From a NOAA press release that came out to me via email just minutes ago:
NATIONAL OCEANIC & ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON, DC
Contact: Dennis Feltgen, NOAA 305-229-4404Increased Hurricane Losses Due to More People,
Wealth Along Coastlines, Not Stronger Storms, New Study Says
A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes.
“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”
On the Web:
NOAA National Hurricane Center: http://www.hurricanes.gov
Link to paper:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2476-2008.02.pdf
UPDATE: URL to paper as originally posted above was missing a period, works now, try again if you missed it before.
Well that pretty much says it all don’t you think? Will Gore revise AIT now?
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>”Well that pretty much says it all don’t you think? Will Gore revise AIT now?”
Ah yes, this must be a rhetorical question.
For one to take the question seriously one must first accept that sound science, logic, reason and analysis would have anything to do with any reassment of his position…
Why would Algore change AIT? “The debate is over…”
Hi,
Here is COAPS take on hurricane activity.
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/
It is unfortunate that so many people have bought in to the anthropogenic global warming mistake when they could have investigated the issue themselves using credible sources readily available on the web. Some people are concerned about the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The assessment that there is over 50 times as much carbon in the ocean as exists in the atmosphere, http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=17726 , does not appear to be very widely known. Apparently no one did any real research before or they would have discovered that 440 mya the planet plunged into the Andean-Saharan ice age, http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm , when atmospheric carbon dioxide was over ten times the present level, http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/07_1.shtml (http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/Geocarb_III-Berner.pdf if the original paper is preferred). With a little further real research they would have discovered that, in the current ice age, temperature trends have changed direction at many different temperature levels. See temperature anomalies from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/temp/vostok/vostok.1999.temp.dat supplemented with recent data from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html or ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.land_and_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat . This could not occur if there was significant positive feedback. If they had also looked at the carbon dioxide level from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.html they would have discovered that the change in atmospheric carbon dioxide level typically lagged average earth temperature change by hundreds of years. If they had looked at the temperature data and Law Dome carbon dioxide data http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/lawdome.combined.dat and the recent data from Mauna Loa ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/in-situ/mlo/ or other sources from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ they might have also noticed that there is no correlation, except possibly for the 22 years from 1976 to 1998 when carbon dioxide level and average global temperature both increased. None of the data shows any significant influence of carbon dioxide level on temperature.
Peer review biased by group-think is de facto censorship. The result here is a plethora of papers advocating that human activity is causing global warming and a paucity of ‘peer reviewed’ published papers that objectively investigate the extent to which human-produced carbon dioxide is contributing to global warming. Since this is the case, it’s probably going to have to get a lot colder before very much changes in most of the media. It will get colder eventually and a lot of people are going to look pretty foolish. It might even get warmer first like it has four other times in the last 11000 years but that’s not likely since we are past due for the coming glacial age. During the coming glaciation, half of the population will starve because rice does not grow on ice.
One also must consider the “Tiny Tim” factor and also that before satellite observations many storms went unknown or unreported.
Haven’t Pielke Jr. et al. already done something like that?
I remember a study something like “normalized hurricane damages …”. Definitly worth reading. Wondering what Al Gore would answer, if he’d be confronted with the results from Pielke et al.
Erm, erm, but…Emanuel proved that.. 😉
Well, the study mentioned in the post is actually Pielke Jr.’s. Probably I’ve read a draft a few months ago, that’s why I thought Pielke’s paper isn’t that actual. Sry for that.
Anyone who read Prometheus can’t be surprise by that press release. I wonder If James Hansen is happy that the administration aprove the press release.
[…] http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/noaa-hurricane-frequency-and-global-warming-not-the-… […]
Well DUH
Yep and having used to living in Fl since 1960 to 1997 I can remember when you could drive over to the beach highway ( A1A) and pull over and park and walk down to the beach almost any where. The beach front is almost all private property and what isn’t is developed parks. Yep more buildings at the sand fall site the more damage ……… as I say Well DUH
Bill
“The assessment that there is over 50 times as much carbon in the ocean as exists in the atmosphere,”
I had an interesting experience tonight. I stopped in a local pub on my way home from work this evening and they had BBC-US on. There was a brief commercial for a new electric motor. One of the “selling points” of the new motor was that it didn’t have carbon brushes to wear and therefore didn’t contribute to “carbon emissions”. Basically the idea being that people are beginning to believe that all carbon of all sorts is some kind of a pollutant. That even solid carbon is somehow toxic or something. I was dumbfounded that people could be so stupid as to produce such a commercial and that others would be so ignorant as to actually take that as a selling point.
If someone proved that the increased hurricane damage that happens in the United States wasn’t due to Global Warming, would that mean that the world (i.e. the United States) would stop worrying about Global Warming?
Is that the point here?
I mean, i know everyone’s supposed to be an expert on the weather and climate and stuff now, but i must admit to not being an expert. So i’m confused.
This seems to be an observation that one supposed indicator of Global Warming is, in fact, not an indicator at all….
