Bob Tisdale writes in with:
What Do You Suppose They’ve Been Doing At The National Hurricane Center This Summer?
http://i27.tinypic.com/im1m2r.gif
Source: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
Bocce maybe? Horseshoes?
UPDATE – Ryan Maue of Florida State University writes in comments:
Global (Northern Hemisphere) tropical cyclone ACE for the months May – June – July is the lowest in at least the past 30-years or more.
I, for one, am not surprised. Continued inactivity should persist for the next few weeks until the atmosphere catches up with the radiative warming of the tropical oceans due to the season called summer.
2007 was a dud. 2008 was saved from being a record year by 2007. 2009 is behind the pace of both years. Amazing how natural variability affects tropical cyclone formation, tracks, and intensity. Who would have thought?
Ryan’s Tropical web page at Florida State University has this graph that shows accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) :
Sorted monthly data: Text File
Note where 2009 is in the scheme of things.
I sent the FSU link to Drudge with comment:
Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) lowest in 30 years!
What is the NHC doing?
Establishing baseline performance standards.
Honing core competancies.
Reviewing strategic research goals.
Documenting implementation of achieving objectives.
and a thousand other bureaucratic games
but not much hurricane forecasting
Stephen Wilde (11:16:45) :
I’m surprised by how closely that graph above matches the ups and downs of the solar cycles 20 through 23.
Draw a line down across the peaks from 1971 to 2008 and it’s an accurate reflection of the slow weakening of those cycles over the period.
Modified slightly by El Nino and La Nina events.
Given the smallness of solar variation and the time lags caused by oceanic variability even I was expecting a much less obvious relationship.
More thought needed by the climate establishment ?
__________________________________________________________
I noticed the same thing, but had a hard time believing there was a true relationship since, as you noted, there should be a lag. Definitely something worth looking into.
To JR: About the wind speed at the buoy. There is actually a reason why there is a wind speed difference between the airplane and the buoy. There is less friction in the air where an airplane flies. Wind speed is always going to be less at sea level/ground than in the air.
Nogw: There are still some elevated subsurface anomalies. I don’t think the El Nino level SST anomalies are ready to quit yet. On the other hand, there’s a good sign in the lower animation of subsurface temperatures. The thermocline isn’t fattening noticeably, but it’s still early in the El Nino cycle.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/wkxzteq.shtml
Living in the Florida Keys I tend to watch tropical cyclone activity pretty closely. I am no expert, I just like surviving. The Saharan dust that has been producing the haze we have had every now and again, the lower than normal SST we have had and my personal panic index all say below normal season. But don’t tell anyone, I don’t want to jinx myself.
I believe the Atlantic high is in position to steer any Cape Verde storms north before they hit the coast. IIRC, when Andrew came through the high had shifted west and drove it straight into us.
I’m interested in that cold water off of Africa right now. Looks like some kind of “Atlantic La Nina”. Is that unusual? Does that occur very much? I never noticed it before in past years of keeping a wary eye on Atlantic SSTs.
Only news to report here is that there is no news to report here. Another model that didn’t get it right. In the real world, we look out our windows and wonder.. “Is it mathematically possible for the climate models to get it wrong that many times in a row?”
Tenuc
“fails to take into account that the origin of these phenomna take place under conditions of an abnormally strong electric fields which together with electromagnetohydrodynamic interaction occupies a key position in the intensification process.”
you’ve just cut and pasted something you don’t understand from here
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2717573
and added your own bits
“Quiet sun = fewer large cyclones”
and
“As the sun is a major suppler of electricity to the earth, I thnk the lack of solar actvity at the moment means the earths electromagnetc field is too weak to fuel these energetc events”
That last paragraph just boggles the mind it is so far removed from reality.
Regards
Andy
Note, however, the close correspondence of hurricaine frequency with the steady increase of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere! Actually, the graph is quite interesting for showing that the system is clearly cyclical.
Another proof that mankind has damaged the climate beyond repair.
😉
Increased cyclones as a result of AGW has became part of common knowledge. I love to use such graph in discussion. Usual warmist reaction is, “well, but I still believe that…”
NOAA has stopped reporting TCHP (Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential) on their website as of May 19. This was a mix of SST and the depth of the 26 C layer. It is particularly good at predicting tropical storm intensification. They had some good daily maps, which you can check out at: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/cyclone/data/seven.html
Yep they’re playing solataire on their Crays.
crosspatch (12:32:39) :
Right again. This year the Bermuda high has been everywhere but over (or near) Bermuda. It’s been mostly over or just north of the Gulf and with it’s clockwise circulation is what is helping/allowing “cold” fronts to traverse (N to S) Florida so very late in the season. Had one last week. But why? There are other conditions this year that do not favor H formation such as the failure of SST to warmup as quickly as other years, weak East to West trade winds in the same location (due to as captdallas2 pointed out, greater Saharan dust?) and stronger upper atmosphere wind currents. But why? PDO shift? The Sun? ENSO change?
