We’ve mentioned many times the lack of major landfalling hurricanes on the USA being in a record drought. When the Atlantic hurricane season starts on June 1st, 13 days from now, it will have been (barring a miracle storm) 2,777 days since the last time an intense (that is a Category 3, 4 or 5) hurricane made landfall along the US coast (Wilma in 2005). Such a prolonged period without an intense hurricane landfall has not been observed since 1900.
![hurrdrou0613[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/hurrdrou06131.jpg?resize=640%2C414)
Source: Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.
We’ve also routinely talked about Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) being down. You can see the downtrends on the WUWT Extreme Weather Page.
Now Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has posted an updated graph (if you can call through 2011 “updated”) that shows a significant downtrend in all tropical storms, with no discernible trend for severe tropical cyclones. They write:
Trends in tropical cyclone activity in the Australian region (south of the equator; 90ā160Ā°E) show that the total number of cyclones appears to have decreased to the mid 1980s, and remained nearly stable since. The number of severe tropical cyclones (minimum central pressure less than 970 hPa) shows no clear trend over the past 40 years.
![tc-graph-1969-2012[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/tc-graph-1969-20121.png?resize=570%2C381)
That’s just another inconvenient truth for those paid activist wailers who insist AGW is making the weather worse, when it actually isn’t.
h/t to Andrew Bolt
Facts! We don’t need no stinkin’ facts.
I know this is against the current global warming meme…but if global warming were true, isn’t this one of the few things that the models should predict?
Given the heat dissipation effect of hurricanes and cyclones, doesn’t the fact that cooling has been taking place at the same time as the reduction in these storms make logical sense?
This is great. Good to see. The problem is that weāre in for a high impact season on the east coast U.S. this year. Imagine the press reaction to another Hurricane Carol from the 1950ās, or perish the thought, another storm like 1938. Look what they did with āsuperstorm sandy.ā I think we ought to get out in front of that as much as possible, however we can.
Truly the right hand knowest not what the left————just last night, on the ABC we had our experts justifying the Queensland Govts. proposed disaster levy (to make us “FLOODPROOF”–LOL) with tales about bigger and more frequent cyclones.
“…2,777 days since the last time an intense (that is a Category 3, 4 or 5) hurricane made landfall along the US coast.ā
Again, wrong tack imo. This is likely to end this summer, perhaps in a very big way.
Related: Despite the recent tragic tornado outbreak in Texas, the U.S. tornado count is still down significantly this year:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/monthly/newm.html
Not to say you’re wrong, but why do you think that is the case?
Rhoda R says:
May 17, 2013 at 1:53 pm
Dang, beat me to it.
http://flhurricane.com/cyclone/showflat.php?Board=tb2013&Number=94268&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&fpart=1
Still this is just the odds, and we may miss yet another year here in Florida.
The pro-carbon (sic) tax Global Warming computer models FAILED TO PREDICT A DROUGHT FREE Australia & New Zealand while carbon dioxide is 400ppm and ENSO has been in a neutral phase for over a year .
http://www.daff.gov.au/ludwig/media_office/media_releases/media_releases/2012/april/Australia-to-be-drought-free
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-06/nz-drought-over/4671688
This is a MAJOR climactic event.
Not a fraudulent “weather IS NOW climate” goal post shift:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/climate-change-a-key-factor-in-extreme-weather-experts-say-20130303-2fefv.html
Yet another nail in the “man made Catastrophic Global Warming” fraud.
D.J. writes: “Not to say youāre wrong, but why do you think that is the case?ā
Because you live by the sword and die by it. Itās not the lack of hurricanes thatās important imo, which wonāt last thatās material, but the lack of warming over the last 17 years. How can warming be causing extreme weather events, when thereās been none?
Talking about Australia, will be interesting to see what comes of this study
http://rses.anu.edu.au/highlights/view.php?article=240
“”Preliminary results from the Tasman Sea cruise show that, for the last 300 years, SSTs did not increase uniformly as predicted by the Hockey Stick curve of Mann et al., (2008) but that there are areas of unchanged SST offshore southern Queensland whereas, further south, the last 50 years saw a variety of SST changes, some going up, others going down.””
