Hurricane expert Dr. Ryan Maue pulls no punches when it comes to putting John Abraham of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team in his place:
Here’s what Abraham has to say at Discovery News:
But wind speeds don’t tell the whole story, said John Abraham, a thermal scientist at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. The size of a storm, the amount of rain it dumps, and the size of the wave surges it produces also determine how damaging a hurricane will be, even though the category scale doesn’t take those details into account.
…
“The hurricanes that really matter, that cause damage, are increasing,” Abraham said. “What scientists have been saying would happen for decades is now happening. There’s an economic cost to not doing anything about this problem.”
Umm, no, when you look at the frequency and accumulated energy in hurricanes at Dr. Ryan Maue’s Tropical web page, you find it trending down:
Historical Tropical Cyclone Activity Graphics
Figure: Global Hurricane Frequency (all & major) — 12-month running sums. The top time series is the number of global tropical cyclones that reached at least hurricane-force (maximum lifetime wind speed exceeds 64-knots). The bottom time series is the number of global tropical cyclones that reached major hurricane strength (96-knots+). Adapted from Maue (2011) GRL.
Figure: Last 4-decades of Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sums. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months for the Northern Hemisphere (bottom line/gray boxes) and the entire global (top line/blue boxes). The area in between represents the Southern Hemisphere total ACE.
1970- July 2012 monthly ACE Data File (Maue, 2010, 2011 GRL) [–] 1970-2011 global tropical cyclone frequency monthly Data File
Dr. Patrick Michaels points out last Friday in this excellent essay on hurricanes:
It’s been 2,535 days since the last Category 3 storm, Wilma in 2005, hit the beach. That’s the longest period—by far—in the record that goes back to 1900.
Quite a drought. He adds:
Aren’t there more whoppers—the powerful Category 4 and 5 monsters that will mow down pretty much anything in their path? As is the case with much severe weather, we simply see more than we did prior to satellites and (in the case of hurricanes) long-range aircraft reconnaissance. As the National Hurricane Center’s Chris Landsea (with whom I have published on tropical cyclones) has shown, if you assume the technology before satellites, the number of big storms that would be detected now is simply unchanged from the past.
There’s a pretty good example of this spinning in the remote Atlantic right now, which is Hurricane Kirk, far away from shipping channels, land, and nosy airplanes. Kirk is compact enough that it would likely have been completely missed fifty years ago. If it spins up into a Category 4 (which is currently not forecast), that would be another biggie that would have gotten away, back in the day.
There’s another reason that the increase in frequency is more apparent than real: “shorties”. That’s what Landsea calls the ephemeral tropical whirls of little consequence that are now named as storms more because of our detection technology than anything else. There’s also probably an overlay of institutional risk aversion in play, as it is now recognized that seemingly harmless thunderstorm clusters over the ocean can spawn decent floods when they hit land.
There is another driver for an increase in Atlantic hurricane frequency that isn’t operating elsewhere. In 1995, a sudden shift in the distribution of North Atlantic temperatures increased hurricane frequency. Landsea predicted—at the time—that the Atlantic would soon fire up from its hurricane doldrums of the previous two decades, which it did. This type of shift has occurred repeatedly in the last century, both before and during (modest) global warming from greenhouse gases.
The influence of technology on storm reporting is something I’ve talked about in great detail before:
Abraham is clueless. Freelance writer Emily Sohn, judging by some of her other articles, might well fit into the label Maue applies to the hurricane story.
There’s an economic cost to not doing anything about this??? Maybe we could have Superman fly around the eye of the hurricanes in the opposite direction of the winds to break ’em up? We should build big hurricane baffles? …. Or…..
Maybe we should pay higher insurance rates, which is what the hurricane alarmism is all about in the first place. As found in the AIG funded hurricane studies that resulted in higher insurance rates for Florida that got everyone’s panties in a knot?
This is the most B.S. stupid statement by Mr. Abraham…
“There’s an economic cost to not doing anything about this problem.”
What he means, of course, is that we should fund the construction of the universal climate control device so the climate scientists can control the climate at will. Where DO they find these people?? [yikes]
“There’s an economic cost to not doing anything about this???”
Again, the first question we should ask is……..
“What can we do????”
NOTHING !!!!
