September 18, 2015 • 43 mins
How will climate change impact hurricane formation in the future? We explore the science behind some of the most powerful storms and how they may be getting worse in the future.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
podcast that looks at the future and says, here, I
am rock you like a hurricane. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm
(00:21):
Lauren Vocal, so you will scorpions did before you. Joe
is shaking his head. I am Joe McCormick. Today we
are going to be talking about storms. Storms. Is that
the topic? Yes, Well, specifically called when there's wind and
water comes down from the sky, that's the storm apocalypse. Yeah, well,
(00:45):
we're gonna specifically talk about hurricanes today, the future of hurricanes,
because we we You may have heard various climate change scientists, climatologists,
and various computer scientists talking about models that are trying
to predict what the world will be like in the
(01:05):
future due to climate change. One of the things that
always pops up is the discussion of hurricanes. So we
wanted to kind of take that topic and explore what
we know and what we don't know, talk about like
what are we fairly certain about, what what sort of
elements are really kind of just a best guest scenario. Yeah,
I think it's worth pointing out as a disclaimer at
(01:27):
the beginning of this episode that there seems to be
a little bit less agreement here than on climate change generally.
People sometimes seems to seem to confuse these two points.
But just to reiterate something we've said on the show before,
that the planet is warming. There's really no disputing, but
exactly what the effects are going to be, or at
(01:47):
least what some of the effects are going to be,
is still being debated. Oh absolutely, because tracking trends is
pretty easy data collection, but and by pretty easy, I
mean ridiculously difficult to a global effort in this particular case.
But but yeah, trying to figure out what that's going
to do to global weather systems or very specific weather
(02:08):
systems is whole that's that's a whole other separation. And
we've not to say that we can't say anything interesting
about is that that scientists can't create accurate models. I
think that we very likely can. But just to establish
at the beginning, this is not as settled as climate
as climate change science in the general sense. Yeah, yeah,
(02:28):
And it's something that you'll if you if you read
into it, it's something that the climatologists themselves will say upfront,
usually like they talk about which model they're using, right,
because they the models are doing their best to take
as many factors into account to simulate what would actually
happen in the real world as possible. But we've talked
(02:50):
about it before how weather systems are notoriously complex and intricate,
and we don't have a full understanding of how their
systems work on a on you know, like on a
on a part where we can actually definitively say here's
what is going to happen. Here is when it will happen. Yeah,
But with all those qualifications in mind, I think it
(03:12):
would be really interesting to talk about what scientists are
saying about what the storms of the future are going
to are gonna look like. Yeah, So going with hurricanes,
let's talk about, you know, laying down the groundwork so
we understand what we're what we're saying when we when
we actually use the word hurricane. Uh. I think most
of us have an idea of what that is, especially
(03:32):
those of us who live along the East coast of
the United States, but the word cyclone is also often used.
Previous Florida resident, Yeah, someone who you know, I've certainly
seen my share of of weather effects that came to
us courtesy of a hurricane. Of course, Atlanta is so
far inland that we don't get the uh, the brunt
(03:53):
of any sort of hurricane hitting landfall, but we definitely
get the storms that are a result of that. Oh. Yeah,
it's interesting if you've never lived in a part of
the world that gets tropical cyclones, you know, hurricanes whatever,
coming in. It's it's interesting to see the dregs of
a hurricane. They come through here all the time. Somebody
(04:14):
else south of us got hit really hard, and we
just get a bad rainstorm pretty much. And of course,
you know, recently we've seen hurricanes, Like recently, as in
the last five years, we've seen hurricanes hit some places
that normally don't see much hurricane activity at all, like
New York City, because the storm generally will disperse before
it ever gets there. Yeah, So let's talk about what
(04:37):
is going on with hurricane formation and why they disperse
when they get to certain areas. First, we have to
talk about atmospheric pressure, right, So when the atmospheric pressure
reaches a certain level, the goddess of the equatorial Ocean
becomes very angry, you know, I was hoping that by
(04:58):
forbidding the mystical acts from the studio we would avoid
such things, but apparently there's just no stopping you joke. Wait,
are you saying that the weather is caused by physical forces?
It is, in fact caused by physical forces, and not
those that emanate from some soggy guitar to the bottom
of the ocean. I've been misinformed. Will please enlighten me, Johnathan.
(05:21):
So atmosphere has weight, right, It's as we say, I
feel like about once a week on the show, like
the air is not thin. It is soup. Yes, it
is soup, and that means that the soup towards the
bottom is being squished by all the soup at the top. Right, So,
the air towards the bottom of towards the surface near
the surface of the Earth, whether it's land or ocean,
(05:43):
is being compressed by the air molecules that are higher up,
and the air closer to the surface is being warmed
not directly by the sun, but rather through the heat
that is emanating from the warmed land mass in ocean water,
So the sun warms the water and the land, and
it radiates the heat back up into the air. Right.
So then as air heats up, the molecules that make
(06:06):
up the air start to move apart from one another.
They start getting active, right. The molecular activity increases, that
is what heat is ultimately and uh so the density
of the air decreases as a result the molecules are
moving apart. Now, this creates the movement of the less
dense air rising up while denser air cooler air sinks
(06:29):
down to take its place. You know, nature of horrors
of vacuums. So it's not like the warm air can
just rise up and nothing else happens, which is good
because otherwise we would not be here. Um. But this
movement is called the pressure gradient force. Now, over the oceans,
warm air also happens to have a lot of water
(06:50):
vapor in it. Huda thunk. Yeah, so waters evaporating it
becomes part of the air here. And as warm air
and water vapor together right is up the vapor begins
to condense once it hits a certain temperature and then
you get storm clouds forming and eventually rain. Uh. Condensation,
by the way, releases heat as a byproduct. This is
(07:13):
not a big surprise. To form water vapor. We add
heat to water. When water vapor becomes water, it releases
heat that that energy has to go somewhere we cannot
obviously create or destroy energy. Um Now, that's called the
latent heat of condensation, and that heat warms the cool
air that's up at the top and causes that to rise,
(07:35):
and that starts to create a vacuum effect that pulls
even more warm air from the surface up through this channel.
Right now, as this continues, more heat and water it
gets moved through the atmosphere, and this movement begins to
create a circular pattern of motion. So this is kind
of like what you see when you open up a
drain and you watch the water, you know, circled down
(07:55):
the drain, similar to that, but this one is actually
determined by the Coreo Less effect, whereas the drain water
is not. Well, yeah, I mean it, the Simpsons was wrong. Yeah,
there's a tendency, but it's but a drain is too
small of a water system to be affected by exactly.
The Coriolis effect is real, and it is because of
(08:15):
the rotation of the Earth, but it generally only affects
large systems, not not your toilet or the sink um
on the northern hemisphere, storms rotate counterclockwise. In the southern Hemisphere,
they rotate clockwise are as I once saw in a
set of instructions to build a fan. And I am
not making this up antique counter clockwise, which seems a
(08:37):
little very precise. Turn this anti counter clockwise really not
just clock uh So, then, also, especially near the equatorial
regions of the Earth, you have converging winds near the
surface of the water. These are colliding with one another
and pushing even more warm air upward. This increases the
(08:58):
rotational speed of the storm. And strong winds at high
altitudes move the warm air out from the center, and
that's what becomes the eye of the storm. So you've
got this relatively calm area in the very center, and
then this sort of tumultuous area, especially the area right
around the center that the winds speeds there are at
their highest, but it then radiates outward. Um Now, if
(09:22):
you have different speeds of wind along these various elevations
of the storm system, that's what's called wind shear. When
you have wind shear, it actually inhibits the growth of
a storm. So if you've got you know, winds from
the east, uh and and uh and north hitting at
one point at one speed, and they're hitting at a
(09:42):
totally different speed at a different elevation along that storm system.
It takes more energy for the storm system to grow,
and it's less likely to become a hurricane. UH. If
all that air is all that wind is blowing at
the same speed, then it's more likely to turn into
a hurricane and get stronger. Now Out, as that warm
air's moved from the center, cool air rushes down to
(10:03):
replace it. High pressure air is pulled into a low
pressure center. That increases the wind speed even more, and
that's when you start actually getting into the realm of
a hurricane. Now, only a few storms out in the
ocean ever reach hurricane status, like out of all of them.
If you're from a percentage basis, UH, it may be
that you might have a hurricane season where you have
(10:24):
an abnormally large number of hurricanes, but if you look
at the overall number of storms, they'll still be relatively
small percentage um. Most storms tend to die out before
they reach that level. So here's the general categorization. UH. First,
you've got the tropical depressions. This does not mean that
people in that area are starting to feel kind of gloomy. Well,
(10:47):
it's cloudy out, I suppose, yeah, it could be like man,
I booked our vacation and it's just raining. No. Tropical
depression are marked with wind speeds that are less than
thirty eight miles per hour or around sixty one KOs
an hour. Then tropical depressions can grow into tropical storms.
