21 tropical cyclones occurred that year; if the present naming system had been used then, we would have gone all the way to the W storm (X, Y, and Z are not used). Global warming quite possibly is involved, but in any case, peak oil threatens to put a stop to global warming before it gets much worse.

How Little We Know

The quote of the day can be stated simply: "How little we know about the genesis of tropical cyclones." This was National Hurricane Center's Forecaster Avila's first sentence of his 11:30 report today on Tropical Depression #9. Some models, especially the Global Forecasting System, were saying that this would continue a westward or westnorthwestward movement and eventually threaten the US East Coast. Avila went with this for his 5:30 report, saying the cyclone is going to continue to go west and strengthen into a hurricane, probably Hurricane Irene. But then at 11:30 he reported that the system had moved more north than predicted and it was getting weaker due to colder waters. He changed his prediction to having it go out to sea and stay weak, maybe not ever strong enough to get a name. This quotation is a testament to the difficulty we humans have of understanding this complex world.