AND IF THE SEA IS BOILING HOT

On the night in 2005 that Hurricane Katrina entered the Gulf of Mexico, I called editors Erich Eichman and Paul Gigot at The Wall Street Journal, where I had earlier covered 2004's lethal Indonesian tsunami, and would later review 2005's catastrophic Karakorum earthquake, to pitch a piece on the advancing hurricane. 

I left a message warning things looked grim, for the Gulf was hot as a bathtub, and hurricanes being heat engines, New Orleans "could go glug-glug" in Thermodynamically Correct fashion if Katrina revved up crossing all that warm water. My call went unanswered.

36 hours later, much of The Big Easy was under water, so now, 13 years later, I have a duty to report that the science phobia of the WSJ Ed Board may return to haunt it tomorrow night.

The WSJ's long string of  op-eds contradicting the mere science of climate change can't change the satellite maps  of sea surface temperature that show a continuous swathe of warmth from  the Virginia capes to Africa. 

FIGURE 1. A SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE ANOMALY OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS

It doesn't matter which way Hurricane Florence turns- it's spinning in a sea of ~ 85 F ( 29 degrees C)  hot water  more than a thousand miles across, extending up the East Coast to the bight of New York, and clear on acros the Atlantic to the Azores, setting the stage for a textbook disaster, or two, or three, as the storms already following in Florence's wake will feed on the same warm water. 

follow up:
As of 10 PM EDT seas SE of Cape Fear are running 48 feet, with rogue waves to 80, and the Navy has put capital ships to sea from Newport News to outrun or ride out the storm.