The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) issued a stunning statement in a recent report. Roger Pielke Jr. has the details on his blog.
Just to remind folks that we’ve been saying much the same thing for months on WUWT:
Global Warming = more hurricanes | Still not happening
=======================
A team of researchers under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization has published a new review paper in Nature Geoscience (PDF) updating consensus perspectives published in 1998 and 2006. The author team includes prominent scientists from either side of the “hurricane wars” of 2005-2006: Thomas R. Knutson, John L. McBride, Johnny Chan, Kerry Emanuel, Greg Holland, Chris Landsea, Isaac Held, James P. Kossin, A. K. Srivastava and Masato Sugi.
The paper reaches a number of interesting (but for those paying attention, ultimately unsurprising) conclusions. On North Atlantic hurricanes the paper states (emphasis added):
Hurricane counts (with no adjustments for possible missing cases) show a significant increase from the late 1800s to present, but do not have a significant trend from the 1850s or 1860s to present3. Other studies23 infer a substantial low-bias in early Atlantic tropical cyclone intensities (1851–1920), which, if corrected, would further reduce or possibly eliminate long-term increasing trends in basin-wide hurricane counts. Landfalling tropical storm and hurricane activity in the US shows no long-term increase (Fig. 2, orange series)20. Basin-wide major hurricane counts show a significant rising trend, but we judge these basin-wide data as unreliable for climate-trend estimation before aircraft reconnaissance in 1944.
The paper’s conclusions about global trends might raise a few eyebrows.
In terms of global tropical cyclone frequency, it was concluded25 that there was no significant change in global tropical storm or hurricane numbers from 1970 to 2004, nor any significant change in hurricane numbers for any individual basin over that period, except for the Atlantic (discussed above). Landfall in various regions of East Asia26 during the past 60 years, and those in the Philippines27 during the past century, also do not show significant trends.
The paper acknowledges that the detection of a change in tropical cyclone frequency has yet to be achieved:
Thus, considering available observational studies, and after accounting for potential errors arising from past changes in observing capabilities, it remains uncertain whether past changes in tropical cyclone frequency have exceeded the variability expected through natural causes.
The paper states that projections of future activity favor a reduction in storm frequency coupled with and increase in average storm intensity, with large uncertainties:
These include our assessment that tropical cyclone frequency is likely to either decrease or remain essentially the same. Despite this lack of an increase in total storm count, we project that a future increase in the globally averaged frequency of the strongest tropical cyclones is more likely than not — a higher confidence level than possible at our previous assessment6.
Does the science allow detection of such expected changes in tropical cyclone intensity based on historical trends? The authors say no:
The short time period of the data does not allow any definitive statements regarding separation of anthropogenic changes from natural decadal variability or the existence of longer-term trends and possible links to greenhouse warming. Furthermore, intensity changes may result from a systematic change in storm duration, which is another route by which the storm environment can affect intensity that has not been studied extensively.
The intensity changes projected by various modelling studies of the effects of greenhouse-gas-induced warming (Supplementary Table S2) are small in the sense that detection of an intensity change of a magnitude consistent with model projections should be very unlikely at this time37,38, given data limitations and the large interannual variability relative to the projected changes. Uncertain relationships between tropical cyclones and internal climate variability, including factors related to the SST distribution, such as vertical wind shear, also reduce our ability to confidently attribute observed intensity changes to greenhouse warming. The most significant cyclone intensity increases are found for the Atlantic Ocean basin43, but the relative contributions to this increase from multidecadal variability44 (whether internal or aerosol forced) versus greenhouse-forced warming cannot yet be confidently determined.
What about more intense rainfall?
. . . a detectable change in tropical-cyclone-related rainfall has not been established by existing studies.
What about changes in location of storm formation, storm motion, lifetime and surge?
There is no conclusive evidence that any observed changes in tropical cyclone genesis, tracks, duration and surge flooding exceed the variability expected from natural causes.
Bottom line (emphasis added)?
. . . we cannot at this time conclusively identify anthropogenic signals in past tropical cyclone data.
The latest WMO statement should indicate definitively (and once again) that it is scientifically untenable to associate trends (i.e., in the past) in hurricane activity or damage to anthropogenic causes.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Like I’ve said before CO2 plays no role in the earth’s climate. Especially not at
.04% by volume. The proportion of CO2 to N2 and O2 in combination with their specific heat is the real problem for the AGW paradigm. Radiative forcings (including “backradiation”), “Greenhouse Effect”, “acts like glass” and especially “amplification” are PSEUDOSCIENCE.
