Global Warming Is Causing Tornado Onslaughts

Rhykker

Level 16 Scallywag
Feb 28, 2010
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Global Warming Is Causing Tornado Onslaughts



Global warming may be responsible for the increasing rate at which tornadoes are arriving in waves.

Recent examples of extreme weather - and other phenomena, such as global warming [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136207-Giant-Mystery-Hole-Opens-in-Siberian-Region-Named-End-of-the-World-Update] may be causing an increase in the rate at which tornadoes arrive in clusters.

"Although the climate does not appear to be making tornadoes more frequent, when they come, they come in bunches," says James Elsner of Florida State University in Tallahassee, who examined 60 years of tornado statistics. "So you'll see fewer days in which you're threatened by tornadoes, but when you are, the threat will be greater."

Before 1980, there were only three or four days per year during which 16 or more tornadoes [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/galleryoftheday/11538-8-Historical-Pictures-of-Deadly-Tornados] struck. But since 2000, there have been seven such days per year, on average. Before 1990, there were no days when 32 or more tornadoes struck the US. But every year since 2001 has had at least one such day, and in 2011 there were six.

"Elsner's analysis reaches the same conclusion as mine," says Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. In 2012, he presented an analysis [https://ams.confex.com/ams/26SLS/flvgateway.cgi/id/22941?recordingid=22941] that showed that over the past 30 years, the average number of tornadoes per year has remained consistent, but the average number of days during which a tornado occurs has decreased. In other words, the tornadoes are showing an increasing tend to cluster.

"We've seen increasing variability in tornado occurrence over the past 10 to 20 years, but the question is whether it's associated with warming," says Brooks.

According to Elsner, the link to climate change makes sense. Tornadoes require a mix of cold and warm air, and global warming is making cold air scarcer. Because of this, the tornadoes occur more rarely - but when they do occur, the extra heat creates ideal conditions for tornadoes to proliferate.

"When you do have cold air aloft, the atmosphere goes crazy," says Elsner.

A group of crows is called a murder; a group of rhinoceroses is called a crash; a group of mosquitoes is called a scourge... What do we call a group of tornadoes? A disaster?

Source: New Scientist [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26028-global-warming-may-be-to-blame-for-tornado-onslaughts.html#.U-bq9PldV8G]

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FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
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Rhykker said:
What do we call a group of tornadoes? A disaster?
A single tornado may be considered a natural disaster, in that it can cause death and destruction all on its own. A group of them is still a disaster, but we can go as far as calamity for the sake of conversation. Incidentally, I wouldn't thought ANY large group of insects was called anything but a plague, and I didn't know the rhinos were called a crash.

OT: The funny thing is...it shouldn't be all a surprise, really, that a change in the air can make it more conducive to tornado formation, when it happens that is. Really, the warm air off of a factory on a cold day should do the same thing, should it not? It's nature in motion. ALOT of motion. I am curious, though. If the air is actually negating formation until these circumstances, are we having any more or less - give or take - than is normal, or is it all just getting bunched up?
 

Maxtro

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Feb 13, 2011
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Thank God I live in California.

The only natural disaster we have over here are earthquakes, and it's been a long time since an real damage was caused by one.
 

Atmos Duality

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Mar 3, 2010
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Tornadoes require a mix of cold and warm air, and global warming is making cold air scarcer.
This line always cracks me up, because literally ALL significant weather occurs due to some form of mixing; especially severe weather and anything that produces precipitation. It's bit like saying "Fire occurs when there's something to burn."

As someone who studies meteorology as a profession, I could take jabs at the particular wording here.
Namely the silliness of saying that Global Warming, ie, changing the AVERAGE temperatures world wide, would somehow change relative differences. But it would be more petty than useful.
("hot" and "cold" are relative terms and thermal gradients drive weather. To actually make cold air more scarce, you need to reduce the global temperature variance.)

So...useful stuff.

As for tornadoes and event clustering...well, there's a mouthful I could say on the matter of front-loading even more thermal energy into the atmosphere (it should increase CAPE -AND- CIN in the lower atmosphere; specifically well below the boundary layer, for the very few of you reading who may know what those terms mean).

But it's very late where I'm at and I should be asleep. So I'll pass and just read through the actual document when I'm lucid.

So to keep it simple and short: It's like pulling back on a catapult some more; it gets harder to do the more you try to pull back, but it produces more potential energy, so when it goes, it goes BIG.