Those have wind speeds that range between thirty nine and
seventy three miles per hour or sixty three two d
(11:10):
seventeen kilometers per hour. Tropical storms then can grow into hurricanes. Now,
your basic hurricane, like your Category one hurricane, has wind
speeds greater than seventy four miles per hour or a
hundred nineteen kilometers per hour. But we do classify hurricanes
here in the United States in five categories. Australia is
a little different, but US it's five categories. It's also
(11:30):
a five category system in Australia, but they use different criteria.
So Category one hurricane here in the US is the weakest.
They have wind speeds between seventy four and nine pur
or a hundred nineteen hund fifty four kilometers an hour. Meanwhile,
if you go to the other side, of the scale.
A Category five storm, which is one you do not
want to be in. It is with wind speeds greater
(11:52):
than a hundred fifty five miles per hour or two
hundred fifty kilometers an hour. So the winds are bad, right,
the winds are incredibly damaging, but that's not necessarily the
most damaging part of a hurricane. In fact, that now
they are responsible for what could be the most damn
damaging part of a hurricane, but it's not a direct relationship.
(12:15):
We're talking about storm surge. So storm surge is where
you get it's water. Yeah, it's just it's just like
a wall, oh water. Storm surge is created because the
winds of the hurricane are pushing water outward from the center,
and that's where you get like an enormous mass of
(12:37):
water just coming in much higher than the normal sea level,
even high, much higher than the normal high tideline. So uh,
with this, you could say the more powerful hurricanes create
larger storm surge. Is not a big surprise. More wind
pushes more water. So category one storm cut tends to
cause about a four to five ft rise in the
(13:00):
sea level from the storm search, which is that is
significant depending upon if you live in a coastal city,
that could be incredibly significant. Category five has a storm
surge of greater than eighteen feet five and a half meters.
That's a huge amount of water, and that's where you're
getting into some really deadly territory. Yeah. And of course,
(13:22):
one of the things to remember is that the negative
impact of a storm like a hurricane might not always
necessarily be just directly related to how powerful it is,
like how how fast the winds are or how high
the storm surge is. It can also be related to
where it hits and how well prepared the places it
(13:43):
hits are. Absolutely because like one place might get a
tougher hurricane, but it just might be better defended against herricane.
Higher sea walls are better construction material, or or even
things that are off the coast, like things like an
oyster bed can help slow down wave for nation. Uh.
In fact, New York City used to have very healthy
(14:04):
oyster beds outside of it used to being the operative term,
have we eaten too many oysters? There were there's a
walrus in a carpdor that came through and things just
got ugly. Right a second, do people eat New York
City oysters. It was more that it was more that
things got destroyed, well just destroyed and construction trawling stuff
out and things like that. But the oyster menu New
(14:27):
York City is finest oysters. You can really taste the brooklet.
I like New York City oysters before they were cool.
The conditions for hurricane formation are not everywhere. That's why
you don't see hurricanes all over the earth. We talked
about how in the equatorial region you have these converging winds.
(14:48):
That's one of the necessary features in order to have
hurricane formation. Another is that the water needs to be warm.
This this warm air and water vapor are key elements. Uh,
they are what fee eat into a hurricane's power. And
so you need water that's at least twenty seven degrees
celsius or about eight degrees fahrenheit in order for hurricanes
(15:08):
to actually form in the first place. This is why
we don't see hurricanes forming in like the northern Atlantic.
Oh yeah, this is why they happen in the around
the equator. Yeah. And as they move around, as they
start to encounter colder water or they hit land, then
you start to cut off the process that feeds these hurricanes.
That warm water vapor is no longer present, So the
(15:31):
hurricane begins to dissipate it's it's energy starts to where
you know, it's not being constantly refitted. Yeah, it just dies.
So the Hurricane Sandy that hit in New York, one
of the reasons why it was able to to be
such a powerful storm in the first place was that
the water temperatures around that time were abnormally high, high
(15:54):
enough so that the storm had not lost a significant
amount of power before it made landfall. It also was
what they called a hybrid storm. But that goes into
far more complex detail than I am prepared to talk
about on this podcast at any rate. That's the basic
rules of how a hurricane behaves. And that's like right now.
(16:14):
So now we have to transition into talking about what
about projecting forward? As we know that climate change is
a thing, we know that it is happening and will
continue to happen particular point. We can't really stop it.
We can't stop it. What we can do is mitigate
how bad it will be, right we can We can
do that by limiting greenhouse gas emissions for example, and
(16:37):
other means, and we can try to mitigate the potential
effects of climate change exactly by making preparations in the
places where it's most likely to have the Yeah, yeah,
because I mean there there's certain things of climate change
that are going to be a real issue for lots
of different people. In dry areas, it's likely to get
(16:58):
more dry. In areas that are of a tropical or
subtropical region, they might get much more rain than they
usually do. Uh, these are just general trends that we
may see. But what about hurricanes, Well, this is, like
Joe says, really complicated. Right, So pretty much everybody agrees
that climate change is going to do something the hurricane.
(17:22):
So they agree that it will change the conditions that
create hurricanes. But what's not exactly agreed upon is it
is exactly how they will change. Now, most of the
models that I have looked at have said that the
changes are going to include more intense hurricanes. Yeah, hurricanes
(17:43):
with stronger winds, greater sea surge, larger, they'll be um
affecting larger areas. And if we see a rise in
ocean temperature, we're likely also to see a greater ranging
of hurricanes because the conditions will be more appropriate for
(18:04):
a hurricane to feed itself in a broader area than
it used to be. It will suddenly be balmy enough
and say Scotland to make it happen. Not suddenly, but
but Nessie, Nessie might find herself having a bit of
a rough day. I know. I've read differing opinions about
whether the frequency of hurricanes is going to go up down. Yeah,
(18:27):
this is one of those things. And generally speaking, most models,
not all, but most models suggest that we are going
to see fewer hurricanes form, but the ones that form
will be worse, like they'll be stronger. Um, most models do,
not all of them. Uh. So we know that we
know that the temperature is going to affect hurricanes. We
(18:48):
know this change at sea level is really going to
affect hurricanes too, in the sense that it will affect
how they impact us. If sea levels continue to rise,
which we expect they will, Uh, then coastal cities that
are already maybe just a few feet above sea level
are going to be more prone to damage in the
case of any kind of storm, not just a hurricane,
(19:09):
but any sort of tropical depression or tropical storm can
cut create enough of a sea surge to cause massive
flooding in those areas, right, So if your city is,
you know, ten feet above sea level and see sea
levels rise five feet, that could still hurt you. Yeah,
you know. And and also you're going to start eroding
(19:29):
those those low coastal areas that help slow down hurricanes
in many places before they hit land. And even if
you've built barriers, if the sea level rises, the sea
level may raise rise above the barrier you built, in
which case there's not much of a help there. Uh So,
getting back to frequency, like what Joe was saying, we
do have these differing opinions, these differing models. I guess
(19:51):
I should say models, not opinions, because it's what the
computers are projecting. One expert in hurricanes, it's real bad
science to just have opinions. You know, I don't like
hurricane so I just don't think they're gonna happen anymore.
It's not going to really help. Dr Kerry Emmanuel from
m I T created a model that suggested climate change
would create more weak storms around the Category one to
(20:15):
two area and increase the intensity of stronger storms. So
in other words, his model, yeah, it's a double whammy.
It's it's both we get more storms and more of
them will be stronger. Uh, that is not great news. Now,
granted that's the one that's sort of it's almost of
(20:36):
a dissenting opinion than the other models. Right. The other
models do suggest that we're going to probably see fewer hurricanes.
One of the reasons is they predict more wind shear,
and as I said earlier, more wind shear would inhibit
the formation of storms. So the ones that do form
could be incredibly intense, but there would be fewer in number. Um.
(20:59):
So that one of the reasons. Another is that the
differences in temperature between the polar regions and the equatorial
regions help fuel some of the storms that then grow
into hurricanes. And if that difference is decreased, because the
polar regions are heating up, and we would expect the
polar regions to heat up more dramatically than equatorial, we
(21:20):
would think the equatorial region would remain more or less
the same temperature. It might increase a little bit, but
not at the level. The colar regions are the ones.
They're going to increase the most, like the most dramatic
change in the short term, short term being like a century.
Um it's a relative term, but that if we see
that difference decrease, that might mean that we see fewer
(21:41):
storms forming initially. So those are the ways that the
two models, and they're more than two, but those are
the ways different models disagree on what can happen. But
both appear to support the idea that the storms we
get are gonna be doozies. They're gonna be pretty powerful.