“Australian Cyclone Activity Down”.
Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml
Yep – we know this, and the trend is obvious in the chart,
But if you follow the link, you find that it is contradicted:
“… substantial evidence … theory and model experiments … changing as a result of greenhouse warming … “. The same old talking heads stuff …
@ Pedantic old Fart:
” …Queensland Govts. proposed disaster levy … ”
I used to work for the minister concerned, so hopefully he will recognise the name, and at least read a submission I sent in regarding alleged SLR and cyclone intensity. The Minister is a “new kid on the block”, but seems to be acquiring the rudiments of wisdom.
Unfortunately, the measure is overdue as a result of 150+ years of building settlements in silly places. Nothing to do with all the AGW/CC flim-flam.
My submission has now reached the desk of the deputy premier. One submission of 6 pages doesn’t pack much weight. Literally. The file/folder (physical or electronic) needs to get a lot thicker.
pokerguy says:
May 17, 2013 at 2:38 pm
“This is great. Good to see. The problem is that weāre in for a high impact season on the east coast U.S. this year. Imagine the press reaction to another Hurricane Carol from the 1950ās,…”
I’m with pokerguy on this. I’ve put out the same warning in earlier posts on hurricane activity. The 1950s is 60 years away and took place in during a cool spell like that developing now. I think we shouldn’t be complacent and simply pooh pooh the failure. Can’t we find a hurricane guy out there that can make this connection and write an article here that anticipates a strong hurricane season to take the wind out of the desperate AGW sails (and complacent sceptic’s). Maybe Willis will take it on? or Ryan Maue.
If not, a big coup is coming from the AGW proponents who have been suffering and grasping at straws for a decade and a big hurricane will result in another generation of disaster enthusiasts in institutions, media and a return of a recently disaffected public – a new, tougher job for sceptics whose protestations that this is what should be expected will sound mealy-mouthed and hollow. The hurricanes are coming along with the cooling.
Considering air temperatures have maintained the highest levels in the last 150 years, and North Atlantic water temperatures continue to climb, and that water has a much greater ability to conduct/absorb energy than does air, I think that the old “17 year hypothesis” is null and void. The fact is, more energy is being absorbed now than has been in the past and that should be the greatest concern.
I am pretty sure this is one of the very few pieces of real data that is supportive of the AGW theory. But fewer strong storms and warmer winter and night time temperatures in arctic regions isn’t scarry enough so the warmers just ignore the actual theory.
Gary Pearse says (May 17, 2013 at 4:54 pm): “The hurricanes are coming along with the cooling.”
Wouldn’t that make it pretty hard to sell the hurricanes as a consequence of warming?
Where are these warmer winters? Most Northern latitudes have been very cold.
With non-severe cyclones trending down, and severe cyclones trending flat, there is only one possible headline: “CLIMATE CHANGE IS INCREASING THE PERCENTAGE OF CYCLONES THAT ARE SEVERE.”
It’s worse than we though. (TM)
O.K. Now we have Australian and US tropical storms down. Fewer tornadoes. Still plenty of the world for all this unprecedented extreme weather (TM) to destroy. Where isn’t it going to strike next?
Concerning the Texas Tornadoes, I don’t live too far from where they hit, and they were tragic. But I can sum up the attitude of just about everyone who lives here, for those who may not know: Hey, this is Texas. We get tornadoes – always have, always will. It bites, but that’s the way it is,
wws says:
May 17, 2013 at 8:02 pm
I hear you, wws.
Now, apparently, the upper midwest is poised for some severe weather this weekend. If there is a tornado outbreak, I can bet you that the CAGW advocates will be out in force taking advantage of the weather tragedies to advance their agenda. Just watch…
Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml
Thatās just another inconvenient truth for those paid activist wailers who insist AGW is making the weather worse, when it actually isnāt.
Added to the WUWT Extreme Weather Page:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/climatic-phenomena-pages/extreme-weather-page/
@Old woman of the north
“Given the heat dissipation effect of hurricanes and cyclones, doesnāt the fact that cooling has been taking place at the same time as the reduction in these storms make logical sense?”
