Blogs / The Intersection

Earl is traveling northward, but not weakening. The National Hurricane Center now puts the storm’s strength at 125 knot maximum sustained winds–well into the Category 4 range. 135 knots is the cutoff for Category 5. Earl is not currently forecast to get any stronger, but a few forecasts ago it wasn’t expected to get up to 125 knots, either.

The storm will pass the Outer Banks late tonight and, fortunately, it seems very likely that its strongest parts will remain offshore. The next evening, Massachusetts may not fare as well–but Earl will surely be weaker by then. Here’s the latest forecast track:

Earl is a Category 4 storm again, and the National Hurricane Center has issued watches and warnings up and down the mid-Atlantic coast.

As Eric Berger explains, this doesn’t mean that Earl is currently forecast to actually make a direct landfall on the East Coast. It’s just that in light of the uncertainties, we can’t completely rule it out, and even without a direct landfall, a storm this strong could cause some damage.

Earl is big, powerful, and even capable of some further strengthening over very, very warm waters.

As for the D.C. area, it doesn’t look like we have anything serious to worry about yet.

I’m delighted to announce a Congressional briefing I’ll be moderating in three weeks that’s been co-organized by Discover Magazine and L’Oréal USA on a topic I care deeply about: Women in Science

For Women in Science: 21st Century Policy & Politics will explore issues and opportunities for the advancement of women in science, as well as the public policies that work to address them. Our panel is sponsored by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) will take place Sept. 23 on Capitol Hill. Look at the speakers:

• Russlynn Ali, Assistant Secretary, Office of Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education
• Dr. Shirley Malcom, Head of Education and Human Resources, American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• Pr. Joan Steitz, Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University
• Pr. Sara Seager, Ellen Swallow Richards, Professor of Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Sheril Kirshenbaum, Research Associate at University of Texas at Austin’s Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy, Author, and Blogger for Discovermagazine.com (Moderator)

We’ll discuss state and federal public policies that may be promoting or hindering the advancement of female scientists, Title IX and how it has influenced women pursuing science education and careers, and gender diversity in the workplace. We will also explore opportunities for government, the private sector and academia to address the barriers facing women in scientific disciplines.

You can bet I’ll have a lot more to say as the date approaches and will share further details soon. In the mean time, I encourage those interested in the DC area to mark your calendars for this timely event!

Last April I participated in a panel at MIT with The New Yorker’s Michael Specter (the author of Denialism; on Point of Inquiry here), The Washington Post’s Shankar Vedantam, and the New America Foundation’s Shannon Brownlee. We were discussing why America has such problems with science–and whether we can ever be more rational. Well, the video’s now up, I see, so I thought I’d link and paste it in–I thought it was a pretty good discussion:

Good news: Earl stopped strengthening and is apparently going through an eyewall replacement cycle. It remains a Category 4 storm, and may restrengthen again, but Category 5 may not be in the cards.

Bad news: The hurricane center pushed the forecast track a little to the west again. In fact, the center says that “A HURRICANE WATCH WILL LIKELY BE REQUIRED FOR A PORTION OF THE MID-ATLANTIC COAST LATER TODAY.” But we still don’t know at all whether Earl will actually strike land, brush it, or remain entirely out in the open ocean.

Clearly, Earl is going to keep us guessing.

Recently, for Blue Ridge Press, I did a commentary piece about geoengineering, which I understand has now appeared in smaller papers all across the country, including this one, the Philly Tribune.

The folks at Blue Ridge are very happy about how widely this column has circulated, especially given this line from the piece:

Unfortunately, you’ve probably never heard of “geoengineering.” Less than 1 percent of Americans currently know what it is, according to a recent poll by the Yale Project on Climate Change.

Perhaps I changed that the tiniest bit with the column (though I can hardly say even 1 percent of Americans read it).