Here’s a little tidbit for all.
CO2 remits its heat much faster than air. The rate at which CO2 emits heat is inversely proprtional to the rate at which it absorbs. CO2 absorption rate AND temperature always LAGS dry air! This is with 100% concentration by volume! CO2 plays no role in hurricanes, droughts, rainfall or anything else that one can think of. Looking for a signal amongst wide fluctuations in the natural world is overall a FOOLs game. The climate quacks are WRONG and the climate itself will be the final arbiter.
sdcougar (15:11:16) :
Consider it done, I will ask them, but you know the follow the money rule, the biggest private donations to PBS probably come from AGW believers.
Here’s something…
Bernie Sanders compares climate skeptics to Nazi deniers
A strident and despicable man
23 Feb 10 – (Excerpts) – “Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is comparing climate change skeptics to those who disregarded the Nazi threat to America in the 1930s, adding a strident rhetorical shot to the already volatile debate over climate change,” says this article on politico.com.
“It reminds me in some ways of the debate taking place in this country and around the world in the late 1930s,” said Sanders, perhaps the most liberal member of the Senate, during a Senate hearing Tuesday. “During that period of Nazism and fascism’s growth – a real danger to the United States and democratic countries around the world – there were people in this country and in the British parliament who said ‘don’t worry! Hitler’s not real! It’ll disappear!”
“Earlier in the hearing, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) had chided Sanders: “I know the senator from Vermont wants so badly to believe that the science on climate change is settled but it’s not.”
I was born and raised in Vermont. I am saddened that Vermonters have elected and re-elected such a despicable man.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33371.html
Thanks to Marc Morano for this link
I would encourage all people to listen and call in to the Thom Hartmann radio show every Friday at noon EST. The first hour that day of the week is called ‘Lunch with Bernie’ and they take your calls if you’d like to talk with Sen. Bernie Sanders over this issue or any other. This was at ice age now
Slightly OT, but a Japanese MSM published, for the first time as far as I’m aware, an editorial touching Climategate and related issues on 25 February: “Global Warming — Researchers Losing Credibility” (for folks only who can read a strange language):
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/editorial/news/20100224-OYT1T01342.htm
[Moderator: the URL can be snipped if you consider the article body is useless.]
cyclones 3-5 million years ago: http://www.physorg.com/news186250015.html
“there were twice as many tropical cyclones during this period, and they lasted two to three days longer on average than they do now”
“temperatures were up to four degrees Celsius warmer than today”
I believe that Poptech’s comment resolves the spin on this new paper by AP climate alarmist Seth Borsenstein. Borenstein is most likely referring to the alarmists theoretical models referenced in the article which project a 2% to 11% increase in the intensity and a decrease in frequency of 6% to 34% of hurricanes by 2100 based on the effects of global warming regardless of the much more significant fact that the real world data on hurricane intensity and frequency support no such findings. The actual hurricane data reviewed through this study says no link can be supported between human activity and hurricane intensity and frequency. As usual Borenstein is twisting the facts to support his well documented alarmist bias.
Anthony, please use the 24-month running sum of global hurricane ACE on my website as the highlight figure. The one you chose is out of date.
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/global_running_ace.jpg
REPLY: Yes of course its out of date, it is the image used in the blog post that I referenced for that date. I can’t replot the graph right now, as my plotting program is still AWOL from my Windows 7 reinstall last night, so I placed your new graph next to it which is the best I can do right now.
I’m sure somebody will find something not to like about it. -A
Defintion #4 of Robust fits well: rough, rude, or boisterous
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Robust
Judith Curry’s “There is a rough signal … ” as in “rough estimate” as in …. not even close.
Icarus (17:21:24) :
Paul Daniel Ash (15:54:49) :
Let me see if I can give you a clearer answer.
Why should we accept this paper that finds no correlation to warming and hurricane activity, when, in the past, we have rejected papers that did find a correlation, or predict a correlation?
Well, it is always a good idea to reject a model that has never been correct. The models predict increased intensity with warming. We have had warming, generally, for the last 200 years and we can not find an increase in intensity when we analize the data correctly. More on this in a minute. I have never understood how an AGW supporter can argue: “well we can’t see it yet, but any minute now it will kick in!” That is just a really stupid thing for a scientist to say. Either the models model the physics correctly or they do not. Certainly the laws of nature are not going to change suddenly and make the models work.