I think this is an important question. The idea was (according to AGW) that ‘increasing the total energy in the system’ (which is correctly called the ‘enthalpy’) would make the storms ‘stronger’ and ‘more damaging’. One of the proofs this is not true is the fact there are far more massive and powerful storms on planets that are FAR colder than Earth.
The deliverable energy of a system is not related to the enthalpy. It is related to the difference between two energy ‘regions’ and the amount of energy you can dissipate from the ‘higher one’ to the ‘lower one’. One useful way to think of this is to consider two wood stoves side by side, with one being fed more fuel than the other. Both stoves emit lots of heat, but the hotter one heats the cooler one. Reverse the fueling rates and the heat flows the other way.
Now consider what happens if both stoves are fed the ‘high fuel’ rate. They have no net effect on each other, they are both much hotter but between them there is equilibrium because there is no net heat gain by one from the other.
Increasing the energy content of a ‘storm’ is only meaningful if the surrounding region remains cooler. If you raise the energy of the entire system within which the storm operates (GW), the energy it can deliver is not higher than it was before unless there is an additional change in a parameter.
One parameter is the rate at which a storm system can vent heat into the ultimate absorber, space. A hotter storm is more effective at getting heat high into the atmosphere by convection than a less powerful storm. So if the whole system heats, a storm within it is more effective at getting that heat into space, but not more effective at transferring energy to the surrounding low level region because it is also warmer. There is a change in the relationship between the hotter storm and a fixed (very low) temperature in space. There is no change in the temperature difference between the hotter storm and the hotter local environment next to it.
For this reason, it is not true that warming the whole system creates ‘more powerful storms’ in the sense that the storm can ‘deliver more damage’ even though it is quite true that there is an increase in the enthalpy. This has been shown by analysis of the damage records during the past 40 years, factored for the increase in the $ value of the systems at risk. In very brief, the whole system, as extremes are moderated (warming poles, constant tropics) is less and less able to deliver damaging effects from natural weather events. The converse is also true. Stronger temperature gradients permit higher wind speeds (etc).
If someone replies that ‘warming is regional therefore the danger increase’ then by definition is it not global. Regional warming is caused by oceans. That takes us to the work of Bob Tisdale and there I defer to the bumper.
“Truly the right hand knowest not what the left… .” [POF at 2:41PM] LOL.
“‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined… .'” [Matt. 12:25]
AGW IS DONE.
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Wondering aloud, “I am pretty sure this is one of the very few pieces of real data that is supportive of the AGW theory.” [at 5:34 PM]
Well, since AGW theory is ACTUALLY baseless speculation and fanciful conjecture… ANYTHING is supportive of it. [:)]
Someone has a list that is, as the compiler said yesterday, swiftly approaching infinity:
AGW Causes… you-name-it-it’s-in-there.
************************************************
The “A” is the guts of Climatology, thus, once again, I feel compelled to SHOUT FROM THE ROOFTOPS: around 97% OF ALL THE CO2 IN THE WORLD IS NOT……. EMITTED ……. BY……. HUMANS.
We now return to our regular programming.
There’s something familiar about this post … ah, it’s the message I sent nearly three weeks ago at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/30/on-holland-and-bruyere-2013-recent-intense-hurricane-response-to-global-climate-change/#more-85325 and pasted below to save me having to type it again …
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waclimate says:
April 30, 2013 at 7:03 am
As far as US landfalling hurricanes are concerned, there is absolutely nothing unusual in long term trends, and they are not rising (even taking 2004/5 into account in 10-year trends).
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/latest-hurricane-stats-from-noaa/
Same thing in Australia ā¦ http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml
Trends in tropical cyclone activity in the Australian region (south of equator; 105ā160Ā°E) show that the total number of cyclones appears to have decreased to the mid 1980s, and remained nearly stable since. The number of stronger cyclones (minimum central pressure less than 970 hPa) shows no clear trend over the past 40 years.
