[ExI] et tu, nova?

[spike at rainier66.com]

NOVA is usually a carefully-researched science program, which I like.  But I
noticed they worded this program in such a way to make Hurricane Ian sound
like it was an extraordinarily large storm.  But it wasn't.  It was a large
storm at the time it happened to make landfall, and it happened to make
landfall right where there were a lot of expensive homes, cars, boats and
planes to destroy, which is why Ian, the second biggest storm this season,
cost 50 billion in damage, while the biggest storm of 2022, Fiona, almost
half again bigger than Ian, cost less than 3 billion in damage.  Fiona did
its thing out at sea.  Ian happened to hit land right where the rich and
famous live.

 

Check out NOVA's wording for their program.  Ian was certainly one of the
most destructive storms to hit land in the USA, but the storm itself was not
extraordinarily powerful.  It was a category 4 at its peak, which happened
right as it made landfall.  But Fiona was a category 4 as well, and there
are category 5 hurricanes which happen on average more often than every
other year.

 

Note the wording:

 

 

The 2022 season was off to a quiet start until a number of storms emerged in
September, including Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful and destructive
storms to ever make landfall in the U.S. Ian brought storm surge of up to 15
feet in some parts of Florida. Water is generally the deadliest component of
a hurricane, and storm surge is responsible for nearly half of all hurricane
deaths. 
 
Part of Florida's Gulf Coast is particularly vulnerable to storm surge
because of its geography and proximity to warm tropical water. "Hurricanes
derive their energy from warm ocean water," James Marshall Shepherd,
director of the atmospheric sciences program at the University of Georgia,
told NOVA. Not only are storm surges highly dangerous and unpredictable,
they are likely to intensify with climate change. 
 
Learn how storm surge forms and why it's so dangerous:  NOVA.



It appears that NOVA wants to blame global warming for people building
expensive stuff where Ian happened to land.  I would blame the people
building expensive stuff right down at sea level.

 

spike

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20221014/effcf733/attachment.htm>