From the University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST, coin flip climatology?
More hurricanes for Hawaii?
News of a hurricane threat sends our hearts racing, glues us to the Internet for updates, and makes us rush to the store to stock up on staples. Hawaii, fortunately, has been largely free from these violent storms in the recent past, only two having made landfall in more than 30 years.
Now a study headed by a team of scientists at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, shows that Hawaii could see a two-to-three-fold increase in tropical cyclones by the last quarter of this century. The study, which appears in the May 5, 2013, online issue of Nature Climate Change, though, leaves open the question, how worried Island residents should get.
“Computer models run with global warming scenarios generally project a decrease in tropical cyclones worldwide. This, though, may not be what will happen with local communities,” says lead author Hiroyuki Murakami.
To determine whether tropical cyclones will become more frequent in Hawaii with climate change, Murakami and climate expert Bin Wang at the Meteorology Department, University of Hawaii at Manoa, joined forces with Akio Kitoh at the Meteorological Research Institute and the University of Tsukuba in Japan. The scientists compared in a state-of-the-art, high-resolution global climate model the recent history of tropical cyclones in the North Pacific with a future (2075–2099) scenario, under which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, resulting in temperatures about 2°C higher than today.
“In our study, we looked at all tropical cyclones, which range in intensity from tropical storms to full-blown category 5 hurricanes. From 1979 to 2003, both observational records and our model document that only every four years on average did a tropical cyclone come near Hawaii. Our projections for the end of this century show a two-to-three-fold increase for this region,” explains Murakami.
The main factors responsible for the increase are changes in the large-scale moisture conditions, the flow patterns in the wind, and in surface temperature patterns stemming from global warming.
Most hurricanes that might threaten Hawaii now are born in the eastern Pacific, south of the Baja California Peninsula. From June through November the ingredients there are just right for tropical cyclone formation, with warm ocean temperatures, lots of moisture, and weak vertical wind shear. But during the storms’ long journey across the 3000 miles to Hawaii, they usually fizzle out due to dry conditions over the subtropical central Pacific and the wind shear from the westerly subtropical jet.
Surprisingly, even though fewer tropical cyclones will form in the eastern Pacific in Murakami’s future scenario, we can expect more of them to make their way to Hawaii.
The upper-level westerly subtropical jet will move poleward so that the mean steering flow becomes easterly. Thus, storms from Baja California are much more likely to make it to Hawaii. Furthermore, since the climate models also project that the equatorial central Pacific will heat up, conditions may become more favorable for hurricane formation in the open ocean to the south or southeast of Hawaii.
“Our finding that more tropical cyclones will approach Hawaii as Earth continues to warm is fairly robust because we ran our experiments with different model versions and under varying conditions. The yearly number we project, however, still remains very low,” reassures study co-author Wang.
The paper:
Hiroyuki Murakami, Bin Wang, Tim Li, and Akio Kitoh: Projected increase in tropical cyclones near Hawaii. Nature Climate Change, May 5, 2013, on line publication: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE1890
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I think I can answer the question posed above without using a model, or considering CO2 in any way.
Dear Residents of a beautiful tropical paradise island situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean:
Prepare for the worst. Always. And hope for the best.
That is all.
“Twice nothing is still nothing.”
Given self delusion I suppose its quite easy to keep a straight face.
The study, which appears in the May 5, 2013, online issue of Nature Climate Change, though, leaves open the question, how worried Island residents should get.
In 62+ years, not very worried, most will not be living. Another future fantasy that can’t be observed.
“Hawaii could see a two-to-three-fold increase in tropical cyclones by the last quarter of this century.”
It is probably best that I hold my comments until after 2060 or so. All this will probably have blown over by then.
It is amazing that this kind of nonsense now masquerades as science!
“Thus, storms from Baja California are much more likely to make it to Hawaii. ”
I recall one of those Baja storms two or three years ago that sputtered along as a TS/TD until it passed the Hawaiian archipeligo, but it held together. It finally passed 180 and eventually developed into a typhoon. Don’t see that very often.
It’s always a case of having to wait 20 or 30 years, or 50 or 100. Yet if we look back on predictions of only a decade or so ago and point out they were wrong, we’re told “that’s old news, it doesn’t count that we got it wrong then, our models are better now.”
There’s no way out with these people. Same way as CAGW is always responsible whether it’s warmer, colder, drier, wetter, windier or snowier. Whatever is proven wrong, we’ll still be told there is catastrophe ahead.
Will someone pleeeeease pull the plug on these people? Enough is enough already! How far down the tubes does civilization have to go before people wake up to the fact the solution is the problem and the greens are behind it. These crazies are a danger to us all. They should be outlawed and the active members in jail.
So if they’ve only had 2 storms in 30 years, and assuming storms were more frequent in the past, this is a brilliant hedge for the warmists because since the trend is nearly zero there can be no sudden dip to “algore effect” them, if it stays the same, nobody cares because its a “maybe”, but if it goes up (the only direction it can go) they get to gloat about how awesome their models are.
The precautionary principle commands we ignore both and look outside from time to time to see what is going on out there.
