The hosts of "The View" bid adieu to President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump on the day before they'll leave the White House.
Tuesday's episode aired about 24 hours before the couple will depart Washington, D.C., to avoid President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, and the co-hosts were glad to see him go.
"Look, D.C. -- it's not an exaggeration to say it looks like a war zone right now," said co-host Meghan McCain. "I mean, this might as well be Baghdad, more U.S. troops present here than Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria combined. Everyone's definition of making America great, I don't know who they are. President Trump is leaving office with the lowest approval ratings of any modern president in history, worse than President Nixon or President Carter, currently at 29 percent. Carter was at 33 percent when he left."
"By all accounts, he's leaving as a failure in a lot of ways despite the amount of policies he's enacted that I thought were good and productive, but ultimately, I think, historically we'll look back at this administration with a deeply harsh eye," McCain added. "I just think of some words that my dad used to say, 'God may have mercy on his soul, but I don't know if the American public will,' because the way we're leaving right now and the tenor that it's going, I guess can we hope for the future. Leaving America and particularly our beautiful capital that is symbolic of the blessings of democracy and a pinnacle for, you know, as Ronald Reagan said, shining city on top of the hill that was once an inspiration for the rest of the world to leave it looking like a war zone will be his legacy."
Co-host Joy Behar was especially glad to see Melania Trump leave.
"I will miss these two like I miss PMS and hot flashes," Behar said. "Okay, good-bye, don't let the door hit you. So that's No. 1, but I think Melania is a very interesting case. We don't know that much about her. She has a 42 percent favorability. Laura Bush, in contrast, had 56 percent. Is she as bad as Trump? That's what people want to know. Is she's an active co-conspirator? Does she agree with him? Is she afraid of him?"
The Atlantic hurricane season starts on June 1, and the Gulf of Mexico is already warmer than average. Even more worrying is a current of warm tropical water that is looping unusually far into the Gulf for this time of year, with the power to turn tropical storms into monster hurricanes.
It’s called the Loop Current, and it’s the 800-pound gorilla of Gulf hurricane risks.
When the Loop Current reaches this far north this early in the hurricane season – especially during what’s forecast to be a busy season – it can spell disaster for folks along the Northern Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida.
If you look at temperature maps of the Gulf of Mexico, you can easily spot the Loop Current. It curls up through the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba, into the Gulf of Mexico, and then swings back out through the Florida Strait south of Florida as the Florida Current, where it becomes the main contributor to the Gulf Stream.
The Loop Current was about as far north as Tampa, Florida, in mid May 2022. The scale, in meters, shows the maximum depth at which temperatures were 78 F (26 C) or greater.
When a tropical storm passes over the Loop Current or one of its giant eddies – large rotating pools of warm water that spin off from the current – the storm can explode in strength as it draws energy from the warm water.
This year, the Loop Current looks remarkably similar to the way it did in 2005, the year Hurricane Katrina crossed the Loop Current before devastating New Orleans. Of the 27 named storms that year, seven became major hurricanes. Wilma and Rita also crossed the Loop Current that year and became two of the most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record.
The Loop Current in May 2005 looked strikingly similar to May 2022.
I have been monitoring ocean heat content for more than 30 years as a marine scientist. The conditions I’m seeing in the Gulf in May 2022 are cause for concern. One prominent forecast anticipates 19 tropical storms – 32% more than average – and nine hurricanes. The Loop Current has the potential to supercharge some of those storms.
Why the Loop Current worries forecasters
Warm ocean water doesn’t necessarily mean more tropical storms. But once tropical storms reach waters that are around 78 F (26 C) or warmer, they can strengthen into hurricanes.
Hurricanes draw most of their strength from the top 100 feet (30 meters) of the ocean. Normally, these upper ocean waters mix, allowing warm spots to cool quickly. But the Loop Current’s subtropical water is deeper and warmer, and also saltier, than Gulf common water. These effects inhibit ocean mixing and sea surface cooling, allowing the warm current and its eddies to retain heat to great depths.
In mid-May 2022, satellite data showed the Loop Current had water temperatures 78 F or warmer down to about 330 feet (100 meters). By summer, that heat could extend down to around 500 feet (about 150 meters).