News alert, if it is a hurricane, it is going to rain… alot. Cat 1 or Cat 5. Just in Cat 1 that’s probably the worst of your worries. This is just politic-metorologically sour grape, nothing more the green establishment would have loved than a Cat 5 monster hitting New Orleans (well, no, Tampa I guess) right as the Rep Convention started. Time to right the agenda by twisting the science.
Wonder what changed in the 30s that caused so few hurricanes to hit the N.E.? There are many reports of Cat 3-5 hurricanes hitting from Maryland to Maine from 1810s to 1930s, including ones large enough to wipe out towns and break barrier islands in half.
Looking for an admittedly small silver lining in Abraham’s statements let me ask this: since hurricane flooding can be as bad as wind damage, is there any measure of rainfall equivalent to ACE? Is it possible that landfalling hurricanes are dumping more water now than in the past?
If such a problem exists, the remedy would be the same even if there were no increase: Build better.
Stronger levees, for example, than the ones Katrina overwhelmed. Or don’t put housing below sea level in the first place, nor on primary floodplains. Or build structures that can withstand strong winds without critical damage.
I don’t think that Hurricane expert Dr. Ryan Maue completely understands the problem. Yes, hurricane energy is trending down – in the RAW data.
In the data corrected for Global Warming, it’s off the scale. As are all the catastrophes and deaths associated with the changing climate. After correction…
And that, in a nutshell, is where the real problem is…
Dodgy Geezer. That is pure nonsense a) there are many more people living in the coastal areas b) there is much more development c) HURRICANES WERE WORSE IN THE 30S THROUGH 50S. 28 MAJORS IN 30 YEARS, 21 MAJOR HITS IN 20. are you kidding me?? If any thing one can argue the distortion of temperatures occurring now and the lowering of pressures in the summer further north than normal is REDUCING the convergence in the tropics. I opined that in ICCC7 that there is a way to argue the temp profiles caused by the cyclical warmth of the oceans and lag has lead to less activity since the deviations from normal of temp and pressure are adjusted north. If its warming as you say ( its not as the past 13 years show,
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/1-s2-0-s0921818112001658-gr11.jpg
and the raw data is trending down, how does that compute to global warming causing more damage. Its simply absurd
Ever hear of Agnes 1972. Connie and Diane 1950, Juan 1985 Camille in Va 31 inches of rain in SIX HOURS. Of course you havent. As for Ryan, he is spot on right, and your up is down and down is up world is not where reality lies
Amazing less activity and it means more.
Notice the pattern. When real world data conflicts with the dogma, there follows the invention of some new metric that would be consistent with it, if only it could be found and measured. But it never is. Whether it is mysterious but unmeasured hurricane waves, or deep ocean missing heat, or trends in the Palmer drought severity index, the proof is always unobtainable. This endless invention is the stuff of astrology, not science.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/nws-nhc-6.pdf
Good fun stuff. Only one hurricane landfall in all of the 1860s and the NE really got hammered in the 1950s.
Joe B, I think dodgy geezer was being sarcastic 🙂
We need something akin to the Fujita scale for hurricanes (& other devastating, globally aware, intentional, Rovian, buzzword-laden wind-thingies) that attempts to quantify the number & volume of Warmist tears shed as a result of Republican- & SUV-caused wind-thingies over & above what would have normally been shed.
So we compare Katrina (2005) (c1800 deaths, 7 years of blaming Karl Rove’s hurricane ray, millions of lines of tears running down faces) with the Galveston hurricane of 1900 (c8000 deaths, zero tears even though it was obviously McKinley’s fault) to create the scale with Katrina (2005) being 1 & Galveston (1900) being 0. This gives us a solid 0.8 for Isaac (millions of lines of tears, few deaths, fatuous claims of God’s judgment upon Tampa, etc), 0.85 for Irene (fear, screaming, 67mph wind-speeds at landfall, a couple of deaths, mostly from flooding in Vermont), & <0.01 for anything before 1970 (since those were normal hurricanes that only killed a few tens of thousands of people who didn't even own SUVs).
Hmm, only one of the 15 stormiest Typhoon seasons has occured since 2000. Don’t talk about that much do they?
Joseph Bastardi says:
September 4, 2012 at 10:41 am
Dodgy Geezer. That is pure nonsense
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think Dodgy Geezer may have added a sarc tag for simplicity sake.
