![satellite_thumb[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/satellite_thumb1.png?quality=75)
Jonathan Nott, James Cook University gave this presentation at the: Distinguished Lecture, 31 July, Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) 11th Annual Meeting 2014, Sapporo, Japan.
Applying the Palaeo-tropical Cyclone Record
Palaeo-tropical cyclone records have to date been predominantly used to depict long-term trends as well as attempting to understand the causes of these trends. These records can also be useful for more immediate timescales such a reliably deriving the frequency and magnitude of events for present day planning purposes and also for assessing whether tropical cyclones are responding to global climate change.
Two examples of these uses of long-term cyclone records are presented here. The first […].
The second application is the use of high-resolution isotope records to assess whether tropical cyclone (TC) activity over the past few decades has changed substantially compared to the past 1,500 years.
[…]
High-resolution isotope records of TCs can be preserved within limestone stalagmites. Two records, one from Western Australia [since 500AD] and the other from Queensland [since 1400AD], provide insight into the nature of landfalling TC activity across the Australian continent. These records can be used to assess the role of humans in influencing the behavior of TCs […]. We developed a new index (Cyclone Activity Index – CAI), which calibrates the high-resolution, long-term isotope record of TC activity against the instrument TC record. The CAI allows for a direct comparison between the past and the present, and enables an examination of TC climatology at higher temporal resolution and on annual, decadal or millennial scales simultaneously, without the need to interpolate or extrapolate to account for missing data, which is a problem with the existing record of TCs. The CAI is the average accumulated energy expended over the TC season within range of the site, accounting for the number of days since genesis [of the storm] and the intensity and size of the storm relative to its distance from the site at each point along its track.
Our CAI for Australia shows that seasonal TC activity is at its lowest level since the year 500AD in Western Australia and 1400AD in Queensland and this decline in activity has been most pronounced since about 1960AD. This reduction in activity reflects the forecasts of TC behaviour for the Australian region from a suite of the most recent global climate models except this decrease appears to be occurring many decades earlier than expected.
Source: http://www.asiaoceania.org/aogs2014/doc/lecturers/SL/IG/IG2/IG2_Jonathan_Nott_Abs.pdf
h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
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Read the last sentence of the posting carefully. It says that this condition was forecast by the GCM’ s. watts up with that?
Am I reading it right that an effect of AGW was forecasted to be fewer TC near Australia?
If that is the case, then how are the dynamics different in NH where more and stronger hurricanes etc, are forecasted ( although we all know the 3100 days since a Cat 3 has hit US mainland). Could someone unconfuse me?
1. sleepingbear dunes says:
July 31, 2014 at 12:27 pm
Am I reading it right that an effect of AGW was forecasted to be fewer TC near Australia?
If that is the case, then how are the dynamics different in NH where more and stronger hurricanes etc, are forecasted ( although we all know the 3100 days since a Cat 3 has hit US mainland). Could someone unconfuse me?
Silly, Australia in in the Southern Hemisphere. That means everything is upside down compared to the USA. Less=more. Stronger=weaker. Hotter=colder. It’s all AGW regardless. See?
/sarc
How do scientists validate their proxies?
Australian cyclones are only resting while they wait for the appropriate moment to lash out and devastate the government-in-denial, also known as the Abbott government. Afterwards, Tim Flannery will row to the rescue shouting “I told you so. I told you so”, or whatever the equivalent saying is in Australian.
@mpainter:
This reduction in activity reflects the forecasts of TC behaviour for the Australian region from a suite of the most recent global climate models except this decrease appears to be occurring many decades earlier than expected.
The models are WRONG as they didn’t predict it to happen until decades later. See how that works?
Mike Lewis:
Your post at July 31, 2014 at 12:40 pm says in total
Actually, the discrepancy does indicate that the models are wrong because they have made a wrong forecast.
The models forecast that there would NOT be a decrease in TC behaviour for decades, but such a reduction has happened.
Which if any forecasts of the models can be said to have confidence when the models made a wrong forecast of the TC behaviour? See how that works: it is called assessing forecast skill.
Richard
Actually the admission that it was forecast is the first honest thing I have read out of the alarmist crowd. Equalization of energy throughout the hemisphere should lead to less violent storms. But the meme is contradicting that.
sleepingbear dunes;
If that is the case, then how are the dynamics different in NH where more and stronger hurricanes etc, are forecasted
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You have to be real careful with the official wording. In this case, IPCC AR5 Chapter 11 says:
There is low confidence in near-term projections of increased TC (Tropical Cyclone) intensity in the North Atlantic…
Once you parse the stilted language, you realize that they are cleverly disguising the actual projection. Their “lowe confidence it will increase” would be the same as “high confidence that it will decrease or stay the same”. Clever word smiths those IPCC authors. Of the rest of the world, they basically say there aren’t enough studies to make any kind of projection with any level of confidence. This is a climb down from the leaked Second Order Draft where they pretty much spelled out that TC frequency and intensity was expected to be the same or decline further at least until the year 2100. The politicians just couldn’t stand to have something like that in print, so they came up with the tortured language above which, if you’re no paying close attention, sounds like what you expect to hear. But it isn’t.