And we've been able to do some preliminary measurements but
(22:04):
nothing that is conclusive yet. So, for instance, we know
that ocean temperatures have increased slightly since nineteen eighty, by
like point three degrees celsius, So the temperature has gone up.
Now that predicts that hurricane wind strength should rise on
average about a not more in strength and speed really,
(22:24):
so one not faster than what they had been previous
in the nineteen eighty numbers on average. But how do
you measure how fast a hurricane? Well, you can do
it through lots of things like satellite imagery. You can
do it through you can actually send measurement tools that
if you wanted to do it with precision down to
one knot No, you cannot. The margin of error is
(22:47):
plus or minus five knots so the measurement here would
be within the range of error. So we cannot determine
with any accuracy whether or not the prediction has come
true because it hasn't been drastic enough for us to
be able to definitively say, all right, this is outside
the margin of error. We are sure that this is happening. Um.
(23:10):
So that means it's a little too early for us
to say through direct observation. But that being said, the
information we do have shows that hurricanes appear to be
strengthening faster than they have in the past. So maybe
even if they're not stronger than they were, they're getting
stronger faster. You mean, from the time of formation to
(23:31):
the time they hit hit like category three or category four,
it's taking less time for them to grow to those
levels than it used to. Uh. So it's ogitionally, the
hurricanes today are eating their wheedies, is what we're getting
at um And so uh it was found according to
NASA that uh, some researchers discovered that storms were attaining
category three wind speeds nearly nine hours faster than they
(23:55):
did back in nineteen eighty which is significant. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's every hour counts, especially when you're trying to prepare
a population for that kind of incoming storm, right, and
and and keep in mind also that we only are
able to predict potential pathways the storm will follow. We
know the general direction that they'll follow. But that means
(24:15):
if you've ever lived in a coastal area and you've
seen those projection paths, you see it's like a it's
like a triangle that starts from the storm and then
and then broadens out. It's a cone of anxiety. Really,
it's it's just horrifying, like like lying vaguely within that code,
going like, well, this could anything could happen. Really, Now,
if your city is dead center in the middle of
(24:36):
that cone, you've got a real good chance of being
hit by that hurricane, whether it's head on or by
the edge or whatever. Now, we've also seen that global
wind speeds have increased over the last twenty years by
five percent, So that also suggests that hurricanes may be
getting stronger faster, because wind plays such a big part
in hurricanes. But without the direct observation to back up
(24:59):
that that or that prediction, we can't say for sure.
And as good science dictates, you want to measure, you
want to be able to replicate. You want to make
sure that your observations in fact represent as close to
reality as we can possibly get. So it would be
irresponsible for us to say, yes, hurricanes have definitely gotten
(25:20):
stronger over the last twenty five years. It just the
data seems to be pointing us in that direction, but
we don't have the definitive answer yet. Now we may
also see stuff like the jet streams actually being affected,
so in other words, the massive UH currents. Essentially, this
this this pathway that tends to dictate which way hurricanes go.
(25:43):
That could change. It could slow down, which would mean
the hurricane would spend longer out in the warm areas
of the ocean, building up stronger and stronger before continuing
in to hit you know, land mass or colder water,
which means they could have even more energy than we've
ever calculated for as a result. So that's a possibility.
(26:03):
So this is this all sounds kind of scary. Uh,
You get scarier once you start to look at who's
at risk. Obviously, if you live in Nebraska, you're probably
not too worried about hurricanes. Well, you might be worried
about some other effects of climate change, such as maybe
drought or something like, right, and we and we don't.
We don't know how climate change might affect things like tornadoes,
(26:25):
for example. It may or may not, we don't know.
I think I was reading earlier today that there's no
evidence so far that climate change has an effect on tornadoes,
but that that was just one thing I read. It
could be disputed by others, right, it's it's it's one
of those things. Well, from one thing, we we don't
know what we don't know. And it may very well
be that climate change has no meaningful impact on the
(26:46):
number or intensity of tornadoes that we'll see. It's quite possible.
But we have seen some studies about who would most
likely be affected by hurricanes in a negative way. Not
just not just most likely to be hit by a hurricane,
but if a hurricane did hit, which cities would suffer
the most damage in a in a monetary sense. So
(27:11):
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or o e
c d crunched the numbers back in two thousand thirteen
to figure out which coastal cities are most at risk
due to rising sea levels and intense storms. Guang Shao,
which is a port city northwest of Hong Kong tap
the list, but there were other cities that were on
it like Miami, New York City, New Orleans, Mumbai, Nagoya, Tampa, Boston, Shinzhen,
(27:38):
and Osaka. We're all on that list. And this is
this is essentially saying, these are the cities that, if
they were hit by a hurricane, would suffer the most
damages monetarily, like, yeah, it's not um it's not measuring
the strength of hurricanes that could potentially hit there, just
the fact that if they do get hit kind of
it all. Yeah, exactly, it's they could have miss to lose.
(28:00):
It's like saying, you know, if this city were hit
by an earthquake, this is how much and and it
was an earthquake of a significant string, this is how
much damage would happen Because they don't prepare for earthquakes
structurally prepared, right exactly exactly. Yeah. So they also looked
at comparing the the expense of damages to the g
(28:22):
d P of these various cities, the gross domestic product
of these cities, which, by the way, if you want
to learn more about GDP, how stuff works as a
video about it, Yeah, you can go to brain Stuff
show dot com and find an excellent video that Jonathan hosted,
and did did you write that one? Joe? Joe? Well,
there you go. Yeah, and so two of them yeah
(28:42):
we we and and Lauren was there, so probably she is.
She is. She makes sure that I say the words
that Joe wrote because otherwise I go off script and
terrible things happened. So when we look at the comparison
of damages to g d P, the the list changes
up a little bit. Guang Shu is still top of
(29:03):
the list, but New Orleans is on there as well,
but there's also guayan Quild from Ecuador. I apologized, by
the way before mangling the pronunciation of these cities ho
Chi Minh City, um Abba, Johan jan Jing, Mumbai, cool
Now which is in Bangladesh, Palm Bang which is in Indonesia,
and shin Zhen. We're all at the top of that list.
(29:25):
So essentially, these are the cities that could least afford
this sort of disaster. And you know, Guang Show was
on the both lists, So that's that's rough. Um. Now,
the cities that are predicted to have the greatest increase
of risk of flooding are those that currently have a
low risk of flooding. And the reason for that is
(29:46):
these are cities that have not invested in infrastructure that
would be protective against flooding from sea search because traditionally
they haven't been in the pathway of hurricanes. But as
we've said, one of the consequences of this climate change
is that we're going to see more cities that traditionally
would not really be in the path of a hurricane
(30:07):
potentially find themselves smack dab in the middle of one.
So those cities included Alexandria in Egypt, Baron Kila in Colombia,
Naples in Italy, and Sapporo in Japan, and Center Domingo
in the Dominican Republic. So those are all cities that
could potentially suffer severe flooding, uh, largely because they are
(30:29):
unprepared for it. And you know, again, if you live
in a place where a natural disaster rarely, if ever occurs,
it doesn't seem to make any sense to prepare for it.
Right Like here in Atlanta, we do live not that
far from a fault line, but we rarely get an
earthquake that's even strong enough for us to feel like
(30:49):
earthquakes do happen but we almost never feel them. I
think there have been two that were, you know, of
a great enough magnitude to notice. Since I've lived in
Atlanta and that's been like twenty years. So it wouldn't
make sense for us to build everything in Atlanta to
withstand massive earthquakes. It just doesn't happen. Same sort of
thing for cities that traditionally have not been in the
(31:10):
path of hurricanes. Um we all. I've also looked at
some other lists. Accu weather actually looked at They looked
at it a different way. They looked at the cities
that are most likely to be affected by a hurricane
in any given hurricane season. They actually had it by
a percentage of how likely within a hurricane season any
of these individual cities would be hit and looking just
(31:32):
here in the US, just here in the U S
actually just here on the US and on the East coast.
So the top five were Miami and Key West, both
in Florida, Cape Hatteras which is in North Carolina, Tampa
back in Florida, and New Orleans. So these would be
the places that statistically are most likely to be hit
by hurricanes simply because of the path that hurricanes currently
(31:53):
take um So, if you look at those two lists
with Miami being at risk, it's been identified as being
at risk for lots and lots of damage. Like they
they've not been hit by a massive hurricane in a while,
but that's that's a warning sign because they're also one
of the more likely cities to be hit. So those
two in combination, plus rising sea levels and increased hurricane intensity,
(32:17):
tell you that the people of Miami have some big
concerns about this. Um So, obviously it's time to start
thinking about ways to prepare and solutions. Yeah, and and
sadly there are no easy answers. Well, I've got one.