The BoM chart shows total and intense cyclones are down since the 1980s, which I suppose is ānearlyā stable.
So apart from the US and Australia, I assume the world is being blown apart by hurricanes and cyclones.
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I thought my message was noteworthy but did it really take 18 days to read it? I’ll try to keep ’em shorter from now on š
A point I didn’t mention last month … I’ve knocked together a BoM data based chart showing cyclone frequency from 1972 to 2013 off Western Australia, which gets about half the country’s twisters each year, and it shows a decline similar to the national frequency and intensity chart … http://www.waclimate.net/imgs/wa-cyclones.gif
I find it curious that SST off Western Australia has been about .4C above the 61-90 norm since around 1990 (http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=sst&area=nw&season=0112&ave_yr=0) and for the past couple of years the ocean waters off WA have reportedly been the warmest on record (http://indymedia.org.au/2013/01/04/wa-marine-heatwave-elevated-sea-surface-temps-marine-biodiversity), yet all this energy has produced below average cyclone occurrence.
I always get suspicious when I see stuff like this, though my suspicions maybe unfounded. Does anyone have an explanation why the graph does not go to end of 2012??
What I have found is this:
We could argue that global warming causes less extreme weather. No? Sauce for goose and gander and all that.
The only “severe wind” in Aus is in, and coming out of, Canberra (Our Washington DC).
Despite being labeled a Category 2, Hurricane Ike lambasted the Texas coast in 2010 and cost billions around the Galveston area. Warmer may well be better (for less severe weather, as seems to be the historical case) but working to keep coastal areas safe(r) from harm is the key.
Folks do love the shoreline and insist on putting life and property right on the firing line. Making sure that building codes are enacted and enforced is the way to go.
“We could argue that global warming causes less extreme weather.”
I actually think you could make a very good argument for that proposition not just from current records but from historical ones. It’s been argued that the reasons that the Vikings were such a scourge from the 800’s into the 1200’s were A) a population boom in Scandinavia, due to an increase in cultivated land brought about by the Medieval Warm Period, and B) much calmer and more navigable Baltic and North Seas, which were far less stormier than they are today. Even today, with this vast supposed warming going on, it’s hard to imagine small wooden ships surviving a North Sea journey, much less traveling across the North Atlantic to Greenland and Iceland. But during the MWP, such travel appears to have been fairly common.
The onset of the Little Ice Age, on the other hand, appears to coincide with the onset of a period of damaging, crop destroying storms across the breadth of Europe.
Did I mention that personally, I like warm weather?
WUWT – The final resting place of misfit climate memes.
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pokerguy says:
May 17, 2013 at 2:38 pm
This is great. Good to see. The problem is that weāre in for a high impact season on the east coast U.S. this year.
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Don’t know about that. La Nina conditions promote TS development. ENSO meter looks stuck on neutral so far.
Stressful on coastal regions, but tropical systems often provide much-needed rain here in the mid-Appalachians in late summer/early autumn.
There are still a couple of old records that the current crop of “climate scientists” want to ignore:
1. The world record for the longest sequence of days above 100Ā°Fahrenheit (or 37.8Ā° on the Celsius scale) is held by Marble Bar in the inland Pilbara district of Western Australia. The temperature, measured under standard exposure conditions, reached or exceeded the century mark every day from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924, a total of 160 days.
And, along with that same record, they had this.
2. In the record year of 1923-24 the monsoon trough stayed well north, and the season was notable for its lack of cyclone activity. (In fact, the entire Australian continent was untouched by tropical cyclones throughout the season, a rare event in the 20th Century).
Seems extreme that you’d have both a heat record and a “no cyclone” record during the same season. And that was over 90 years ago – with much lower CO2 levels.
I just paid a trip to the Hurricane Research Division website and it is hard to say hurricane activity is doing anything but increasing in the Atlantic Basin. If you click on the graphs for Major Storms, Hurricanes and Major Hurricanes…. numbers are heading one way and that’s up. Sure major hurricanes aren’t back up to the level in the 50’s, but they are headed that way. The other two graphs are well past any historic comparison. http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html