Hockey team science wonk Dr. Michael Mann has released his hurricane predictions, just in time to pre-empt NOAA’s planned release of their forecast ,Thursday, May 19, 2011 – 11:30 a.m. ET.
ESSC Scientists make prediction for 2011 North Atlantic Hurricane Season
ESSC Scientist Michael Mann and researcher Michael Kozar have released their prediction for the 2011 North Atlantic hurricane season, which starts on June 1st.
The prediction is for 16.25 +/- 4.0 total named storms, which corresponds to between 12 and 20 storms with a best estimate of 16 named storms. This prediction was made using the statistical model of Sabbatelli and Mann (2007, see PDF here), including the corrections for the historical undercount of events (Mann et al., 2007, see PDF here).
The assumptions behind this forecast are (a) that the current warm sea surface temperture (SST) anomaly (0.90 C from NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, see SST anomaly image here) in the Main Development Region (MDR) in the North Atlantic persists throughout the 2011 hurricane season and (b) near-neutral conditions in the tropical Pacific during boreal Fall/Winter 2011 (see ENSO predictions here) and climatological mean conditions for the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) in Fall/Winter 2011.
For the first year, Mann and Kozar are testing an alternative model that uses “relative” MDR SST (MDR SST with the average tropical mean SST subtracted) in place of MDR SST. This model predicts a substantially higher 18.86 +/- 4.3 (i.e. between 15 and 23 with a best estimate of 19) total named storms.
In 2007, Mann and Thomas Sabbatelli predicted the exact number of named storms (15) for that season (see 2007 prediction). Mann and Sabbatelli predicted 8 to 15 named storms in 2009, with a lower range of 6 to 13 in the event of a strong El Nino (NINO3 anomaly +1 C or greater, see 2009 prediction). The 2009 season was relatively quiet with 9 named storms partially due to the development of a strong El Nino. Last year, Mann and Kozar predicted between 19 and 28 named storms, with a best estimate of 23 storms (see 2010 prediction). The National Hurricane Center identified 19 named storms during the 2010 Atlantic Hurricane Season (1 June 2010 to 30 November 2010).
References:
Mann, M.E., Sabbatelli, T.A., Neu, U., Evidence for a Modest Undercount Bias in Early Historical Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Counts, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L22707, doi:10.1029/2007GL031781, 2007.
Sabbatelli, T.A., Mann, M.E., The Influence of Climate State Variables on Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Occurrence Rates, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D17114, doi: 10.1029/2007JD008385, 2007.
================================================================
We’ll see how it pans out. I’m sure when it is all over we’ll find some inverted sediments someplace.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I guess the guy has to at least try and rehabilitate himself. Trouble for him seems to be that he is very unlucky with the odds. Even when he makes an educated guess he ends up wrong.
Does anyone know what the two Joes are calling for?
Yes, the Matrix background is perfect. Reality is what you engineer it to be. Right, Mr. Anderson?
I know just about nothing about hurricanes but if 25 named storms is a lot and you get those during La Ninas and 9 is few during El Ninos, since ENSO is expected to be neutral, we should get about half way between. So my prediction is 16 named storms +/- 4.
Hey that’s the same as his prediction. I wonder how much he got paid to make his.
Scottish Sceptic says: “Does one distrust a clown?”
I’ve been leery of clowns as far back as I can remember. There’s something creepy about them.
And I should respect Mann’s predictions because?
This prediction was made using the statistical model
=========================================
No climate/weather involved here at all, at least they admit it.
..but with a 9 point spread, my parakeet could do better
Even less confidence can be put in Mann’s_________ (fill in the blank)
GregP says:
May 18, 2011 at 1:53 pm
“Why don’t they make it a little challenging? How about the number that make landfall… and where… and what intensity? Accurately making those predictions would separate the men from the Mann.”
What Mann and Mann’s best friend are doing is not prediction and should not be honored with the predicate “…is a prediction.” They don’t have physical hypotheses that specify the conditions for storm formation and that can be rigorously formulated so that conditions for falsification can be deduced from them. What Mann calls prediction is no different in principle from “predicting” whether the coin in your hand will land heads or tails when flipped. Specifically, all he is doing is looking at old charts, old statistics, memories about last year, and such materials. Those materials can produce HUNCHES, but they cannot produce predictions.
Genuine scientists should not allow these people to get away with misusing a perfectly good scientific term such as “prediction.” Mann and his kind have dragged science’s name through the mud enough already.
By the way, aside from this question of Mann, why is it that scientists forecast the number of hurricanes in the NA rather than the number that will make landfall in the USA? After all, we in the USA are paying for the service so why is it not designed to meet our needs? Commercial shipping uses its own private forecasters.
And we care about this why?
Why give this buffoon any respectability by even mentioning his work here? UVA still has not released ANY data to Chris Horner even though they got $4000 just to look for the data requested.
So you can miss the answer by 25% and still be considered correct. I wish all my math teachers had seen it that way.
So Michael Mann is now a hurricane and meteorology specialist?
I thought his expertise was sap.
Where are his 2008 predictions when Ike and Gustav (among others) hit the Gulf Coast and Texas? He doesn’t seem to give any specifics as to intensity of the storms (as NOAA attempts to do). Not to mention the fact that NOAA has already issued their preliminary predictions in the beginning of April for about the same number of storms as this guy with a few hitting the US this time around. (I check since hurricane damage to power lines is something that my husband watches so he can go fix them.)
take the historic average add a healthy margin of error and there is your result .
No need to study ‘climate science’ at all. Now how wants to give me odds on that if there more than this number this will confirm climate doom, In Mann’s eyes, and less then this number means nothing ?
What’s the prediction of that octopus…what’s its name again…
Jeff Carlson says: May 18, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Is Mann actually trained in hurricane forecasting ? Or is he just dabbling ?
Can they forecast Hurricanes? Don’t make me laugh. It’s all spin!
(and sometime they even get the direction right!)
And yet he can predict a temperature rise within 2 degrees. Mann, are you getting soft?
O, that photograph, that photograph again! It really does make a statement.
Once a pose is struck let no Mann put asunder.
I gather that hurricanes are part of his job re-training program? Building upon his ‘core competency’ statistical skills?
His reputation proceeds him. Check his work, Judith….. ;-D
Calling Dr. Hansimian!
Mann? – Yawn………..zzzzzzzzzzz
I worried about that last 1/4 of a hurricane.
Seems Dr. Mann’s forecasts in the past have been accurate, as was the hockey stick which has since been supported by numerous other reconstructions. The wonk’s science has been solid.
I don’t actually believe any of these predictions. Given that the range of Hurricanes is from 0-20 and given that it is unlikely to be less than 4, or greater than 18 a wild guess is not likely to be far off. Has anyone actually checked the record of those making predictions and compared it to purely randomly picking a number between 4 and 18? Also mid-season changes to predictions don’t count.
I don’t think that named storms should count. The last several years we have seen NOAA inflate the number of named storms.
For the record my prediction for a very quite year after the Karina year was more accurate the experts. I based it on my wild guess theory. That and unlike Mann I know there are other factors besides Sea Surface temperatures.
Michael Mann reminds me of a gym teacher who fills in and teaches science class.