I think it's pretty good. Okay, Yeah, I think we're
we're as a country, pretty good at claiming we're going
(32:39):
to build a wall. So I think we should build
a wall along the southern and eastern coast of the
United States that stretches up to the top of the atmosphere,
and then that would just block top of the atmosphere,
and that would just block any incoming storm. The shade
from that would be phenomenal. Uh. Yeah, that's not likely
(32:59):
to happen because it I can't imagine it being physically
possible for us to build a structure of such height.
Where's your can do attitude joke? And they can don't
for that one. The plus, obviously there'd be way too
many problems with that, clearly. I mean, first of all,
just redirecting all the flights. Look, if I'm gonna go
to Mexico, I don't want my flight to Atlanta to
have to take me all the way through like Oregon,
(33:20):
so I can get around this wall. Um. The the
sea walls are something that that cities do build in
order to protect against sea surge and things like that.
Massive waves of sea barriers are are a known UH
solution to these problems, but they are temporary solutions, particularly
in the era of sea levels on the rise. Yeah,
(33:43):
So imagine you're in a coastal city and you're in
one of these danger zones where the sea levels are
expected to come up to where they might be sloshing
in on your town, and the local solution is, well,
we're going to build some sea walls. Doesn't That doesn't
keep the water from slashing up on your town, right,
That's not very reassuring. No, the sea walls are great
(34:06):
for protecting against sea surges. If the sea level itself
is is, you know, not going to be on the rise.
It sounds like a temporary solution. Is a temporary solution.
It's one of the ones that New York City when, uh,
in the wake of Sandy, they were looking at ways
to prepare in case this should ever happen again, and
sea walls were one of the things they were talking about.
(34:28):
But a lot of experts were saying, you know, guys,
this is at best a temporary solution that will just
stave off any massive disaster for the short term, but
it's not a long term fix. And if that means
that we procrastinate, that we don't adopt tougher but more
realistic solutions, then we're just inviting disaster further down the line. Well,
(34:54):
so what's a what's a realistic solution for something like this?
I mean, we can't none of our Babba yaga. We
can't just like put chicken legs on our hut and
raise it up in case of danger. That's an excellence.
I'm so glad you made that reference. Babba yaga. Uh. Well,
elevating buildings is one of the ones. One of the
things that people have suggested. Now granted, that does not
(35:16):
work in a super dense urban environment like New York City, Right,
you can't expect to suddenly be able to raise everything up.
Like even if you were to say, all, right, here's
the deal, all of your front street entrances are now
going to be a third floor basement, and we're going
to move all the entrances up to We're gonna go
(35:37):
up several floors. That's gonna be your front door, and
we're gonna build up from there so that we have
effectively grown higher than what the sea level is. That
is maybe a solution for some communities, but not for
a place like New York City, where you've got millions
and millions of people who would be displaced by that
kind of action. But but it mostly refers to like
making sure you have things like park space and and
(36:00):
other things that are right along the coastline as opposed
to housing, because the coastline is the obviously going to
be the first place affected by sea surge. Uh, you know,
it's these are tough things where it requires massive redesign
and and relocation. Relocation is a the other big possible solution.
(36:20):
It's another tough one. They the scientist I was reading
referred to it as managed retreat. Yeah, to say like wonderful, uh,
wonderful euphemism. Well, the point was I said, like, this
is not going to change, it's going to continue, it's
going to get worse. And and so your beautiful beach
front property is not going to be a plus. No,
(36:43):
it's gonna be it's gonna be beyond beach property at
that point, it's gonna be ocean property. Uh, not ocean front,
but in the ocean. And so it's one of those
deals where you know, you have to really seriously look
at the consequences and say, we are going at some
point we're going to have to move people out of here.
(37:04):
We can't perpetually keep everyone here. It's just not possible.
It's not a realism. We gotta figure out another another solution.
So what we have to do now is think about
what that solution is so that when it gets closer
to the time when people have to move, they actually
do have a place to move to. It doesn't do
us any good to say, well, we'll figure that out
(37:26):
when it comes, because then they'll just have another chaotic
mess on our hands. So the the um the suggestions
I've seen have been start putting into place a plan
for managed retreat, perhaps even going so far as to
create a system in which people who own a house
(37:46):
will be guaranteed a location in this new place like
that is they will have they will still have a
home because the land that they owned will now be
transferred to a different spot. But that's I mean, think
about it, millions of people. That is not an easy
thing to manage. Look at any population density map. Where
(38:14):
where the most people gathered there along coastlines? Yeah, yeah,
I mean you know it's it's it's it's where trade happens.
It's where gentler weather traditionally has happened. Oops. Yeah, well,
and and you know there's there's just one of those
things like that. It's it's people are drawn to the ocean.
(38:37):
It's pretty. It is pretty. I mean I know that
when I go on vacation to any ocean area, I
want to have a house that has ocean views. Right.
I don't want to be one block back and I
can hear it, but I can't see stuck facing. Yeah,
I don't want that. So I mean I get it.
And and and I live in a I happen to
live in a city where I have the luxury of
(38:58):
not having to worry about as early as everyone else does. Uh,
not to say that Atlanta would be completely immune. I
mean we live on a piedmont. We're not in the
mountains yet, so um, if the sea levels rose truly dramatically,
it could get to the point where Atlanta would become
a coastal city and imagine that. But yeah, that's another
(39:21):
thing to to worry about. That the solutions that you
pick may not be long term. Even in that case,
you would have to really look at the elevation of
land and how far away from sea level is it
and uh, you know, would it be affected by that
same rise and sea level. I think the solution is
we just all moved to the Himalayas it's called the
(39:41):
water world contingency. Yeah. Yeah. And and then on top
of that, of course, you have to start thinking about
the the other infrastructure, not just the buildings, but the
but the sewer systems, the electrical systems. Yeah. We saw
this in New York City as well, the massive problems
they had with their power grid and the subway systems.
That we have to make sure that that infrastructure can
(40:03):
withstand something like a massive flooding. Uh and you know,
we've probably talked about it more on tech stuff than
here on forward thinking. But the power grid, particularly in
the United States, is very much a patchwork sort of thing,
and some of that patchwork dates back to the dawn
of the electricity age. So you know, yeah, an upgrade
(40:23):
is sorely needed. It's just one of those things that
when you get it in place and it works, it's
hard to justify the expense of changing it. Yeah, it's like, well,
this is close enough for right now. So it's it's
meeting our needs and yeah, it's stuff breaks, but we
can fix it pretty fast. Well, yeah, we can fix
it pretty fast under normal conditions, but not in the
wake of a hurricane necessarily. So this has been, you know,
(40:47):
really interesting to look into. It's one of those things
that I still think we have the complete capability to
make these decisions and make them in a way that
has the least possible negative impact, but only if we
start thinking about it earlier rather than later. The longer
we hold off on coming up with viable solutions for
(41:08):
people who live in these these cities that are at risk,
the harder it's going to be when that time comes
when we get to a point where we have to
make the call of all right, that's it Miami, that's
it for Miami. You know, we've got to move everybody
from there. So kind of the opposite of Miami. Yeah, yeah,
(41:31):
you know means I got to rethink where I'm retiring.
So there's that. But anyway, this has been kind of
a you know, a darker episode in many ways, but
it's one that is necessary. I think one of those
where you know, one it's necessary for us to maintain
optimism and to to apply that to solutions so that
(41:54):
we get you know, not denialism, not to say, optimisms
to the point where we don't accept what's happening it.
But yeah, but before we can come up with solutions
for this kind of thing, we have to we have
to be thinking about it. We have to be aware
of it exactly and not let it overwhelm us, but
rather have it inspire us to innovate in a way
that that that solves a problem or creates a solution
(42:16):
that is going to be the least negative. If you
are a true cynic, I'm an optimist. I'd like to
think that we could come up with a really super
cool way of addressing this. Um, I just think that
we have to start thinking on it now. We can't wait.
I think robotic chicken legs on all of our buildings
apaches that I get a big thumbs up from the way. Yeah,
(42:37):
and if you know, I've always I've always enjoyed the swamp,
So I think having a swamp house that can move
around and the swamp is pretty awesome. Now I think
where you're just in a Muzaki film. Yeah, probably that's okay.
I'm alright with that. Well, guys, if you have any
suggestions for future topics that we can tackle here on
Forward Thinking, I recommend you write us and let us know.
(42:59):
The email addresses f W Thinking at how Stuff Works
dot com, or you can drop us a line on Twitter,
Google Plus or Facebook. At Twitter and Google Plus, we
are f W Thinking. You can search the term f
W Thinking and Facebook. Our page will pop up. You
can leave us a message on that page and we
will read it and we look forward to hearing from you,
(43:19):
and we will talk to you again. Releasing for more
on this topic and the future of technology. This is
Forward Sinking dot com h brought to you by Toyota.