In any event, the point of the piece is to highlight the difference between the lack of public awareness about geoengineering and the ferment among scientists:

The utter lack of public awareness sharply contrasts with what’s happening in the expert arena, where talk of geoengineering the planet has become common. Top scientific organizations like the British Royal Society and the American Meteorological Society have suggested that scientists should at least study the possibility of interfering with the climate system, while Russian scientists have begun small-scale geoengineering field trials.

That’s right — this thing you’ve never heard of could soon be on a fast track to happening.

As far as raising awareness, I told readers that if they wanted more info, go read the twin books by Eli Kintisch and Jeff Goodell–which really deserve a much broader audience.

The time may yet come when they get it.

I did not know, when I recorded the last Point of Inquiry with Richard Wrangham, that his excellent book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human was soon to be out in paperback.

Otherwise I certainly would have flagged that, because it’s really one of the best pieces of popular science writing that I’ve come across in years.

If you haven’t gotten a copy already you should check it out. (And I swear, I’m not just saying this cause we have the same publisher, Basic Books.)

Meanwhile, I’ve been focusing on Hurricane Earl, but soon I want to blog some of the best parts of the recent show–particularly where Wrangham tells me why sushi can still make you fat (even though it’s raw), and why men who are married tend to put on a lot of poundage.

…and Category 5 may not be out of the cards.

At right is the latest image of the storm, featuring the pinhole eye often seen when a hurricane is rapidly intensifying, as Earl has today.

Meanwhile, Earl now has a little sister, Fiona, who is following him across the Atlantic.

Earl has lashed Puerto Rico today with its rainbands, and that may be the treatment the U.S. coast also gets if Earl stays offshore.

Either way, we have to expect a very intense hurricane for the next few days. Eric Berger has more on the chances of Earl hitting the East Coast, and the dilemma the storm presents for emergency planners.

Do you evacuate parts of North Carolina? Earl isn’t certain to hit land at all; the odds for the moment seem against it. But it could certainly happen. And if you don’t evacuate, and Earl hits as a major hurricane….

We’ve really got to watch this one. Earl is currently exploding in intensity, and as Jeff Masters writes:

Ocean temperatures are a near-record 30°C, and very warm waters extend to great depth, resulting in a total ocean heat content highly favorable for rapid intensification. These nearly ideal conditions for intensification should bring Earl to Category 4 strength by Tuesday morning, and Category 5 is not out of the question. Earl should be able to maintain major hurricane status through Thursday, when it will make its closest approach to North Carolina. Sea surface temperatures are very warm, 29°C, along the U.S. East Coast, and wind shear is expected to remain low through Thursday. By Friday, when Earl will be making its closest approach to New England, wind shear will rise to a high 20 – 30 knots and ocean temperatures will plunge to 20°C, resulting in considerable weakening. Earl will still probably be a Category 2 hurricane on Friday, when it could potentially make landfall in Massachusetts or Nova Scotia, Canada.

I’ll keep blogging the storm; check out Masters, Eric Berger, and the National Hurricane Center for more.

Not good news this morning, as the National Hurricane Center felt the need to shift the forecast track for Hurricane Earl to the west–e.g., closer to the U.S. east coast.

Earl is now a 95 knot Category 2 hurricane, and given how much it has strengthened in the past 24 hours, seems on course towards Category 3 or 4 today.

Here’s what the forecasters say:

GIVEN THE LARGE SHIFT IN THE MODELS…THE OFFICIAL FORECAST HAS BEEN ADJUSTED TO THE LEFT…OR WEST…BUT STILL LIES ON THE EASTERN EDGE OF THE GUIDANCE SUITE.

THIS IS A GOOD TIME TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT NHC AVERAGE TRACK FORECAST ERRORS ARE 200 TO 300 MILES AT DAYS 4 AND 5. GIVEN THIS UNCERTAINTY…IT IS TOO SOON TO DETERMINE WHAT…IF ANY…PARTS OF THE U.S. EAST COAST MIGHT SEE DIRECT IMPACTS FROM EARL LATER THIS WEEK.

In other words–we don’t want to unreasonably scare you… Read the rest of this entry »