It is sort of difficult to know what to make of this.
“Computer models run with global warming scenarios generally project a decrease in tropical cyclones worldwide. This, though, may not be what will happen with local communities,” says lead author Hiroyuki Murakami.
Best I got here was that the “models” predict a decrease in tropical cyclones worldwide. So if there are less cyclones, the ones that remain must either be amplified and/or better focused on the Hawaiian chain.
From this we might well deduce:
“Surprisingly, even though fewer tropical cyclones will form in the eastern Pacific in Murakami’s future scenario, we can expect more of them to make their way to Hawaii.” Which, since it was not mentioned, might mean that they are not stronger, or more numerous, leaves better-focused on the Hawaiian chain the only viable option.
“The upper-level westerly subtropical jet will move poleward so that the mean steering flow becomes easterly.” Had to look that up.
One reference I found states: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130505145937.htm
“The upper-level westerly subtropical jet will move poleward so that the mean steering flow becomes easterly. Thus, storms from Baja California are much more likely to make it to Hawaii.”
It’s already been doing that for donkey’ years, but it could continue and strengthen because “The upper-level westerly subtropical jet will move poleward”. About the best I can make of this is that since the “westerly” moved northward, the “easterly”, which is moving east to west from south of Baja, will slope north sooner than normal, and smack the Hawaiian chain more frequently as a result.
Essentially, this “finding” can be distilled down to a CO2 focused lens, where we can cobble together an industry-wide, anthropogenic-wide, world-wide carbon-fiber rheostat to “steer” tropical convergence zone anomalies at or away from the Hawaiian Archipelago.
Which rather handily devolves to the most pertinent of conundrums: (1) should one buy another round, or (2) simulate yet another plausibly-deniable inhalation?
Poisson tells me that over the next 500 years there will be a decade in which two typhoons hit Hawaii. Now, send me some grant money and I will make some more predictions.
When I saw the headline I thought it was about some treader of fashion catwalks giving the usual air-head opinion of climate change horror.
Uhm, I was wrong wasn’t I?
Who funds IPRC ?
AH SO !
Sing the next lines to a lively Gilbert-And-Sullivan Tune:
When you know [Ah So !]
You have to Go [AHHHH SOOOO !]
When you know you have to go you say Ah So ! [AHH SoooOOOHHHhhh !]
When you know [Ah So !]
You have to Go [ Ahhh ssssoooooHHHHH !]
When you know you have to Go you say Ah So ! [AAAaaaahhhhh SSSSSOoooohhhhh 1]
😉 Ah So !
Maybe it,s the two NZ ARI scientists that give us 4 meter sea level rise per century helping them out.
I was going to read the paper to separate out what the data says as opposed to what the models say, but it’s hidden behind a paywall, so its not worth the trouble.
My computer model, just executed on a programmable pocket calculator from 1986 shows a decrease in hurricane strikes for Hawai’i by 75 to 80% by 2100. Please make out a cash check, thank you.
If more heat means more cyclones, why haven’t we seen an increase? After all, the planet is its hottest in thousands of years.
So by century’s end, more of a decreasing number of hurricanes are projected to visit the islands. Sounds to me like a wash then, in a manner of speaking.
And people still believe this stuff without questioning it??? Talk about devolution.
The upper-level westerly subtropical jet will move poleward so that the mean steering flow becomes easterly.
The upper-level westerly subtropical jets move poleward when the sun is active and equatorward when the sun is less active. Mainly as result of the changes of UV-ozone-temperature influences in the lower stratosphere, which makes that the temperature differences between equator and poles in that layer increase or decrease over a solar cycle.
The current solar cycle is a lot less active than the previous cycles, with as result that the jet streams are a lot more equatorward than normal near solar maximum. That makes that rain patterns are a lot more southward (for the NH) and that countries like Spain and Italy (even Saudi Arabia) receive the full train of clouds and rain.
Models imply that CO2 has a similar effect, by increasing the equator-pole temperature difference. But none of the observations show such an effect within the solar cycles in the lower stratosphere. Thus there is no observation based reason to expect that more hurricanes will hit Hawaii…
“Computer models run with global warming scenarios generally project a decrease in tropical cyclones worldwide. ”
Really? Strange that if you read the msm or listen to O’bama talk you’d get the opposite impression.
“Our finding that more tropical cyclones will approach Hawaii as Earth continues to warm is fairly robust because we ran our experiments with different model versions and under varying conditions”.
Running simulations are not experiments.
If it’s based on models, then you can safely assume just the opposite (i.e. his models are crystal ball crap dressed up as science). How many more times will we fall for that trick?
“‘Our finding that more tropical cyclones will approach Hawaii as Earth continues to warm is fairly robust because we ran our experiments with different model versions and under varying conditions. The yearly number we project, however, still remains very low,’ reassures study co-author Wang.”
This is your cue to throw the swindlers out the door.
How many financial investors have gotten burned listening to the same kind of sales pitch? This is a study written by quacks. Don’t buy!
It’s amazing that Nature Climate Change publishes such garbage.