(43:44):
Let's go places
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
podcast that looks at the future and says, here, I
am rock you like a hurricane. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm
(00:21):
Lauren Vocal, so you will scorpions did before you. Joe
is shaking his head. I am Joe McCormick. Today we
are going to be talking about storms. Storms. Is that
the topic? Yes, Well, specifically called when there's wind and
water comes down from the sky, that's the storm apocalypse. Yeah, well,
(00:45):
we're gonna specifically talk about hurricanes today, the future of hurricanes,
because we we You may have heard various climate change scientists, climatologists,
and various computer scientists talking about models that are trying
to predict what the world will be like in the
(01:05):
future due to climate change. One of the things that
always pops up is the discussion of hurricanes. So we
wanted to kind of take that topic and explore what
we know and what we don't know, talk about like
what are we fairly certain about, what what sort of
elements are really kind of just a best guest scenario. Yeah,
I think it's worth pointing out as a disclaimer at
(01:27):
the beginning of this episode that there seems to be
a little bit less agreement here than on climate change generally.
People sometimes seems to seem to confuse these two points.
But just to reiterate something we've said on the show before,
that the planet is warming. There's really no disputing, but
exactly what the effects are going to be, or at
(01:47):
least what some of the effects are going to be,
is still being debated. Oh absolutely, because tracking trends is
pretty easy data collection, but and by pretty easy, I
mean ridiculously difficult to a global effort in this particular case.
But but yeah, trying to figure out what that's going
to do to global weather systems or very specific weather
(02:08):
systems is whole that's that's a whole other separation. And
we've not to say that we can't say anything interesting
about is that that scientists can't create accurate models. I
think that we very likely can. But just to establish
at the beginning, this is not as settled as climate
as climate change science in the general sense. Yeah, yeah,
(02:28):
And it's something that you'll if you if you read
into it, it's something that the climatologists themselves will say upfront,
usually like they talk about which model they're using, right,
because they the models are doing their best to take
as many factors into account to simulate what would actually
happen in the real world as possible. But we've talked
(02:50):
about it before how weather systems are notoriously complex and intricate,
and we don't have a full understanding of how their
systems work on a on you know, like on a
on a part where we can actually definitively say here's
what is going to happen. Here is when it will happen. Yeah,
But with all those qualifications in mind, I think it
(03:12):
would be really interesting to talk about what scientists are
saying about what the storms of the future are going
to are gonna look like. Yeah, So going with hurricanes,
let's talk about, you know, laying down the groundwork so
we understand what we're what we're saying when we when
we actually use the word hurricane. Uh. I think most
of us have an idea of what that is, especially
(03:32):
those of us who live along the East coast of
the United States, but the word cyclone is also often used.
Previous Florida resident, Yeah, someone who you know, I've certainly
seen my share of of weather effects that came to
us courtesy of a hurricane. Of course, Atlanta is so
far inland that we don't get the uh, the brunt
(03:53):
of any sort of hurricane hitting landfall, but we definitely
get the storms that are a result of that. Oh. Yeah,
it's interesting if you've never lived in a part of
the world that gets tropical cyclones, you know, hurricanes whatever,
coming in. It's it's interesting to see the dregs of
a hurricane. They come through here all the time. Somebody
(04:14):
else south of us got hit really hard, and we
just get a bad rainstorm pretty much. And of course,
you know, recently we've seen hurricanes, Like recently, as in
the last five years, we've seen hurricanes hit some places
that normally don't see much hurricane activity at all, like
New York City, because the storm generally will disperse before
it ever gets there. Yeah, So let's talk about what
(04:37):
is going on with hurricane formation and why they disperse
when they get to certain areas. First, we have to
talk about atmospheric pressure, right, So when the atmospheric pressure
reaches a certain level, the goddess of the equatorial Ocean
becomes very angry, you know, I was hoping that by
(04:58):
forbidding the mystical acts from the studio we would avoid
such things, but apparently there's just no stopping you joke. Wait,
are you saying that the weather is caused by physical forces?
It is, in fact caused by physical forces, and not
those that emanate from some soggy guitar to the bottom
of the ocean. I've been misinformed. Will please enlighten me, Johnathan.
(05:21):
So atmosphere has weight, right, It's as we say, I
feel like about once a week on the show, like
the air is not thin. It is soup. Yes, it
is soup, and that means that the soup towards the
bottom is being squished by all the soup at the top. Right, So,
the air towards the bottom of towards the surface near
the surface of the Earth, whether it's land or ocean,
(05:43):
is being compressed by the air molecules that are higher up,
and the air closer to the surface is being warmed
not directly by the sun, but rather through the heat
that is emanating from the warmed land mass in ocean water,
So the sun warms the water and the land, and
it radiates the heat back up into the air. Right.
So then as air heats up, the molecules that make
(06:06):
up the air start to move apart from one another.
They start getting active, right. The molecular activity increases, that
is what heat is ultimately and uh so the density
of the air decreases as a result the molecules are
moving apart. Now, this creates the movement of the less
dense air rising up while denser air cooler air sinks
(06:29):
down to take its place. You know, nature of horrors
of vacuums. So it's not like the warm air can
just rise up and nothing else happens, which is good
because otherwise we would not be here. Um. But this
movement is called the pressure gradient force. Now, over the oceans,
warm air also happens to have a lot of water
(06:50):
vapor in it. Huda thunk. Yeah, so waters evaporating it
becomes part of the air here. And as warm air
and water vapor together right is up the vapor begins
to condense once it hits a certain temperature and then
you get storm clouds forming and eventually rain. Uh. Condensation,
by the way, releases heat as a byproduct. This is
(07:13):
not a big surprise. To form water vapor. We add
heat to water. When water vapor becomes water, it releases
heat that that energy has to go somewhere we cannot
obviously create or destroy energy. Um Now, that's called the
latent heat of condensation, and that heat warms the cool
air that's up at the top and causes that to rise,
(07:35):
and that starts to create a vacuum effect that pulls
even more warm air from the surface up through this channel.
Right now, as this continues, more heat and water it
gets moved through the atmosphere, and this movement begins to
create a circular pattern of motion. So this is kind
of like what you see when you open up a
drain and you watch the water, you know, circled down
(07:55):
the drain, similar to that, but this one is actually
determined by the Coreo Less effect, whereas the drain water
is not. Well, yeah, I mean it, the Simpsons was wrong. Yeah,
there's a tendency, but it's but a drain is too
small of a water system to be affected by exactly.
The Coriolis effect is real, and it is because of
(08:15):
the rotation of the Earth, but it generally only affects
large systems, not not your toilet or the sink um
on the northern hemisphere, storms rotate counterclockwise. In the southern Hemisphere,
they rotate clockwise are as I once saw in a
set of instructions to build a fan. And I am
not making this up antique counter clockwise, which seems a
(08:37):
little very precise. Turn this anti counter clockwise really not
just clock uh So, then, also, especially near the equatorial
regions of the Earth, you have converging winds near the
surface of the water. These are colliding with one another
and pushing even more warm air upward. This increases the
(08:58):
rotational speed of the storm. And strong winds at high
altitudes move the warm air out from the center, and
that's what becomes the eye of the storm. So you've
got this relatively calm area in the very center, and
then this sort of tumultuous area, especially the area right
around the center that the winds speeds there are at
their highest, but it then radiates outward. Um Now, if
(09:22):
you have different speeds of wind along these various elevations
of the storm system, that's what's called wind shear. When
you have wind shear, it actually inhibits the growth of
a storm. So if you've got you know, winds from
the east, uh and and uh and north hitting at
one point at one speed, and they're hitting at a
(09:42):
totally different speed at a different elevation along that storm system.
It takes more energy for the storm system to grow,
and it's less likely to become a hurricane. UH. If
all that air is all that wind is blowing at
the same speed, then it's more likely to turn into
a hurricane and get stronger. Now Out, as that warm
air's moved from the center, cool air rushes down to
(10:03):
replace it. High pressure air is pulled into a low
pressure center. That increases the wind speed even more, and
that's when you start actually getting into the realm of
a hurricane. Now, only a few storms out in the
ocean ever reach hurricane status, like out of all of them.
If you're from a percentage basis, UH, it may be
that you might have a hurricane season where you have
(10:24):
an abnormally large number of hurricanes, but if you look
at the overall number of storms, they'll still be relatively
small percentage um. Most storms tend to die out before
they reach that level. So here's the general categorization. UH. First,
you've got the tropical depressions. This does not mean that
people in that area are starting to feel kind of gloomy. Well,
(10:47):
it's cloudy out, I suppose, yeah, it could be like man,
I booked our vacation and it's just raining. No. Tropical
depression are marked with wind speeds that are less than
thirty eight miles per hour or around sixty one KOs
an hour. Then tropical depressions can grow into tropical storms.