As for the post. it’s simply a case of the warmists moving the goalposts to fit the situation. The lack of powerful hurricanes making landfall has been getting a bit embarassing for them, so they try to make out that cat1 storms now are actually more damaging than cat3 storms were in the 30’s. In purely financial terms this may be true, though it has nothing to do with global warming. In any case, I don’t see from their logic that cat1 storms of the past wouldn’t have been just as wet as they are today. All in all 0/10 must try harder.
How are those Global Warming Induced Tornados going this year?
Tell me something new!!
The record I’m reading claims Wilma reached Cat 3 and made landfall on Oct 24th, 2005. As of today (Sep 4th, 2012) that has been 2507 days ago.
With stupid like this they really wonder why Skeptics exist?
How has the ” Climate Science ” failed me? Let me count the ways.
1. Fewer Hurricanes.
2. Sea Level is not rising.
3. No increase in Global Temps for 12 years. (While CO2 marches on up)
4. Polar Bear populations is alive and doing well.
And the list goes on, and on, and on.
@Pull My Finger
So far, a possible record low. That is why you haven’t heard about it.
But Jeff, when I normalize the data I find that Polar Bears are drowning by the hundreds due to Cat 5 Hurricanes battering the North Pole where it is now 85 degrees and all of Canada North of Saskatoon is underwater.
@ Jeff D. says:
September 4, 2012 at 11:13 am
“How has the ” Climate Science ” failed me? Let me count the ways.”
The worse problem is that science has little to do with it now. There is a Global Warming Industry with loads of jobs and $bn at stake. Nevertheless, shooting down the science must help, albeit the real denouement will be when everyone can see mother nature isn’t cooperating. Wooly sweater time….
@ Pull My Finger
The Global Warming Induced Tornadoes (TM) are hanging out with the Global Warming Induced Hurricanes (TM), down in the deep with the Global Warming Induced Missing Heat (TM).
Isn’t there some generally agreed hurricane energy score that is seen as more appropriate to activity than Category? ACE or something? How is that trending?
Easy solution. All those people along the coastlines can move to Kansas. Or Nebraska or Wyoming. PROBLEM SOLVED!
Oh, wait. All those people don’t want to move, even though it’s safer over there? What, in the world, is wrong with these people? For some reason, even with the possibility of tropical windstorms, they don’t want to move to someplace where it’s winter (real winter I’m talking about here) from October to May. Go figure.
Hurricanes would have to blow my house away just about every year before I would choose to move to someplace with REAL winter. Period.
Shades of Spinal Tap? Turn it up to 11!
It seems there is a high correlation between hurricanes and stupid…
‘Batshit stupid’ is pretty good, almost on par with ‘Stuck on stupid’, nice job Dr. Maue!
oops, ignore or delete my previous comment – I just spotted ACE later in the post
John Stossel did a report many years ago on the billions of dollars that are wasted on coastal mansions that are destroyed and rebuilt, funded by your dollars through increased insurance premiums, for the rich and famous to gallavant in a few weeks a year even though it is almost a certainty that these places will be destroyed or severely damaged every 15-30 years.
There is no sensible reason for people to live in N.O. at this point.
“The hurricanes that really matter, that cause damage, are increasing,”
I am almost tempted to agree with this statement ONLY on the basis that resorts, high-end communities, luxury homes, etc are being built in seaside locations that include spectacular views and hurricanes. If developers insist on expanding into areas that get clobbered by hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, landslides, etc, why should one be shocked when the inevitable happens?
So, perhaps, yes, damaging hurricanes are, perhaps, increasing but only because of what is being placed in their path.
You cannot control the weather, but building permits are another story.
keith at hastings uk says:
September 4, 2012 at 11:36 am
@ Jeff D. says:
September 4, 2012 at 11:13 am
“How has the ” Climate Science ” failed me? Let me count the ways.”
“The worse problem is that science has little to do with it now.”
I am in total agreement. One of the reasons i denoted “Climate Science”. I am a geek at heart and really do enjoy Science. To see what the idiots have done to it really just pisses me off.
lazy teenager;
Hurricanes would have to blow my house away just about every year before I would choose to move to someplace with REAL winter. Period.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, you’d risk death and the certain loss of all your personal possessions on an annual basis rather than move. You must be some kind of genius.
When the data doesn’t back you up lie, the depressing thing is even when you show people that they are lying they still believe the liar.