Oh, and while September/October is the most active period for “Atlantic” hurricanes it’s NOT because we don’t get them earlier (we’ve had them in May) it’s because that includes the ones that form in the Gulf which by then has warmed sufficiently to produce them itself or further empower the ones developed elsewhere. And therefore on average there are more and bigger ones at that time.
Listen up folks.
Just done something crazy with that data and had a surprise.
Here is a one page PDF with a plot and a few words.
http://www.gpsl.net/climate/data/tropical_storm_ace.pdf
Answers on a postcard please, is this real?
Yes, but I’m sure we would have had even less activity by now (i.e. negative hurricanes) if it wasn’t for global warming…
/sarc off
Re: Pamela Gray (09:45:12) :
“The primary reason for no hurricanes in the Gulf is because the jet stream is too far North.”
I’m not so sure about links between PDO and the Jet Stream in the Atlantic.
I’d give you AMO (which turned strongly negative back in Spring) which supports cooler Sea Surface Temperatures – cooler than average (or “normal” whatever that is) in the Tropical Atlantic in fact.
Also, there has been widespread strong vertical wind shear (consistent with the fact that we have entered El Nino) and a couple of strong Saharan dust outbreaks into the eastern Tropical Atlantic this season. Cooler SSTs (driven by the natural cycle of the AMO) together with El Nino (natural) and dust (natural) and you get….NADA so far.
my 2 cents
Saharan dust has been associated with reduced tropical activity.
The Navy Research Lab’s aerosol dust model (http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/aerosol/) has shown significant Saharan dust across the Atlantic during all of July. The dust floating over South Texas is as significant as I’ve measured in 20 years. This helps explain the lack of tropical systems in the Gulf of Mexico. Of interest is the enhanced dust during the current protracted solar minimum.
Somewhat on topic: The very, very preliminary July 2009 Global and NINO3.4 SST anomalies (NOAA posted preliminary July data on the NOMADS website on Monday) are here:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/07/very-very-preliminary-july-2009-sst.html
I won’t graph with individual ocean data until it’s finalized in a couple of weeks. But for those interested, North Atlantic SST anomalies are showing a very slight drop (~0.02 deg C) after last month’s jump up (~0.2 deg C).
http://i31.tinypic.com/2qx6xhu.png
Re: Dan Lee (13:14:08) :
“I’m interested in that cold water off of Africa right now. Looks like some kind of “Atlantic La Nina”. Is that unusual? Does that occur very much? I never noticed it before in past years of keeping a wary eye on Atlantic SSTs.”
I have seen that and the opposite (warmer than normal water) on occasion off West Africa and off eastern South America – I think it is essentially due to up-welling. Stronger easterly trade winds off Africa (which we have had – hence the dust) leads to greater up-welling of deep cold water near the coast. When the trades are weak, the opposite occurs.
As mentioned above, the Pacific is not very active either. I think that there have been only one or two named storms (Western Pacific) of which only one made it to typhoon status. Today’s satellite photo shows only two possible area east of Guam.
http://www.usno.navy.mil/NOOC/nmfc-ph/RSS/jtwc/ab/abpwsair.jpg
Forgot to mention the Indian Ocean, quiet:
http://www.usno.navy.mil/NOOC/nmfc-ph/RSS/jtwc/ab/abiosair.jpg
captdallas2 (13:11:11)
Skipper,
If you want to keep an eye on Saharan dust, then watch here for the daily storm activity lifting the dust, often creating a haboob and here for the dust heading your way across the Atlantic.
Ryan,
Didn’t Dr. Curry call for above average this year?
Ryan’s Tropical web page at Florida State University
certainly does deserve a bit more attention–
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/
This is OT, but I think it important enough to interrupt the thread. I am posting from the public library in Red Lodge, Montana. I drove up here to document the local USHCN station. The NOAA coordinates shown for current are incorrect. The site was the local radio station for about 15 years. A gentleman at the local fire department called a friend at the radio station who said the weather station had been moved downtown. He didn’t know the exact location, but give him a few minutes and he would find out and call back.
As good as his word, he called back, but with the news that his informant would not share the information, but would talk with me. Fair enough, I made the call to:
Carolyn Willis at 406 652-0851 ext 246
This is NOAA’s National Weather Service Office in Billings, Montana. As diplomatically as possible under the circumstances, Ms Willis declined to give me the new location, other than that it is located at a private residence. She cited privacy issues. I asked if they were no longer post the location on MMS; she allowed that they would probably eventually post it. She said that they have received complaints from their curators about our activities.
Finally, she referred me to
Mr. Matt Ocana at 801 524-5692
I got an answering machine message there inviting me to leave a number for a call back. Unfortunately, being on the road in very remote areas, this is not practical.
It seems to me that there is an element in NOAA that is now actively obstructing our efforts. They need to hear from more than just m.
Juan