The eddy that fueled Hurricane Ida in 2021 was over 86 F (30 C) at the surface and had heat down to about 590 feet (180 meters). With favorable atmospheric conditions, this deep reservoir of heat helped the storm explode almost overnight into a very powerful and dangerous Category 4 hurricane.
Hurricane Ida’s pressure dropped quickly as it crossed a warm, deep eddy boundary on Aug. 29, 2021.
Within a storm, warm ocean water can create towering plumes of rising warm, moist air, providing high-octane fuel for hurricanes. Think about what happens when you boil a large pot of spaghetti on the stove and how the steam rises as the water gets hotter. As more moisture and heat rise within a hurricane, the pressure drops. The horizontal pressure difference from the center of the storm to its periphery subsequently causes the wind to speed up and the hurricane to become increasingly dangerous.
Since the Loop Current and its eddies have so much heat, they don’t significantly cool, and the pressure will continue to fall. In 2005, Hurricane Wilma had the lowest central pressure on record in the Atlantic, and Rita and Katrina weren’t far behind.
How hurricanes draw fuel from water water.
La Niña, wind shear and other drivers of a busy season
Forecasters have other clues to how the hurricane season might shape up. One is La Niña, the climate opposite of El Niño.
During La Niña, stronger trade winds in the Pacific Ocean bring colder water to the surface, creating conditions that help push the jet stream farther north. That tends to exacerbate drought in the southern U.S. and also weaken wind shear there. Wind shear involves the change in wind speeds and wind directions with height. Too much wind shear can tear tropical storms apart. But less wind shear, courtesy of La Niña, and more moisture in the atmosphere can mean more hurricanes.
How La Niña affects U.S.
La Niña has been unusually strong in spring 2022, though it’s possible that it could weaken later in the year, allowing more wind shear toward the end of the season. For now, the upper atmosphere is doing little that would stop a hurricane from intensifying.
It’s too soon to tell what will happen with the steering winds that guide tropical storms and affect where they go. Even before then, the conditions over West Africa are crucial to whether tropical storms form at all in the Atlantic. Dust from the Sahara and low humidity can both reduce the likelihood storms will form.
Climate change has a role
As global temperatures rise, the ocean’s temperature is increasing. Much of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases that are released by human activities is stored in the oceans, where it can provide additional fuel for hurricanes.
Studies suggest that the Atlantic is likely to see more storms intensify into major hurricanes as those temperatures rise, though there won’t necessarily be more storms overall. A study examined the 2020 hurricane season – which had a record 30 named storms, 12 of them hitting the U.S. – and found the storms produced more rain than they would have in a world without the effects of human-caused climate change.
Another trend we have been noticing is that the Loop Current’s warm eddies have more heat than we saw 10 to 15 years ago. Whether that’s related to global warming isn’t clear yet, but the impact of a warming trend could be devastating.
TIJUANA, Mexico — Journalists, academics and law enforcement officials in Mexico are not convinced that the Arellano-Félix cartel was behind the January slayings of two prominent Tijuana journalists, as the government claims. Mexico’s undersecretary of security, Ricardo Mejía Berdeja, on April 27 said the same criminal cell, composed of remnants of the Arellano-Félix Cartel (CAF), is responsible for the murders of Margarito Martínez Esquivel and Lourdes Maldonado López. Martínez, a freelance photographer, was shot and killed on Jan. 17 outside his residence in Tijuana, in the northern Mexican ...
Paievska, who is better known in Ukraine by her internet moniker "Taira," filmed footage of herself treating wounded residents and soldiers in Mariupol before eventually being captured earlier this year by Russian military forces.
Nonetheless, she was able to leak her collected footage to the AP shortly before her capture, and it provides a harrowing portrait of the brutal realities facing Ukrainian citizens in Mariupol.
"The video is an intimate record from Feb. 6 to March 10 of a city under siege that has now become a worldwide symbol of the Russian invasion and Ukrainian resistance," writes the AP. "In it, Taira is a whirlwind of energy and grief, recording the death of a child and the treatment of wounded soldiers from both sides."
The footage also shows Taira treating both wounded Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, even though those same soldiers had been trying to violently occupy her city.
"On Feb. 24, the first day of the war, Taira chronicled efforts to bandage a Ukrainian soldier’s open head wound," writes the AP. "Two days later, she ordered colleagues to wrap an injured Russian soldier in a blanket."