‘But storms of Category 3 and above are likely to become more common. In fact, scientists have already observed an uptick in intense hurricanes since 1970, according to an upcoming report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which Abraham has reviewed. And a rating of Category 3 is enough to destroy lives.’ – Oh sorry it’s that bastion of scientific integrity the IPCC.
If Dodgy Geezer was sarcastic, my apology. With the way things are today in this matter, one can never tell as the absurdities that come out of the AGW camp defy reality
My loyalty gene got the best of me too ( Ryan works with us at Weatherbell now)
Dodgy Geezer. This is a truly great site but it seems that many of its readers don’t recognise satire or lampoonery too readily. You are free to add the quite dreadful ‘sarc’ tag but only if you are prepared to give Jonathon Swift another turn in his grave.
My family moved to Florida just in time for Donna in ’60. I have watched hurricanes ever since as you can imagine. There have been few category 5 hurricanes on record and now some bozo wants a category 6? Bizarre. By the way, any long time Florida resident knows we have had less strikes in recent years than in the past — and we are thankful for that.
Counting swirls out to sea! What a racket!
That’s all right. As someone from a place with a real winter, we like it because it keeps folks like lazy teenager out of our backyards.
It’s depressing that this sort of thinking seems to be catching on. Was it The Weather Channel or Shepard Smith who spend so much time during Isaac remarking that even though it was only officially Cat 1, it should be labeled higher because of all the damage it was going to do?
Ken Harvey: nice! And if I recall correctly quite a few people thought Swift was being serious.
The amount of water hurricane Isaac dropped had everyrhing to do with the storm stalling out half on land and half over the Gulf. My town, just east of Baton Rouge, got socked with eighteen hours of tropical rain.
Pull My Finger,
I don’t think you know much about New Orleans. It is not on the coast. It has not been directly hit by very many hurricanes. And it has not flooded from the river very often. The oldest parts of the city rarely flood and housed built before 1940 were often built high enough to avoid flooding. N.O. did not flood in the great flood of 1927 when dozens of other states had huge amounts of flooding. Every few years there are cities in the midwest that get flooded and NO does not. Should all those people leave St. Louis and Des Moine, etc?
Category Six? Is that akin to Category Eleven?
David M Hoffer said:
Yes, you’d risk death and the certain loss of all your personal possessions on an annual basis rather than move. You must be some kind of genius.
He has proven that on many occasions David (do I need a sarc tag here?)
New Orleans is below sea level (and water level) and most certainly is on the coast of the Mississippi and Lake Ponchitrain and needs flood walls and levies to fend off the deluge. Not to mention, NO is hemmed in and very difficult to evacuate, which is not the case in the midwest. And the gulf coast is regularly hammered with hurricanes and now N.O. luck is back to normal with two Hurricane hits in 7 years. If you look at the rate of return of hurricanes all along the gulf coast it is 7-8 years. N.O. has just got real lucky… until now.
davidmhoffer says:
September 4, 2012 at 12:21 pm
“Yes, you’d risk death and the certain loss of all your personal possessions on an annual basis rather than move. You must be some kind of genius.”
It doesn’t matter where you live. There will always be a weather related chance of losing everything. Ice storms in the NE, tornadoes in the Midwest, earthquakes and landslides on the west coast, flooding around every river and along the sea shore, the list goes on and on. It’s all part of living, you do the best you can to prepare and then you stop worrying. Life is more enjoyable that way and it’s a whole lot more interesting than hiding in a cave your entire life just to die of old age.
Bill,
“Every few years there are cities in the midwest that get flooded and NO does not. Should all those people leave St. Louis and Des Moine, etc?”
If they want to rebuild using other peoples money (i.e. tax dollars / tax subsidized flood insurance) then yes, they should be required to re-locate outside the flood zone.
If they are willing to rebuild entierly out of their own pocket, then they can live where they want.
Note: I didn’t find this out until I bought a house, but you can’t buy non-subsidized flood insurance any more and you can’t get the subsidized insurance unless you live in a recongnized food plain.
Matt,
Nearly anyone can buy flood insurance. If you are not in a flood plain, it is very inexpensive.
If I was bat shit, I would be offended by Ryan Maue’s comment!
Pull My Finger
New Orleans exists in part because we need a deep-water port at the mouth of the Mississippi.