(google "Loaded Gun sounding" if you're genuinely interested. Come to think of it, checking the frequency of those types of soundings historically against the frequency of tornado outbreaks might be something worth looking into. Hmmm....)
 

SecondPrize

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Mar 12, 2012
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Maxtro said:
Thank God I live in California.

The only natural disaster we have over here are earthquakes, and it's been a long time since an real damage was caused by one.
Don't want to harsh your buzz, but think of it in terms of geological time.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

I never asked for this
Sep 8, 2011
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I just love how the country that has the most anti-climate change denier idiots is also the one that will suffer its consequences most directly.
 

Ten Foot Bunny

I'm more of a dishwasher girl
Mar 19, 2014
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Rhykker said:
What do we call a group of tornadoes? A disaster?
No, I believe the scientific term for a group of tornadoes is an Ohshit.

Seriously though, it's been sad to see an increase in tornado-caused devastation these past few years. I'm lucky in that, though I live in a state where the eastern third is racked by near-daily severe storms, I'm on the infinitely safer edge of that boundary. Here at the base of the Rockies, the clouds are still too high and too ill-formed to spawn tornadoes. But travel a mere 10 to 15 miles east of me, and all hell can break loose in an instant.
 

kanetsb

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No worries, it'll probably blow over... along with the ebola epidemic - nothing to see here. ;)
 

NeoAC

Zombie Nation #LetsRise
Jun 9, 2008
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Well following recent trends, we call a group of them a tornado-nado.
 

Dark Knifer

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May 12, 2009
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Even here in Australia we are getting the odd tornado now and then and that hasn't happened anytime recently.

To be fair they aren't anywhere near the city destroying kind but worth noting.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Adam Jensen said:
I just love how the country that has the most anti-climate change denier idiots is also the one that will suffer its consequences most directly.
If only tornadoes were limited to "climate skeptics."
 

Ten Foot Bunny

I'm more of a dishwasher girl
Mar 19, 2014
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Zachary Amaranth said:
I thought that was the technical term for a Sharknado.
Not if you live over a mile above sea level. ;) We can outrun sharks because, just like visiting humans, they have to relearn how to breathe in our oxygen-starved atmosphere before they can move faster than a slug. That gives our dental surgeons plenty of time to snazz up the sharks with beautiful new smiles.


'Tis a fact of life, deary! lol
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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Ten Foot Bunny said:
Not if you live over a mile above sea level. ;) We can outrun sharks because, just like visiting humans, they have to relearn how to breathe in our oxygen-starved atmosphere before they can move faster than a slug. That gives our dental surgeons plenty of time to snazz up the sharks with beautiful new smiles.


'Tis a fact of life, deary! lol
That's ridiculous! Sharks don't breathe! The subsist on the terror they generate!
 

Atmos Duality

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Queen Michael said:
I say we should call the groups "a hippopotamus of tornadoes."
We just call it an "outbreak" when there's more than 20 tornadoes in a given system.
Though I don't think anyone in the weather service would object to a catchier name. (I wouldn't!)
 

Kieve

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Jan 4, 2011
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Rhykker said:
What do we call a group of tornadoes? A disaster?
A bunch of twisters pointlessly wrecking everything in they're path? That's easy!
kanetsb said:
No worries, it'll probably blow over...
That is an awful pun. Now you're making me miss DVS_BSTRD's posts.
 

Saucycarpdog

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Sep 30, 2009
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So should we come up with a new name for tornado alley then?

Tornado orgy seems more appropriate.
 

FogHornG36

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Jan 29, 2011
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I thought we went over this already about how people care less and less about climate change, and that it is brought up too much, i know i don't give a shit about it. I know i don't care, i can't do anything about it, so why worry.
 

Roxas1359

Burn, Burn it All!
Aug 8, 2009
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Maxtro said:
Thank God I live in California.

The only natural disaster we have over here are earthquakes, and it's been a long time since an real damage was caused by one.
Never forget the Easter one a few years back. My house is on a hill so it shook the entire place like crazy. Luckily no one was hurt, but there were casualties on my gaming front. Some of my PS1, Dreamcast, and Saturn jewel cases got broken because of it. Still need to replace the Saturn ones, but that's proving to be harder than I thought it would be.
Although just so you know, we may get some of the residual stuff from the hurricanes heading towards Hawaii right now. I know I will, since I'm in Southern California, where the stupid humidity is killing me.