So what about those papers that claimed to find a correlation to warming using real, historical data? Why do we reject them? Well, I hate to say it, but folks like Emmanuel and Curry did such a poor job of science, that they would have never made it into the 5th grade science fair at your local school. Here is an analogy:
Let us say that you are in the 5th grade and you have a hypothesis that tornadoes in the US have been increasing as the population of native North Americans has decreased. You point out that before any Europeans arrived, there were no reports of US tornadoes, dating back to the beginning of time. As the native american population started to diminish, we have our first reports of tornadoes. These reports began to increase dramatically from the 1800s to the 1900s, but then level off in the late 20th century as the native american population, vastly depleted, also levels off.
This analysis may actually be more ‘robust’ than the Emmanuel/Curry analysis. The correlation is probably more significant. But even a 5th grader knows that the change in the number of reported tornados over the last 400 years is the result of the reporting, not the actual number of tornados. A 5th grader would know this, but those reporting a global warming/hurricane connection are not as smart as a 5th grader!
Oh, some tried to estimate a ‘correction’ for the historical data, but the correction was ridiculously low, perhaps to insure the result they wanted, or they were simply unaware of operational hurricane tracking through the decades.
This latest study does not cherry-pick the research on the subject, but looks at it all and goes with the strongest analysis and the best, most widely accepted methodology. It really is not that difficult to seperate the wheat from the chaff. The hurricane/global warming correlation papers were almost always published be people outside tropical meteorology circles. While they were trumpeted by the press and embraced by the IPCC, the most knowledgable folks, who have spent their lives studying tropical cyclones, immediately saw the flaws and dismissed these papers. I have no idea how they got through peer review, unless they were reviewed by other non-tropical atmospheric scientists. Those who were more knowledgable have been publishing for years with a ‘no discernable trend’ conclusion, but were generally ignored by the media. Finally, the people who really understand the historical record, have there say.
Of course, things COULD change in the future and we may have fewer/more intense storms, or we may have more/less intense storms or we may have no discernable trend. We don’t know, but only the first part of that statement has a high propability of generating additional grant money, so that is the one that is included in a paper that reports no trends!
Wonder how Curry will spin this? Can she do it without mentioning “Big Oil”?
Hot off the press! AlGore proclaims that steady climate conditions, changing not at all, are caused by global warming! (Yes, that would be a reductio. But he will say it eventually.)
I have believed for years that hurricane activity near Florida has been in decline. For that reason, I could just not take Judith seriously. Sorry to be so hard on these folks, but it has seemed to me that they have a compulsive need to make up stuff.
Just a quick thankyou to the authors of this paper; John McBride and Tom Knutson who took time out of busy schedules to answer questions. Anthony is welcome to place the questions and answers here in full.
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2010/02/abc-cyclone-report-leaves-questions.html
Leif Svalgaard (17:42:10) :
OMG, my head is spinning. This is science? This is Yale? They start with models that ASSUME increasing hurricane activity with warming, plug in a warmer temperature that we think matches a past epoch, and then proclaim that there were more storms in that past epoch, BECAUSE THE MODEL SAYS SO! Then they argue that, because there were more storms back then, there will be more storms in the future if we warm the planet that much!
Here is a quote: “Fedorov cautioned that there is not necessarily a direct link between what happened during the Pliocene and what might happen in the future…”
So now ‘what happened in the Pliocene’ is an established fact because a computer model said what happened? This is not post-normal science. This is irrational gibberish! I have a model that says the Earth was covered in whip cream before the Pliocene, fastly reducing the number of hurricanes. I guess that must be what happened since I have a model that says so!
They can’t possibly be that stupid at Yale to think their paper is real science or in any way legitimate. Did this pass peer review? Either this is a joke or intentional fraud. Please tell me it is a joke.
AGW proponents all rely on man-made models as “evidence” for their conclusions. So ironically AGW is “man-made” just not how people think.
Just because some computer illiterate natural scientist with a Ph.D. by his name works with computer code and calls it a climate model and runs it on a super computer at impressive named university does not change how computers work.
Virtual reality can be whatever you want it to be and computer climate models are just that, they are the code based on the subjective opinions of the scientists creating them. The real world has no such bias.