Those have wind speeds that range between thirty nine and
seventy three miles per hour or sixty three two d
(11:10):
seventeen kilometers per hour. Tropical storms then can grow into hurricanes. Now,
your basic hurricane, like your Category one hurricane, has wind
speeds greater than seventy four miles per hour or a
hundred nineteen kilometers per hour. But we do classify hurricanes
here in the United States in five categories. Australia is
a little different, but US it's five categories. It's also
(11:30):
a five category system in Australia, but they use different criteria.
So Category one hurricane here in the US is the weakest.
They have wind speeds between seventy four and nine pur
or a hundred nineteen hund fifty four kilometers an hour. Meanwhile,
if you go to the other side, of the scale.
A Category five storm, which is one you do not
want to be in. It is with wind speeds greater
(11:52):
than a hundred fifty five miles per hour or two
hundred fifty kilometers an hour. So the winds are bad, right,
the winds are incredibly damaging, but that's not necessarily the
most damaging part of a hurricane. In fact, that now
they are responsible for what could be the most damn
damaging part of a hurricane, but it's not a direct relationship.
(12:15):
We're talking about storm surge. So storm surge is where
you get it's water. Yeah, it's just it's just like
a wall, oh water. Storm surge is created because the
winds of the hurricane are pushing water outward from the center,
and that's where you get like an enormous mass of
(12:37):
water just coming in much higher than the normal sea level,
even high, much higher than the normal high tideline. So uh,
with this, you could say the more powerful hurricanes create
larger storm surge. Is not a big surprise. More wind
pushes more water. So category one storm cut tends to
cause about a four to five ft rise in the
(13:00):
sea level from the storm search, which is that is
significant depending upon if you live in a coastal city,
that could be incredibly significant. Category five has a storm
surge of greater than eighteen feet five and a half meters.
That's a huge amount of water, and that's where you're
getting into some really deadly territory. Yeah. And of course,
(13:22):
one of the things to remember is that the negative
impact of a storm like a hurricane might not always
necessarily be just directly related to how powerful it is,
like how how fast the winds are or how high
the storm surge is. It can also be related to
where it hits and how well prepared the places it
(13:43):
hits are. Absolutely because like one place might get a
tougher hurricane, but it just might be better defended against herricane.
Higher sea walls are better construction material, or or even
things that are off the coast, like things like an
oyster bed can help slow down wave for nation. Uh.
In fact, New York City used to have very healthy
(14:04):
oyster beds outside of it used to being the operative term,
have we eaten too many oysters? There were there's a
walrus in a carpdor that came through and things just
got ugly. Right a second, do people eat New York
City oysters. It was more that it was more that
things got destroyed, well just destroyed and construction trawling stuff
out and things like that. But the oyster menu New
(14:27):
York City is finest oysters. You can really taste the brooklet.
I like New York City oysters before they were cool.
The conditions for hurricane formation are not everywhere. That's why
you don't see hurricanes all over the earth. We talked
about how in the equatorial region you have these converging winds.
(14:48):
That's one of the necessary features in order to have
hurricane formation. Another is that the water needs to be warm.
This this warm air and water vapor are key elements. Uh,
they are what fee eat into a hurricane's power. And
so you need water that's at least twenty seven degrees
celsius or about eight degrees fahrenheit in order for hurricanes
(15:08):
to actually form in the first place. This is why
we don't see hurricanes forming in like the northern Atlantic.
Oh yeah, this is why they happen in the around
the equator. Yeah. And as they move around, as they
start to encounter colder water or they hit land, then
you start to cut off the process that feeds these hurricanes.
That warm water vapor is no longer present, So the
(15:31):
hurricane begins to dissipate it's it's energy starts to where
you know, it's not being constantly refitted. Yeah, it just dies.
So the Hurricane Sandy that hit in New York, one
of the reasons why it was able to to be
such a powerful storm in the first place was that
the water temperatures around that time were abnormally high, high
(15:54):
enough so that the storm had not lost a significant
amount of power before it made landfall. It also was
what they called a hybrid storm. But that goes into
far more complex detail than I am prepared to talk
about on this podcast at any rate. That's the basic
rules of how a hurricane behaves. And that's like right now.
(16:14):
So now we have to transition into talking about what
about projecting forward? As we know that climate change is
a thing, we know that it is happening and will
continue to happen particular point. We can't really stop it.
We can't stop it. What we can do is mitigate
how bad it will be, right we can We can
do that by limiting greenhouse gas emissions for example, and
(16:37):
other means, and we can try to mitigate the potential
effects of climate change exactly by making preparations in the
places where it's most likely to have the Yeah, yeah,
because I mean there there's certain things of climate change
that are going to be a real issue for lots
of different people. In dry areas, it's likely to get
(16:58):
more dry. In areas that are of a tropical or
subtropical region, they might get much more rain than they
usually do. Uh, these are just general trends that we
may see. But what about hurricanes, Well, this is, like
Joe says, really complicated. Right, So pretty much everybody agrees
that climate change is going to do something the hurricane.
(17:22):
So they agree that it will change the conditions that
create hurricanes. But what's not exactly agreed upon is it
is exactly how they will change. Now, most of the
models that I have looked at have said that the
changes are going to include more intense hurricanes. Yeah, hurricanes
(17:43):
with stronger winds, greater sea surge, larger, they'll be um
affecting larger areas. And if we see a rise in
ocean temperature, we're likely also to see a greater ranging
of hurricanes because the conditions will be more appropriate for
(18:04):
a hurricane to feed itself in a broader area than
it used to be. It will suddenly be balmy enough
and say Scotland to make it happen. Not suddenly, but
but Nessie, Nessie might find herself having a bit of
a rough day. I know. I've read differing opinions about
whether the frequency of hurricanes is going to go up down. Yeah,
(18:27):
this is one of those things. And generally speaking, most models,
not all, but most models suggest that we are going
to see fewer hurricanes form, but the ones that form
will be worse, like they'll be stronger. Um, most models do,
not all of them. Uh. So we know that we
know that the temperature is going to affect hurricanes. We
(18:48):
know this change at sea level is really going to
affect hurricanes too, in the sense that it will affect
how they impact us. If sea levels continue to rise,
which we expect they will, Uh, then coastal cities that
are already maybe just a few feet above sea level
are going to be more prone to damage in the
case of any kind of storm, not just a hurricane,
(19:09):
but any sort of tropical depression or tropical storm can
cut create enough of a sea surge to cause massive
flooding in those areas, right, So if your city is,
you know, ten feet above sea level and see sea
levels rise five feet, that could still hurt you. Yeah,
you know. And and also you're going to start eroding
(19:29):
those those low coastal areas that help slow down hurricanes
in many places before they hit land. And even if
you've built barriers, if the sea level rises, the sea
level may raise rise above the barrier you built, in
which case there's not much of a help there. Uh So,
getting back to frequency, like what Joe was saying, we
do have these differing opinions, these differing models. I guess
(19:51):
I should say models, not opinions, because it's what the
computers are projecting. One expert in hurricanes, it's real bad
science to just have opinions. You know, I don't like
hurricane so I just don't think they're gonna happen anymore.
It's not going to really help. Dr Kerry Emmanuel from
m I T created a model that suggested climate change
would create more weak storms around the Category one to
(20:15):
two area and increase the intensity of stronger storms. So
in other words, his model, yeah, it's a double whammy.
It's it's both we get more storms and more of
them will be stronger. Uh, that is not great news. Now,
granted that's the one that's sort of it's almost of
(20:36):
a dissenting opinion than the other models. Right. The other
models do suggest that we're going to probably see fewer hurricanes.
One of the reasons is they predict more wind shear,
and as I said earlier, more wind shear would inhibit
the formation of storms. So the ones that do form
could be incredibly intense, but there would be fewer in number. Um.
(20:59):
So that one of the reasons. Another is that the
differences in temperature between the polar regions and the equatorial
regions help fuel some of the storms that then grow
into hurricanes. And if that difference is decreased, because the
polar regions are heating up, and we would expect the
polar regions to heat up more dramatically than equatorial, we
(21:20):
would think the equatorial region would remain more or less
the same temperature. It might increase a little bit, but
not at the level. The colar regions are the ones.
They're going to increase the most, like the most dramatic
change in the short term, short term being like a century.
Um it's a relative term, but that if we see
that difference decrease, that might mean that we see fewer
(21:41):
storms forming initially. So those are the ways that the
two models, and they're more than two, but those are
the ways different models disagree on what can happen. But
both appear to support the idea that the storms we
get are gonna be doozies. They're gonna be pretty powerful.
And we've been able to do some preliminary measurements but
(22:04):
nothing that is conclusive yet. So, for instance, we know
that ocean temperatures have increased slightly since nineteen eighty, by
like point three degrees celsius, So the temperature has gone up.
