The next time some alarmist caterwauls about hurricanes becoming worse and more frequent due to global warming, show them this study.
Noting that “the brief observational record is inadequate for characterizing natural variability in hurricane activity occurring on longer than multi-decadal timescales,” Lane et al. (2011) sought a means of characterizing hurricane activity prior to the period of modern measurement and historical record keeping, due to the fact that “the manner in which tropical cyclone activity and climate interact has critical implications for society and is not well understood.”
Specifically, Lane et al. developed a 4500-year record of intense hurricane-induced storm surges based on data obtained from “a nearly circular, 200-m-diameter cover-collapse sinkhole (Mullet Pond: 29°55.520′N, 84°20.275′W) that is located on Bald Point near Apalachee Bay, Florida, USA, where (1) “recent deposition of sand layers in the upper sediments of the pond was found to be contemporaneous with significant, historic storm surges at the site modeled using SLOSH and the Best Track, post-1851 AD dataset,” where (2) “paleohurricane deposits were identified by sand content and dated using radiocarbon-based age models,” and where (3) “marine-indicative foraminifera, some originating at least 5 km offshore, were present in several modern and ancient storm deposits.”
The four researchers’ reconstructed record of intense hurricanes revealed that the frequency of these “high-magnitude” events “peaked near 6 storms per century between 2800 and 2300 years ago.” Thereafter, it suggests that they were “relatively rare” with “about 0-3 storms per century occurring between 1900 and 1600 years ago,” after which they state that these super-storms exhibited a marked decline, which “began around 600 years ago” and has persisted through the present with “below average frequency over the last 150 years when compared to the preceding five millennia.”
It is instructive to note that over the past century and a half of ever-increasing fossil fuel utilization and atmospheric CO2 buildup, the frequency of the most intense category of hurricanes in the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico has been lower than it was over the prior five millennia, which speaks volumes about the climate-alarmist claim that continued anthropogenic CO2 emissions will lead to more frequent super cyclones and hurricanes.
Source: NIPCC
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/eye_of_the_storm.html
From CO2 Science.org:
A High-Intensity Hurricane Record Preserved in a Florida Sinkhole
Reference
Lane, P., Donnelly, J.P., Woodruff, J.D. and Hawkes, A.D. 2011. A decadally-resolved paleohurricane record archived in the late Holocene sediments of a Florida sinkhole. Marine Geology 287: 14-30.
Background
Noting that “the brief observational record is inadequate for characterizing natural variability in hurricane activity occurring on longer than multi-decadal timescales,” the authors sought a means of characterizing hurricane activity prior to the period of modern measurement and historical record keeping, due to the fact that “the manner in which tropical cyclone activity and climate interact has critical implications for society and is not well understood.”
What was done
Lane et al. developed a 4500-year record of intense hurricane-induced storm surges based on data obtained from “a nearly circular, 200-m-diameter cover-collapse sinkhole (Mullet Pond: 29°55.520’N, 84°20.275’W) that is located on Bald Point near Apalachee Bay, Florida, USA, where (1) “recent deposition of sand layers in the upper sediments of the pond was found to be contemporaneous with significant, historic storm surges at the site modeled using SLOSH and the Best Track, post-1851 AD dataset,” where (2) “paleohurricane deposits were identified by sand content and dated using radiocarbon-based age models,” and where (3) “marine-indicative foraminifera, some originating at least 5 km offshore, were present in several modern and ancient storm deposits.”
What was learned
The four researchers’ reconstructed record of intense hurricanes revealed that the frequency of these “high-magnitude” events “peaked near 6 storms per century between 2800 and 2300 years ago.” Thereafter, it suggests that they were “relatively rare” with “about 0-3 storms per century occurring between 1900 and 1600 years ago,” after which they state that these super-storms exhibited a marked decline, which “began around 600 years ago” and has persisted through the present with “below average frequency over the last 150 years when compared to the preceding five millennia.”
What it means
It is instructive to note that over the past century and a half of ever-increasing fossil fuel utilization and atmospheric CO2 buildup, the frequency of the most intense category of hurricanes in the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico has been lower than it was over the prior five millennia, which speaks volumes about the climate-alarmist claim that continued anthropogenic CO2 emissions will lead to more frequent super cyclones and hurricanes.
Full paper at Science Direct here (paywall)
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You emphasized the important part. “undisclosed hurricane models”
One thing you can alway be sure of, if it’s “undisclosed” it means ‘give us more money and we aren’t going to justify why’
People keep building really expensive stuff on sand bars, jetties and keys, and expect you and I to pay for it when the inevitable storm comes along. New Jersey charges beach fees just to stand on the damned beach. All of Florida is penalized with higher insurance rates because “special people” have to build on barrier islands and are totally aghast that some storm happens along and destroys it.
You would think that the potential financial loss of such an endeavor would curtail that sort of behavior. Nope. Federal, State and Local governments along with insurance agencies subsidize non logical behavior and those of us with the common sense to not build on temporary land have to foot the bill.
All beaches and barrier islands are in constant motion and subject to removal by any storm that happens to have the right strength.
Meanwhile… about that “undisclosed hurricane models”, this is a plot of the average wind speeds from the six hour reports in NOAA’s hurdat file. It would be really interesting to see how it squares with this undisclosed model.
http://i43.tinypic.com/2weh075.png
I am the lead author of this study, and I think a couple of key points in the paper have been neglected here.
While the record indicates that intense hurricanes were rare at this location over the last 150 years, the period for which instrumental observations are available, that does not mean that the last few decades have not been exceptionally active in terms of Atlantic hurricanes. The record cannot speak to this possibility.
Intense hurricanes are rare at any particular location, even at points along the Gulf Coast. For this reason, a change in overall Atlantic hurricane activity cannot be detected at a particular location unless it persists for many decades or centuries. What this study says is that the last 150 years have been unusually calm compared to most other 150-year periods over the last five millennia. This does not mean that the last, say, 30 years have not exhibited elevated Atlantic-wide hurricane activity when compared to other 30-year periods over the same interval. We cannot address this issue with our record—a fact made clear in the original article.
Then why does this study matter?
Our findings indicate that the climate system, on its own, can create both extremely active and inactive storm regimes that persist for hundreds to thousands of years. These changes have occurred in response to the relatively modest variations in tropical climate over the last few millennia. Hurricane climate, therefore, is not stable on the timescales discussed in this study and understanding how tropical cyclone activity has evolved with climate over the last few millennia may provide insight into how storms may change in response to present and future climates (should they be different from that of the last 150 years).
This study has been mischaracterized here. It is important not to overly invest in an outcome but rather to learn from the information that is available. This study simply adds to that information.
[Thank you. Robt]