It only takes one model in one run to predict/postulate/create a scenario that TCs will reduce in the Oz region for the claim of ‘The models are right’ to be broadcast far and wide.
This then morphs into ALL of the models being right.
If you carefully read the National Climate Assessment #3 or the IPCC AR5 they both admit that the climate models project fewer tropical cyclones in a warmer world. This is borne out by the Dec. 2013 US CLIVAR report and the NIPCC v.3 reports.
My question is, “Where are the screaming headlines ‘Global Warming will result in Fewer Hurricanes’?” They just don’t seem to exist. Hurricanes were the literal poster boys of “An Inconvenient Truth” and now they’re no long on the CAGW radar. He he he.
Burning coal reduces cyclones? Can we get someone to put that into jingle for the Indian market? the Bay of Bengal fishermen thank you.
Well, of course the models are wrong but when this is cranked through the propaganda mill it will come out in banner headlines CLIMATE CHANGE IS HERE NOW
And so the death of the tropical cyclone becomes much lamented at sks- ha ha.
kenw
Thanks. I knew there was a very logical answer. 🙂 Since the warmists have gotten (Ooops there is that word again) so many predictions wrong I thought they were prepping us for when they will be reversing all previous predictions to see if the rest of us catch it. Like “Oh no, All along we said there would be a 40 year period of virtually no warming.” Somehow they are going to have get out of this gracefully.
This isn’t new.
Published in Nature 505, 667–671 (30 January 2014).
FWIW, around here (NE Oz) we know that the frequency of TS events has diminished. Had a number of years in which the BoM predictions turned out to be ludicrously over the top, to the extent that even they finally managed to put a sock in it and predict “normal”, whatever that is supposed to mean. This year they forgot to be cautious so had to make some adjustments, beat up some very marginal events not affecting the coasts to justify their predictions.
The UK’s Met Office has predicted five more flat years.
Let’s model a huge sine wave, this way we’ll have ALL possible predictions in one model, and can always claim we predicted reality, only a few years off.
An interesting fact is that along the east coast of Australia, south of the Tropic of Capricorn, where we used to get half a dozen cyclones cross the coast in most years, since 1976 NOT ONE TC has crossed the coast.
It didn’t reduce progressively as, say, ACO2 increased, it just stopped happening.
That seems to be saying: this, like the “warming”, is just another natural cycle.
I wonder if Australians will hear about this good news on our/their ABC . Doubtful I’d say.
I also wonder if my Trpoical Far North Queensland house insurance will go down a bit from being outrageously expensive to just expensive. I can dream.
The former official position of Australian climatologists. http://www.cawcr.gov.au/publications/BMRC_archive/researchreports/RR131.pdf
“Recent studies suggest that the frequency of the most intense tropical cyclones has increased in many regions, while other studies highlight observational errors that makes quantification of trends difficult (Kepert 2007). While the apparent increase can not be unambiguously linked to the global warming that has already taken place.”
and “Although recent climate model simulations project a decrease or no change in global tropical cyclone numbers in a warmer climate, there is low confidence in this projection. In addition, it is unknown how tropical cyclone tracks or areas of impact will change in the future”
How are all the plants and animals going to cope with all that lack of weather? (research grant required).
“Robin.W. says:
July 31, 2014 at 7:59 pm”
No mention of it at all. All we are hearing is that this July was one of the warmest on record.
Surfing teaches you to read irregular, seemingly chaotic, wave patterns. The first thing you realize is waves come in sets, with sometimes long quiet periods of just gently bobbing up and down with the calm seas. when the first wave at the beginning of the set peaks, you’re looking out to see #2, and #3 building further out. Sometimes you get 4 or 5 waves in a set, each one bigger, until it stops. If there is a storm out to sea, the sets keep coming, and it’s surfer’s Nervana.
We humans always like to believe the here and now we are living in is an exceptional period in history. Thats an illusion… an arrogance.
Global TC frequency-intensity is probably running a similar fractal like pattern to surfer’s waves, that is scale invariant, and seemingly chaotic (unpredictable, as the TC forecasters with expensive models and past data must eat humble pie every year now) in frequency and intensity.
Right now we’re just bobbing along, wondering when the next set of active years will arrive. Not exceptional, and that is scary to an Alarmist who needs to scare the public to keep their wallets open.
Don’t they know yet, up North is in monsoon regions. Sure cyclones come around generally in summer, but some don’t land fall or their strength reduces. We get warnings well ahead of time.If holidaying we avoid the summer months if travelling to Queensland. One does it at the end of winter or early spring to avoid cyclones. But we get rotten storms too around the coast of NSW.
We have high winds today August the first on the Northern Tablelands, but down south of NSW it is hitting them harder. No wind farms get, thank goodness.
“bushbunny says:
August 1, 2014 at 1:03 am”
Having lived in Wellington, New Zealand, I always have a giggle when Aussies talk about a bit of wind.