“It doesn’t matter where you live. There will always be a weather related chance of losing everything. ”
California’s Central Valley is almost an exception:
* No Hurricanes
* No major seismic fault near enough to do major damage
* Only a few funnel clouds ever develop here… An “F” anything is truly rare
* Snow is a once every 15 to 25 year rarity
* We don’t have any major rivers, so there are no major floods to speak of.
On the downside…. It gets pretty HOT. We do have streets that can flood due to heavy rains. But we don’t get much of that here either. 🙂
@ Tom In Florida
Earthquakes are not weather related.
Tom in Florida;
Life is more enjoyable that way and it’s a whole lot more interesting than hiding in a cave your entire life just to die of old age.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Depends entirely on who you can get to share the cave with you….
“Batshit stupid”= crazy stupid
“””””……Michael J Alexander says:
September 4, 2012 at 2:50 pm
“It doesn’t matter where you live. There will always be a weather related chance of losing everything. ”
California’s Central Valley is almost an exception:
* No Hurricanes
* No major seismic fault near enough to do major damage
* Only a few funnel clouds ever develop here… An “F” anything is truly rare
* Snow is a once every 15 to 25 year rarity
* We don’t have any major rivers, so there are no major floods to speak of……”””””
So why does FEMA make me buy flood insurance? My house is 4 ft off the ground, which is laser levelled, so you can flood square miles , with one inch of water, except it gets shipped to So-Cal
golf courses, before it gets that deep.
Did I say I have a moat around my house too ?
James Ard says:
September 4, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Have no fear. Next year we can expect a couple of high profile papers in the climate journals explaining how the models predict that’s exactly what global warm…er…climate cha…er…climate disruption should cause.
Of course, it had to happen first before they could predict it…
If the answer isn’t supported by the parameter you were using as a benchmark, use another benchmark. Especially one that doesn’t have any historical data to compare it too. Climate Sciance (sic) 101.
Matthew W says:
“What can we do????” NOTHING !!!!”
Ah but Abraham and the vast AGW arena do not care if something actually is done to impact anything. Certainly they want no genuine measurement of progress for anything they do.
Like all central planners they are more interested in studying, pondering, reporting and advising on how to “encourage, facilitate, setting goals, highlighting, improving coordination, formalize, support the close interagency coordination, coordinate and strongly encourage efforts to achieve, employing output based approaches,,,, on and on and on.
Example:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/30/executive-order-accelerating-investment-industrial-energy-efficiency
What a load of crap. I’ve seen education reform with the identical rhetoric and jargon. There is nothing substantive or meaningful in any of it.
‘Batshit stupid’ … the perfect description for Abraham, head of the Climate Rapid Response Team, Only a tick less a looney than Scott Mandia – neither with a remote clue, or factual statement to stand on.
http://www.climaterapidresponse.org/matchmakers.php
lurker, passing through laughing,
When I bought my house, I was specifically told otherwise by the insurance agent I went to. Your basic policy will cover water damage from leaking pipes or sewer back up, but water damage from flooding is explicitly excluded.
@ Pull My Finger says:
September 4, 2012 at 10:46 am
“Good fun stuff. Only one hurricane landfall in all of the 1860s and the NE really got hammered in the 1950s.”
Please produce your evidence that Nebraska got hammered by Hurricanes in the 1950’s. If you don’t have any physical evidence please send the output of your computer model.
davidmhoffer says:
September 4, 2012 at 3:17 pm
“Depends entirely on who you can get to share the cave with you….”
Leif, Vuk and Tallbloke would be interesting.
Karl says:
September 4, 2012 at 2:51 pm
“Earthquakes are not weather related.”
True, I was just thinking along the lines of natural disasters when I added that.
California’s Central Valley is almost an exception:
* No major seismic fault near enough to do major damage
You mean like Christchurch in New Zealand? Which was recently flattened by an earthquake, but was thought previously to be too far from a major fault to be at risk.
The pattern of posting and nature of the language being used in these comments strongly suggest that there are about three people doing all this writing and the rest of you are sock puppets. It is blindingly obvious, in fact.
The first graph is being interpreted incorrectly. Very strong hurricanes add much more to the total energy budget, and they are on an upward trend in that graph which swamps out the apparent downward trend for overall hurricanes.
Please note that the data starts to late to be really useful. I mean, seriously, guys, you always complain whenever data sets only include the last 30 years or so, this is the problem you have here.