These models can easily be manipulated through inclusion of “science” deemed correct by the scientist or omission of science deemed to be wrong by the scientist. It is an absolute impossibility for a model to determine valid science. Only experiments done in the real world can determine this. Yet the computer illiterates think that because their model is complex or close enough it has some validity. This is laughable but what would these scientists do if they realized all their virtual reality exercises were an absolute waste of time?
Jim Clarke (18:48:03) :
Leif Svalgaard (17:42:10) :
OMG, my head is spinning. This is science? This is Yale?
Such is the stuff that gets published these days. Of course, the other side says the same about papers to the contrary 🙂
Hold on, KERRY EMANUEL is a co-author? Mister “The Hurricanes are Coming! The Hurricanes are Coming!” Emanuel??? Who just a few months ago continued to make the ‘more hurricanes’ claim in that MIT panel discussion on climategate? Have my eyes deceived me, or has he had some sort of epiphany?
Leif,
Do the models also tell us the names of the hurricanes from four million years ago, and whether or not they hit New Orleans?
O/t but the Canadian Gov. may be testing the waters….
http://home.mytelus.com/telusen/portal/NewsChannel.aspx?CatID=National&ArticleID=news/capfeed/national/n0224109A.xml
It seems to me the scientist don’t want to get caught with a dead horse.
The corps is rotting and the smell is unbearable.
Now every single person here knew this. Just like we know that snow storms are not caused because global warming somehow creates snow storms. I wonder when it will end?
Steve Goddard (20:17:26) :
Do the models also tell us the names of the hurricanes from four million years ago
Since there are so many, they go by A, B, C, …, AA, AB, AC, …, just like the columns in Excel. Or variable stars.
whether or not they hit New Orleans?
They were cyclones in the Pacific, so Nola was safe [although under water anyway, as the Mississippi delta did not yet exist at that location 30.2 degrees North latitude, 90.1 degrees West longitude].
Tropical cyclones and climate change
Thomas R. Knutson , John L. McBride , Johnny Chan , Kerry Emanuel , Greg Holland , Chris Landsea , Isaac Held , James P. Kossin , A. K. Srivastava & Masato Sugi
Abstract
Whether the characteristics of tropical cyclones have changed or will change in a warming climate — and if so, how — has been the subject of considerable investigation, often with conflicting results. Large amplitude fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones greatly complicate both the detection of long-term trends and their attribution to rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Trend detection is further impeded by substantial limitations in the availability and quality of global historical records of tropical cyclones. Therefore, it remains uncertain whether past changes in tropical cyclone activity have exceeded the variability expected from natural causes. ****[f] However, future projections based on theory and high-resolution dynamical models consistently indicate that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2–11% by 2100. Existing modelling studies also consistently project decreases in the globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones, by 6–34%. Balanced against this, higher resolution modelling studies typically project substantial increases in the frequency of the most intense cyclones, and increases of the order of 20% in the precipitation rate within 100|[nbsp]|km of the storm centre. For all cyclone parameters, projected changes for individual basins show large variations between different modelling studies. [/f] ****
The asterisks are mine.
____________________________________________________________________________
Seems to me the message is that we WILL inevitably have storm changes due to warming from anthropogenic greenhouse gases, which indicates to me that AGW is still “settled science” to at least some of the authors.
Steve, interesting point. I have a house built on sand. Formerly dunes flattened. The house is surrounded by sand dunes. The State had to do an archeological study out my back yard. The sand (organic shell) was dated at 25,000 to 800 years ago. Since my house is hundreds of feet from the ocean, and the sand is mounded very high, the conclusion was hurricanes were much more powerful and more frequent. With the older sand representing truly hellacious storms capable of moving millions of tons of wet sand. (we can easily differentiate between tsunamis which have a different signature).
Don’t forget that most of the studies decrying calamity first assumed that AGW was real, then they asked the question “what would happen” and back in the early days “what can we do about it”.
All of the IPCC case studies are based on the assumption AGW is correct, what are the affects. Many studies that have turned up here in the past did the same thing.
This very aspect is what has driven me to rage for several news reports that have hit the TV. They don’t bother looking at whether the assumption is correct; they tell us what will happen assuming it is correct. They’ve had it backward for too long.
Leif Svalgaard (19:30:32) : Such is the stuff that gets published these days. Of course, the other side says the same about papers to the contrary 🙂
First you post a link to paper that is crap by circular modeling, without any disclaimer.
Then you justify it with strawman slanders.
Come on, Dr. Svalgaard. You can do better than that. We want to respect you. Try to live up to our mutually shared expectations, please.