Now that predicts that hurricane wind strength should rise on
average about a not more in strength and speed really,
(22:24):
so one not faster than what they had been previous
in the nineteen eighty numbers on average. But how do
you measure how fast a hurricane? Well, you can do
it through lots of things like satellite imagery. You can
do it through you can actually send measurement tools that
if you wanted to do it with precision down to
one knot No, you cannot. The margin of error is
(22:47):
plus or minus five knots so the measurement here would
be within the range of error. So we cannot determine
with any accuracy whether or not the prediction has come
true because it hasn't been drastic enough for us to
be able to definitively say, all right, this is outside
the margin of error. We are sure that this is happening. Um.
(23:10):
So that means it's a little too early for us
to say through direct observation. But that being said, the
information we do have shows that hurricanes appear to be
strengthening faster than they have in the past. So maybe
even if they're not stronger than they were, they're getting
stronger faster. You mean, from the time of formation to
(23:31):
the time they hit hit like category three or category four,
it's taking less time for them to grow to those
levels than it used to. Uh. So it's ogitionally, the
hurricanes today are eating their wheedies, is what we're getting
at um And so uh it was found according to
NASA that uh, some researchers discovered that storms were attaining
category three wind speeds nearly nine hours faster than they
(23:55):
did back in nineteen eighty which is significant. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's every hour counts, especially when you're trying to prepare
a population for that kind of incoming storm, right, and
and and keep in mind also that we only are
able to predict potential pathways the storm will follow. We
know the general direction that they'll follow. But that means
(24:15):
if you've ever lived in a coastal area and you've
seen those projection paths, you see it's like a it's
like a triangle that starts from the storm and then
and then broadens out. It's a cone of anxiety. Really,
it's it's just horrifying, like like lying vaguely within that code,
going like, well, this could anything could happen. Really, Now,
if your city is dead center in the middle of
(24:36):
that cone, you've got a real good chance of being
hit by that hurricane, whether it's head on or by
the edge or whatever. Now, we've also seen that global
wind speeds have increased over the last twenty years by
five percent, So that also suggests that hurricanes may be
getting stronger faster, because wind plays such a big part
in hurricanes. But without the direct observation to back up
(24:59):
that that or that prediction, we can't say for sure.
And as good science dictates, you want to measure, you
want to be able to replicate. You want to make
sure that your observations in fact represent as close to
reality as we can possibly get. So it would be
irresponsible for us to say, yes, hurricanes have definitely gotten
(25:20):
stronger over the last twenty five years. It just the
data seems to be pointing us in that direction, but
we don't have the definitive answer yet. Now we may
also see stuff like the jet streams actually being affected,
so in other words, the massive UH currents. Essentially, this
this this pathway that tends to dictate which way hurricanes go.
(25:43):
That could change. It could slow down, which would mean
the hurricane would spend longer out in the warm areas
of the ocean, building up stronger and stronger before continuing
in to hit you know, land mass or colder water,
which means they could have even more energy than we've
ever calculated for as a result. So that's a possibility.
(26:03):
So this is this all sounds kind of scary. Uh,
You get scarier once you start to look at who's
at risk. Obviously, if you live in Nebraska, you're probably
not too worried about hurricanes. Well, you might be worried
about some other effects of climate change, such as maybe
drought or something like, right, and we and we don't.
We don't know how climate change might affect things like tornadoes,
(26:25):
for example. It may or may not, we don't know.
I think I was reading earlier today that there's no
evidence so far that climate change has an effect on tornadoes,
but that that was just one thing I read. It
could be disputed by others, right, it's it's it's one
of those things. Well, from one thing, we we don't
know what we don't know. And it may very well
be that climate change has no meaningful impact on the
(26:46):
number or intensity of tornadoes that we'll see. It's quite possible.
But we have seen some studies about who would most
likely be affected by hurricanes in a negative way. Not
just not just most likely to be hit by a hurricane,
but if a hurricane did hit, which cities would suffer
the most damage in a in a monetary sense. So
(27:11):
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or o e
c d crunched the numbers back in two thousand thirteen
to figure out which coastal cities are most at risk
due to rising sea levels and intense storms. Guang Shao,
which is a port city northwest of Hong Kong tap
the list, but there were other cities that were on
it like Miami, New York City, New Orleans, Mumbai, Nagoya, Tampa, Boston, Shinzhen,
(27:38):
and Osaka. We're all on that list. And this is
this is essentially saying, these are the cities that, if
they were hit by a hurricane, would suffer the most
damages monetarily, like, yeah, it's not um it's not measuring
the strength of hurricanes that could potentially hit there, just
the fact that if they do get hit kind of
it all. Yeah, exactly, it's they could have miss to lose.
(28:00):
It's like saying, you know, if this city were hit
by an earthquake, this is how much and and it
was an earthquake of a significant string, this is how
much damage would happen Because they don't prepare for earthquakes
structurally prepared, right exactly exactly. Yeah. So they also looked
at comparing the the expense of damages to the g
(28:22):
d P of these various cities, the gross domestic product
of these cities, which, by the way, if you want
to learn more about GDP, how stuff works as a
video about it, Yeah, you can go to brain Stuff
show dot com and find an excellent video that Jonathan hosted,
and did did you write that one? Joe? Joe? Well,
there you go. Yeah, and so two of them yeah
(28:42):
we we and and Lauren was there, so probably she is.
She is. She makes sure that I say the words
that Joe wrote because otherwise I go off script and
terrible things happened. So when we look at the comparison
of damages to g d P, the the list changes
up a little bit. Guang Shu is still top of
(29:03):
the list, but New Orleans is on there as well,
but there's also guayan Quild from Ecuador. I apologized, by
the way before mangling the pronunciation of these cities ho
Chi Minh City, um Abba, Johan jan Jing, Mumbai, cool
Now which is in Bangladesh, Palm Bang which is in Indonesia,
and shin Zhen. We're all at the top of that list.
(29:25):
So essentially, these are the cities that could least afford
this sort of disaster. And you know, Guang Show was
on the both lists, So that's that's rough. Um. Now,
the cities that are predicted to have the greatest increase
of risk of flooding are those that currently have a
low risk of flooding. And the reason for that is
(29:46):
these are cities that have not invested in infrastructure that
would be protective against flooding from sea search because traditionally
they haven't been in the pathway of hurricanes. But as
we've said, one of the consequences of this climate change
is that we're going to see more cities that traditionally
would not really be in the path of a hurricane
(30:07):
potentially find themselves smack dab in the middle of one.
So those cities included Alexandria in Egypt, Baron Kila in Colombia,
Naples in Italy, and Sapporo in Japan, and Center Domingo
in the Dominican Republic. So those are all cities that
could potentially suffer severe flooding, uh, largely because they are
(30:29):
unprepared for it. And you know, again, if you live
in a place where a natural disaster rarely, if ever occurs,
it doesn't seem to make any sense to prepare for it.
Right Like here in Atlanta, we do live not that
far from a fault line, but we rarely get an
earthquake that's even strong enough for us to feel like
(30:49):
earthquakes do happen but we almost never feel them. I
think there have been two that were, you know, of
a great enough magnitude to notice. Since I've lived in
Atlanta and that's been like twenty years. So it wouldn't
make sense for us to build everything in Atlanta to
withstand massive earthquakes. It just doesn't happen. Same sort of
thing for cities that traditionally have not been in the
(31:10):
path of hurricanes. Um we all. I've also looked at
some other lists. Accu weather actually looked at They looked
at it a different way. They looked at the cities
that are most likely to be affected by a hurricane
in any given hurricane season. They actually had it by
a percentage of how likely within a hurricane season any
of these individual cities would be hit and looking just
(31:32):
here in the US, just here in the U S
actually just here on the US and on the East coast.
So the top five were Miami and Key West, both
in Florida, Cape Hatteras which is in North Carolina, Tampa
back in Florida, and New Orleans. So these would be
the places that statistically are most likely to be hit
by hurricanes simply because of the path that hurricanes currently
(31:53):
take um So, if you look at those two lists
with Miami being at risk, it's been identified as being
at risk for lots and lots of damage. Like they
they've not been hit by a massive hurricane in a while,
but that's that's a warning sign because they're also one
of the more likely cities to be hit. So those
two in combination, plus rising sea levels and increased hurricane intensity,
(32:17):
tell you that the people of Miami have some big
concerns about this. Um So, obviously it's time to start
thinking about ways to prepare and solutions. Yeah, and and
sadly there are no easy answers. Well, I've got one.