Did you know that the first historically recognized hurricane to hit New England in several centuries of recorded history was in 1938? The word “hurricane” was not even known then in that area. You need to adjust your time frame to get this right.
Well, actually, you need to adjust a lot more than your time frame.
[Reply: As a moderator for the past 5 years I can state unequivocally that your first paragraph is untrue. I verify email addresses. There are almost 900,000 reader comments, and they come from all around the world. ~dbs, mod.]
gregladen says:
September 4, 2012 at 6:29 pm
The gall displayed in this post is nauseating, ……
The king of sock puppets drops by to contribute a little of nothing to distract from a post that makes him uncomfortable. Projecting the whole while, ……
Nice to see these charlatans continuing to be called out. Well done, Doc – you’ve yanked the skirts up to expose their naughties, once again!
Exactly Matt that’s why you have to buy flood insurance also,and everyone can get a policy
I am offended.
gregladen says:
“The first graph is being interpreted incorrectly.”
Dr. Ryan Maue is an internationally recognized expert on Hurricanes. Dr. Maue constructed that graph. Now the lightly educated Mr Laden thinks he knows better? What’s Laden’s C.V.?
gregladen posts here because he can’t get more than a handful of comments on his lightly trafficked blog. I think Laden is projecting when he complains about sock puppets.
The verifiable fact is that scientific skeptics vastly outnumber the alarmist clique. The OISM Petition Project has more than 31,400 co-signers, all of them scientific skeptics, and all of them with degrees in the hard sciences; more than 9,000 of them have PhD’s.
The alarmist crowd has tried repeatedly to get that many signatures on their petitions, but they have failed miserably, getting less than one-quarter the OISM number — and many of those signers are on their different attempts.
The fact is that the Greg Ladens of this world are actually few in number. They make a lot of noise, but they lack the scientific evidence to back their conjectures.
So, who to listen to? Hurricane expert Dr Ryan Maue? Or noisemaker/sockpuppet gregladen?
[Reply: As a moderator for the past 5 years I can state unequivocally that your first paragraph is untrue. I verify email addresses. There are almost 900,000 reader comments, and they come from all around the world. ~dbs, mod.]
I think what Mr. Laden was trying to say (badly) is that there are only three commenters who actually think. The rest merely parrot what those 3 have said. This is patently false as everyone of the regular contributors is taken to task at every turn. Mr. Laden’s knee jerk reaction was less, knee, more jerk, …..
gregladen says:
September 4, 2012 at 6:29 pm
He is unwittingly describing himself.
John Abraham, a thermal scientist at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.
What is a thermal scientist? A mechanical engineer:
http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/faculty/jpabraham.htm
“His area of research includes thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid flow, numerical simulation, and energy”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Abraham_%28Professor%29
…and anything “green”
In zooms the flying monkey with his tinfoil hat, strafing away at the astro-turfing sock puppets, while the lurker snipes from the shadows and the troll pops up from under its bridge. Then we get to argue about global warming too. What’s not to like?!
gregladen;
The first graph is being interpreted incorrectly. Very strong hurricanes add much more to the total energy budget, and they are on an upward trend in that graph which swamps out the apparent downward trend for overall hurricanes.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Really? Then why does the 2nd graph, which shows Total Cyclone Energy, show the same downward trend that the top graph showing frequency of all hurricanes? If the extra energy of the large hurricanes swamps the decline in hurricane frequency, does that mean the TCE graph is upside down? I know upside down is an accepted practice in climate science, but I didn’t think it applied to hurricane energy?
Well, assuming that the TCE graph is right side up (because the author is not part of the alarmascience community so I’m assuming he rejects the upside down thing, but feel free to correct me if I am wrong) the not only has TCE been in decline since the early 90’s, it is actually lower than when TCE first started to be tracked in the early 70’s.
Cram a linear trend through that…. I know it is a pretty stupid thing to cram a linear trend through cyclical data, but the alarmascientists keep doing it, so I assume you are OK with it in this case too, and you’ll get a negative trend that about approximates the decline in hurricane frequency.
Dontcha just hate it when you pee on everyone for not reading graphs right and then get called on it?
