Summer is my favorite holiday.
SURF:
Not the biggest surf this week- and the OC got most of the lion's share- but the water was 73, the sun was out early, and there were waves most everywhere if you planned accordingly. Tomorrow is more of the same as we have some small SW swell and a little bump of dying Hurricane Celia S swell. Look for waist high+ surf in far north county SD and chest high sets in the OC.
FORECAST:
Models last week had a big storm forming off Antarctica (as well as big hurricanes off Baja) but they've turned out to be much tamer than anticipated. Regardless, we have more surf coming by Tuesday.
Forecast charts also show our 5th named hurricane forming this weekend (Estelle) which should mix in some waist high waves. After that the tropics and southern hemisphere take a breather and we may not get significant surf until the end of the month again. So until then, get on it. Make sure to keep up to date on the developing surf at Twitter/North County Surf.
WEATHER:
Great summer weather again this weekend once the low clouds burn off. Look for temps in the mid-70's and normal sea breezes. High pressure sets up early next week and we'll be close to 80 by Thursday. Long range models show a return of 'tropical' monsoon clouds headed to our mountains/deserts late next weekend but I don't think they'll end up here at the coast. Definitely a 180 from last summer's tropical parade in our skies.
BEST BET:
Should be a fun weekend even though it won't be big. Better waves and great weather look to be coming next Wednesday with a good southern hemi swell and warm temps at the beach (in AND out of the water).
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
I’ve reported in the past that as the earth warms due to greenhouse gases, hurricanes will grow in strength and frequency. But it hasn’t hit us with a one two punch yet (last summer was due to El Nino of course). So what gives?
Over the past century, tiny airborne particles called aerosols, which cool the climate by absorbing and reflecting sunlight, largely cancelled out the effects of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions when it came to tropical storm intensity, according to a new scientific review paper published this week in the journal Science. That might sound like a good thing, but many of those particles came from the burning of fossil fuels and wood, and contributed to acid rain, smog and lung damage. As vehicles and power plants added filters and scrubbers to reduce their impact on human health, levels of human-made aerosols in the atmosphere began to decline. At the same time, greenhouse gas concentrations continued to rise.
That compensating effect won't continue if greenhouse gas warming keeps increasing, the scientists write. Using model simulations, they provide new calculations of the cancelling effects of aerosols and greenhouse gases on tropical cyclones worldwide. They also take a closer look at the still-developing understanding of how climate change will affect tropical cyclones, also known regionally as typhoons or hurricanes.
"The fact that global warming's fingerprints don't yet jump out at us when we look at hurricanes isn't surprising -- it's what current science tells us we should expect," said lead author Adam Sobel, a professor at Columbia University. "The same science tells us that those fingerprints will show up eventually in more ultra-powerful storms."
The scientists examined a wide range of published analyses of tropical cyclone data and computer modeling, looking specifically at potential intensity, which predicts the maximum intensity that tropical cyclones could reach in a given environment. Their new global calculations of the cancelling effect follow a 2015 study led by Lamont's Mingfang Ting, with Suzana Camargo, also a coauthor on the new paper, that showed similar effects over the North Atlantic, where hurricanes that make landfall in the United States form.
Many factors contribute to a tropical cyclone's intensity. At the most basic, the storm's convective strength -- the boiling motion of air rising from the ocean surface to the atmosphere -- depends on the temperature difference between the surface ocean and the upper atmosphere. Computer models that simulate the physics of tropical cyclones suggest that this difference should increase as the climate and sea surface temperatures warm, and that tropical storm strength should increase with it.
Less well understood is how climate change should influence the number of tropical cyclones that form each year. Computer models now indicate that while the total number of cyclones should decline in a warming climate, more intense, highly destructive storms like Super Typhoon Nepartak are likely to become more common.
We have seen harbingers of that change in recent years: Typhoon Haiyan, also known as Yolanda, killed more than 6,300 people as it devastated parts of the Philippines as a Category 5 storm in 2013. Last year, Hurricane Patricia became the second most-intense tropical cyclone on record when its sustained winds reached 215 mph before weakening to hit Mexico with winds still powerful at 150 mph.
The scientists' review finds that the largest increases in tropical cyclone potential intensity are expected to be at the margins of the tropics, particularly in the Atlantic and Pacific. The amount of rain that tropical storms bring is also expected to increase as the planet warms, due to increasing water vapor; and coastal flooding from storm surges that accompany tropical storms are expected to become more of a problem as sea levels rise. The scientists also describe a shift in tropical cyclone tracks toward the margins of the tropics, noting that it is unclear if the shift is a response to warming. Simulations for the western North Pacific suggest that it is, at least in part.
Two factors make it difficult to detect greenhouse gas-related trends in tropical cyclone intensity, as the authors explain.
One is the influence of aerosols. Model calculations indicate that aerosols have about twice the effect of greenhouse gases on a tropical cyclone's potential intensity. So while greenhouse gas levels have been greater than aerosol levels for many decades in terms of absolute magnitude -- which is why the planet has warmed by about 1.5?F since the Industrial Revolution -- they have only recently surpassed the cooling effect of aerosols in terms of their influence on tropical cyclone intensity.
The other challenge is natural variability. Tropical cyclones are relatively rare -- the world averages around 90 per year -- and that number fluctuates from year to year and decade to decade, due in large part to natural causes. It is statistically difficult to detect long-term trends within that large natural variability, Sobel said. Satellite records that can monitor tropical storms worldwide also only go back to the 1970s.
Scientists at Lamont, including Sobel, Camargo and coauthors Allison Wing and Chia-Ying Lee, are using both observations and computer models to expand understanding of how tropical cyclone behavior has changed and the physical mechanisms by which climate affects extreme weather. Among other projects, they are developing a tropical cyclone risk model that can be used in urban planning that incorporates climate factors in determining the probability of a tropical cyclone making landfall at a given location.
PIC OF THE WEEK:
Took this pic from my backyard last week. My wife wishes we never bought this place- I never get any yard work done.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Untouchable Like Elliott Ness
Olympic Hopeful
Punk 'Cause I Wore My Springsuit In The Fall