I think it's pretty good. Okay, Yeah, I think we're
we're as a country, pretty good at claiming we're going
(32:39):
to build a wall. So I think we should build
a wall along the southern and eastern coast of the
United States that stretches up to the top of the atmosphere,
and then that would just block top of the atmosphere,
and that would just block any incoming storm. The shade
from that would be phenomenal. Uh. Yeah, that's not likely
(32:59):
to happen because it I can't imagine it being physically
possible for us to build a structure of such height.
Where's your can do attitude joke? And they can don't
for that one. The plus, obviously there'd be way too
many problems with that, clearly. I mean, first of all,
just redirecting all the flights. Look, if I'm gonna go
to Mexico, I don't want my flight to Atlanta to
have to take me all the way through like Oregon,
(33:20):
so I can get around this wall. Um. The the
sea walls are something that that cities do build in
order to protect against sea surge and things like that.
Massive waves of sea barriers are are a known UH
solution to these problems, but they are temporary solutions, particularly
in the era of sea levels on the rise. Yeah,
(33:43):
So imagine you're in a coastal city and you're in
one of these danger zones where the sea levels are
expected to come up to where they might be sloshing
in on your town, and the local solution is, well,
we're going to build some sea walls. Doesn't That doesn't
keep the water from slashing up on your town, right,
That's not very reassuring. No, the sea walls are great
(34:06):
for protecting against sea surges. If the sea level itself
is is, you know, not going to be on the rise.
It sounds like a temporary solution. Is a temporary solution.
It's one of the ones that New York City when, uh,
in the wake of Sandy, they were looking at ways
to prepare in case this should ever happen again, and
sea walls were one of the things they were talking about.
(34:28):
But a lot of experts were saying, you know, guys,
this is at best a temporary solution that will just
stave off any massive disaster for the short term, but
it's not a long term fix. And if that means
that we procrastinate, that we don't adopt tougher but more
realistic solutions, then we're just inviting disaster further down the line. Well,
(34:54):
so what's a what's a realistic solution for something like this?
I mean, we can't none of our Babba yaga. We
can't just like put chicken legs on our hut and
raise it up in case of danger. That's an excellence.
I'm so glad you made that reference. Babba yaga. Uh. Well,
elevating buildings is one of the ones. One of the
things that people have suggested. Now granted, that does not
(35:16):
work in a super dense urban environment like New York City, Right,
you can't expect to suddenly be able to raise everything up.
Like even if you were to say, all, right, here's
the deal, all of your front street entrances are now
going to be a third floor basement, and we're going
to move all the entrances up to We're gonna go
(35:37):
up several floors. That's gonna be your front door, and
we're gonna build up from there so that we have
effectively grown higher than what the sea level is. That
is maybe a solution for some communities, but not for
a place like New York City, where you've got millions
and millions of people who would be displaced by that
kind of action. But but it mostly refers to like
making sure you have things like park space and and
(36:00):
other things that are right along the coastline as opposed
to housing, because the coastline is the obviously going to
be the first place affected by sea surge. Uh, you know,
it's these are tough things where it requires massive redesign
and and relocation. Relocation is a the other big possible solution.
(36:20):
It's another tough one. They the scientist I was reading
referred to it as managed retreat. Yeah, to say like wonderful, uh,
wonderful euphemism. Well, the point was I said, like, this
is not going to change, it's going to continue, it's
going to get worse. And and so your beautiful beach
front property is not going to be a plus. No,
(36:43):
it's gonna be it's gonna be beyond beach property at
that point, it's gonna be ocean property. Uh, not ocean front,
but in the ocean. And so it's one of those
deals where you know, you have to really seriously look
at the consequences and say, we are going at some
point we're going to have to move people out of here.
(37:04):
We can't perpetually keep everyone here. It's just not possible.
It's not a realism. We gotta figure out another another solution.
So what we have to do now is think about
what that solution is so that when it gets closer
to the time when people have to move, they actually
do have a place to move to. It doesn't do
us any good to say, well, we'll figure that out
(37:26):
when it comes, because then they'll just have another chaotic
mess on our hands. So the the um the suggestions
I've seen have been start putting into place a plan
for managed retreat, perhaps even going so far as to
create a system in which people who own a house
(37:46):
will be guaranteed a location in this new place like
that is they will have they will still have a
home because the land that they owned will now be
transferred to a different spot. But that's I mean, think
about it, millions of people. That is not an easy
thing to manage. Look at any population density map. Where
(38:14):
where the most people gathered there along coastlines? Yeah, yeah,
I mean you know it's it's it's it's where trade happens.
It's where gentler weather traditionally has happened. Oops. Yeah, well,
and and you know there's there's just one of those
things like that. It's it's people are drawn to the ocean.
(38:37):
It's pretty. It is pretty. I mean I know that
when I go on vacation to any ocean area, I
want to have a house that has ocean views. Right.
I don't want to be one block back and I
can hear it, but I can't see stuck facing. Yeah,
I don't want that. So I mean I get it.
And and and I live in a I happen to
live in a city where I have the luxury of
(38:58):
not having to worry about as early as everyone else does. Uh,
not to say that Atlanta would be completely immune. I
mean we live on a piedmont. We're not in the
mountains yet, so um, if the sea levels rose truly dramatically,
it could get to the point where Atlanta would become
a coastal city and imagine that. But yeah, that's another
(39:21):
thing to to worry about. That the solutions that you
pick may not be long term. Even in that case,
you would have to really look at the elevation of
land and how far away from sea level is it
and uh, you know, would it be affected by that
same rise and sea level. I think the solution is
we just all moved to the Himalayas it's called the
(39:41):
water world contingency. Yeah. Yeah. And and then on top
of that, of course, you have to start thinking about
the the other infrastructure, not just the buildings, but the
but the sewer systems, the electrical systems. Yeah. We saw
this in New York City as well, the massive problems
they had with their power grid and the subway systems.
That we have to make sure that that infrastructure can
(40:03):
withstand something like a massive flooding. Uh and you know,
we've probably talked about it more on tech stuff than
here on forward thinking. But the power grid, particularly in
the United States, is very much a patchwork sort of thing,
and some of that patchwork dates back to the dawn
of the electricity age. So you know, yeah, an upgrade
(40:23):
is sorely needed. It's just one of those things that
when you get it in place and it works, it's
hard to justify the expense of changing it. Yeah, it's like, well,
this is close enough for right now. So it's it's
meeting our needs and yeah, it's stuff breaks, but we
can fix it pretty fast. Well, yeah, we can fix
it pretty fast under normal conditions, but not in the
wake of a hurricane necessarily. So this has been, you know,
(40:47):
really interesting to look into. It's one of those things
that I still think we have the complete capability to
make these decisions and make them in a way that
has the least possible negative impact, but only if we
start thinking about it earlier rather than later. The longer
we hold off on coming up with viable solutions for
(41:08):
people who live in these these cities that are at risk,
the harder it's going to be when that time comes
when we get to a point where we have to
make the call of all right, that's it Miami, that's
it for Miami. You know, we've got to move everybody
from there. So kind of the opposite of Miami. Yeah, yeah,
(41:31):
you know means I got to rethink where I'm retiring.
So there's that. But anyway, this has been kind of
a you know, a darker episode in many ways, but
it's one that is necessary. I think one of those
where you know, one it's necessary for us to maintain
optimism and to to apply that to solutions so that
(41:54):
we get you know, not denialism, not to say, optimisms
to the point where we don't accept what's happening it.
But yeah, but before we can come up with solutions
for this kind of thing, we have to we have
to be thinking about it. We have to be aware
of it exactly and not let it overwhelm us, but
rather have it inspire us to innovate in a way
that that that solves a problem or creates a solution
(42:16):
that is going to be the least negative. If you
are a true cynic, I'm an optimist. I'd like to
think that we could come up with a really super
cool way of addressing this. Um, I just think that
we have to start thinking on it now. We can't wait.
I think robotic chicken legs on all of our buildings
apaches that I get a big thumbs up from the way. Yeah,
(42:37):
and if you know, I've always I've always enjoyed the swamp,
So I think having a swamp house that can move
around and the swamp is pretty awesome. Now I think
where you're just in a Muzaki film. Yeah, probably that's okay.
I'm alright with that. Well, guys, if you have any
suggestions for future topics that we can tackle here on
Forward Thinking, I recommend you write us and let us know.
(42:59):
The email addresses f W Thinking at how Stuff Works
dot com, or you can drop us a line on Twitter,
Google Plus or Facebook. At Twitter and Google Plus, we
are f W Thinking. You can search the term f
W Thinking and Facebook. Our page will pop up. You
can leave us a message on that page and we
will read it and we look forward to hearing from you,
(43:19):
and we will talk to you again. Releasing for more
on this topic and the future of technology. This is
Forward Sinking dot com h brought to you by Toyota.
(43:44):
Let's go places
Fw:Thinking News
Hosts And Creators
Jonathan Strickland
Joe McCormick
Lauren Vogelbaum
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