BTW, could you help me out with the sock puppet thing? [Am] I one of the sock puppets or one of the originals? I’m really concerned about this, sort of an identity crisis thing. Maybe I just think my comments are original and actually I’m repeating the comments of other people? Or maybe, just maybe, we all read the graphs correctly in the first place gregladen, and that’s why all of our comments sound similar?
Probable, Possible, my black hen,
She lays eggs in the Relative When.
She doesn’t lay eggs in the Positive Now,
Because she’s unable to postulate how.
Windsor & Parry (1976) in “The Apocalyptics” (1984), Edith Efron.
Dreadnought says:
September 4, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Could you explain this post please? Perhaps I’m not “getting” you.
Record 24 hour rainfall in the US was set by a tropical storm, not even a hurricane. 43″ of rain fell on Alvin, TX July 24-25, 1979 courtesy of tropical storm Claudette.
…but why let details get in the way of an agenda?
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/the-greatest-24hour-deluge-in/52828
Climate Seance!
By “the NE” he meant the NorthEast, not Nebraska.
Dreadnought: “What’s not to like?!”
The burlesque girls are a bit burly.
gregladen: “… these comments strongly suggest that there are about three people doing all this writing and the rest of you are sock puppets. ”
As long as I get to be Tallbloke’s sock. The accent takes quite a bit off the leg hair.
“Very strong hurricanes add much more to the total energy budget, and they are on an upward trend in that graph which swamps out the apparent downward trend for overall hurricanes. ”
So what you’re saying is that if we can get just a few more strong hurricanes in a given season then we can make a perpetuum mobile out of wind power? Not my first choice, but a fun manner to gain energy independence from questionable countries.
Karl says:
September 4, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Actually, they can be… in a way.
http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~bodo/pdf/gabet08_modern_erosion_himalaya.pdf
All things considered, I prefer “dumb as a box of rocks”.
AHarris: I’m coming late to this but since no one has responded to your question, I’ll give it a try. Shep Smith may have said something like that – I don’t listen to him so I don’t know for sure. But I heard/saw the same thing and was watching TWC almost exclusively so I assume it was them who were pushing that particular spin.
It always amazes me, are hurricanes new? Even UK had one some years ago blew down 1 million trees, that was unusual. We have cyclones here in Oz, people build houses that are cyclone proof. Mind you if you build on a flood plain even on stilts, your insurance is very high. Same as people that live near Mt.Vesuvius, they don’t get any insurance. I expect it is because your income is generated locally and your can’t move to a safer place.
Adam Gallon says:
September 4, 2012 at 11:47 am
Shades of Spinal Tap? Turn it up to 11!
*****************
Damn. Beat me to it!
And all this during the recent global warming and the “hottest decade on the record”. An honest scientist would ask themselves wuwt?
All the newer and better detection technology is just a thing of the past and is best ignored. Forget the facts and stay with the program folks.
Greg Laden said
Did you know that the first historically recognized hurricane to hit New England in several centuries of recorded history was in 1938? The word “hurricane” was not even known then in that area.
I suspect that New Englanders could read in 1938, though of course I have no actual proof of that. That they tended to use words like “storm” where we use “hurricane” is beside the point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_England_hurricanes
Moderators: was this actually *that* Greg Laden? Such stupidity makes me suspect a troll pretending to be the great man himself.
Yes but are they climate related. Never underestimate Warmists. 😉
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/26/why-climate-change-shake-earth
Give me patience, they will say anything thinking we are a load of richard craniums. Hurricanes are weather related, so are floods, snow and hail. And they will still come, remember when Nature turns nasty it kills.
Is it me or is this actually a reasonable indicator of Global Warming. As the poles heat up relative to the tropics the temperature difference is less so there is less atmospheric disturbance,. Therefore less Hurricanes.
The interesting thing is that the alarmist powers can’t use it as it would be a boon for the planet if there was less atmospheric disturbance so it doesn’t fit their real paradigm – that we are damaging the planet.
rogerknights says:
September 4, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Rats I almost had it. You’ve nailed the term for the misuse of climate models!
Climate Seance! ROFLOL!
I know why N.O. exists, it’s at the terminus of one of the greatest shipping rivers in the world, but it doesn’t mean you have to have hundreds of thousands of people living basically underwater for it to serve its purpose.
Once again, Mr. Abraham and his cohorts dismiss historical evidence. Coastal lake sediment data for the northern Gulf of Mexico indicate that both hurricane frequency and strength are substantially lower today than in the past several mellennia. Therefore, how can atmospheric CO2 content enter into the equation.