But so what?
It’s not like Global Warming is made up or anything.
Maybe the nice, clever ppl who spent all this time and money thinking about disproving the belief that hurricanes are getting worse could spend their time on something meaningful and useful, like finding a solution to Global Warming?
Even though it’s already too late?
Old Sol is quite a pol;
Despite the news he’ll find a sol.
Isn’t that droll?
=======
Yo, gully, have you noticed?
Hurricanes in 2006 down 66% from 2005
Hurricanes in 2007 down 50% from 2005.
Gore said global warming would bring about more hurricanes of greater destructive power. Did he call it? Or do the FACTS tend to point to what these ‘clever’ people are saying?
“A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines”
I put this in the “Duh!!!” catagory.
BTW, Gullybogan, I am naming you “Captain Strawman”.
AGWers have been using hurricanes and the damage they cause, and saying they’ll be getting worse to further whip up climate hysteria all along. Now, I guess they’ll have to rely on Polar Bears – oh wait, their population has been growing. One by one, their icons of fear are being picked off. But, they’ll manage to carry on, somehow, proudly carrying their banner of idiocy.
gullybogan, don’t worry, we’re working on it. We’re going to put a dimmer switch on the sun so it won’t overheat us. 😉
Seriously, the danger of the wrong response to any climate change – warmer or colder – is probably as great as the effects of the change itself. Already our food costs more because farmers are turning corn into ethanol in the mistaken belief that this puts less CO2 into the air (a recent study counting all the effects indicates it puts in more). People around the world are starving because their countries can’t acquire as much corn as before because of the higher price. This is a real world, real time example of why it’s important to get the science and the economics right.
And until the world ends (in fire or ice), it’s never too late….
And actually, in some cases “global warming” seems to be “made up.” Chech the Surfacestions.org project for some examples. As an average value, GW is pretty meaningless except for alarmist public relations. Regional warming is more critical because ecosystems are smaller scale than the whole globe and it’s ecosystem disruption that has the most impact on organisms.
Crosspatch
This is a concern of mine. Every corporation is going green – a new Madison Ave. trend. It is the dumb masses who avoid original thought and regurgitate what they hear. They avoid informational programming on the TV and when these ads show up during Springer or Cribs, they drink it all in. Then the following scenario:
Pollster: “Hello Mr. Jones, I’m taking a telephone survey. Are you concerned about Global Warming”?
Mr. Jones (no relation to my friend Evan): “I’m very concerned. That is all you hear about today”
Political Aide: “ Sir, new polling results say a majority of people are very concerned about Global Warming”
Politician: “ Sign that Treaty. Limit Green house gasses, don’t worry about consequences. I’ll be out of office by then!”
Just see our friend Gullybogan above.
Gullybogan (just have to wonder if that really stands for gullible bogan),
Global Warming is a myth. Humans, who occupy less than 10% of the total earth surface, can not change the climate. We CAN stop pollution!! Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Let’s spend time and effort on what is bad for us and the environment and stop making Al Gore (who is part owner of a carbon trading company) and other zealots rich!!
If you follow the money, you will find that those who are supporting the concept of AGW are making a ton of money or have the potential to make a lot of money from it. No realist is making anything from trying to get people to wake up and listen to rational science.
could spend their time on something meaningful and useful, like finding a solution to Global Warming? Even though it’s already too late?
I’m not sure I follow your logic here. Could you explain what you mean?
One aside on damage: traditional methods of reducing risky behavior have swung into effect in the storm-prone regions, and they are having an impact.
As an example, in 2002 a friend of mine paid just $400 a year for water damage insurance for his first-floor condo on a Florida beach. By 2006 his insurance bill skyrocketed to over $11,000 a year, with a greatly-increased deductible. That changes his behavior as to what he leaves at-risk with an approaching storm. Since he tries to recover these costs in his summer rental effort he tries to pass the costs to the renters which changes some of their summer-vacation decisions which changes the demand for condos. These big bills also affect the way builders design the lower levels of future construction.
Another example is my house, which is 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico (close enough for bad winds). When my roof is reshingled this March the installer will be using additional nails, stronger roof vents and a modified practice for installing the lowest row of shingles. This is not required by local law but rather has become an expectation by house buyers. Nearby counties do require by law these measures plus others.
The bottom line is that people, through traditional local and market mechanisms, are adapting and making smarter long-term decisions, based on what they now know about the risk.
“Basically the idea being that people are beginning to believe that all carbon of all sorts is some kind of a pollutant. That even solid carbon is somehow toxic or something.”
Better watch it. You can be replaced by silicon. (We have the technology.)
“It’s not like Global Warming is made up or anything.”
No. Just gussied up. And wearing platform shoes.
Anthony, this is somewhat off-topic, but related to disasters. Wells, Nevada was hit by an 6.0 earthquake yesterday. It’s one of the unsurveyed Surfacestations. How long do you suppose this is going to knock out temperature collection?
REPLY: not at all, the station closed on 7/27/2004