Bad science, I presume.
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Pull My Finger says:
September 4, 2012 at 10:23 am
Wonder what changed in the 30s that caused so few hurricanes to hit the N.E.? There are many reports of Cat 3-5 hurricanes hitting from Maryland to Maine from 1810s to 1930s, including ones large enough to wipe out towns and break barrier islands in half.
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In the ’30s IIRC, a hurricane’s storm surge blasted thru the barrier island at the south end of Ocean City, MD & made a new channel to the inland bay. Imagine the weeping & gnashing of teeth if that happened today, especially when all the elites from Wash DC area spend their summers there in exorbitantly expensive time-shares.
IIRC, the whole Lake Pontchartrain drainage system in Louisiana was created/reshaped by a monster hurricane about 5000 yrs ago.
Pull My Finger says:
September 5, 2012 at 5:15 am
Actually, you sort of do. People go where there is an opportunity to earn a living. People have accessories that make their live more enjoyable and provide them a reason for working other than just getting something to eat… families. Most people prefer to be around their families when they aren’t actually working. Families need schools, grocery stores, entertainment. This is another layer of jobs and employment.
Companies that operate shipping and receiving services tend to form where they actually provide the service, that way they can manage the production of their product or service.
I’m pretty certain that if you can get or make a filled section of land, above sea level, and provide that property at a price that is competitive to the low lying land, you will find a buyer that would build on it. It has to be stable land that doesn’t just ooze out into the street when the next rain comes along. That means that you are going to have to put a little effort into how you drain the fill material and reduce the water content so that it becomes more like normal soil. That will drive up your price a bit… or a lot.
Contrary to what folks might be told, the Western Pacific typhoons typically make the Atlantic hurricanes that hit the eastern USA look mild in comparison.
In the Pacific, houses and buildings at risk from Typhoons are required by code in many countries to have a steel frames. Houses and buildings that are at risk from storm surge are required to be on stilts. This allows the houses and buildings to ride out severe weather with minimal damage and minimal loss of life.
Had this very simply building code been adopted in the coastal areas of the US hurricane zone, the damage from severe weather would be minimal. Had the houses below sea level in New Orleans been on stilts the flood damage and deaths from Katrina would have been minimal. Had the houses on the coast been build on stilts, the deaths from storm surge would have been avoided.
Yet the building codes continue to allow houses to be built with wood frames and at ground level in hurricane prone areas, where storm surge can be a killer. This is the real policy failure. Instead of building houses to suite the weather, the politicians are trying to change the weather. Rather than admit their policy failures, the politicians use “climate change” as an excuse.
I call BS on this excuse. Hurricanes and storm surge have been destroying buildings and killing people on the east coast of the US for as long as people have lived there. A very simple and sensible change to the building codes, in line with the example set by countries in the western pacific would minimize this risk. Yet the politicians fail to act. Using “climate change” as an excuse to do nothing.
How about if we start building houses in the Colorado without insulation, and warm the planet to keep everyone inside warm? Or build houses in Arizona without air conditioning and cool the planet to keep everyone comfortable. How is this any different than trying to change the weather to prevent hurricanes?
It is much simpler and less expensive to build houses to suit the weather than it is to change the weather to suit the houses.
Why do the Alarmists go so all-in with obvious untruths that time will prove out? These are the same people who are in Charlotte telling us that the last four years has been an overwhelming economic success. There are a lot of bad people in power right now. Time to vote these people out of power once an for all.
There are economic consequences to what we do. If you build lots of expensive stuff in areas where hurricanes frequently hit, you will see a commensurate “economic consequence” when a hurricanes do what they do, and have been doing longer than any of us have been around.
Davidmhoffer, you incorrectly attributed a comment by Larry Geiger to Lazy Teenager.
Here is the comment you were responding to:
And here is your reply:
I think you have a couple of apologies to issue.
“””””…..Joseph Bastardi says:
September 4, 2012 at 12:32 pm
If Dodgy Geezer was sarcastic, my apology. With the way things are today in this matter, one can never tell as the absurdities that come out of the AGW camp defy reality…..”””””
Yeah Joe, ya screwed up; we’re all Ryan Maue fans here including the geezer. glad to hear Ryan is working with you now.
George