Hurricane expert Dr. Ryan Maue pulls no punches when it comes to putting John Abraham of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team in his place:
Here’s what Abraham has to say at Discovery News:
But wind speeds don’t tell the whole story, said John Abraham, a thermal scientist at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. The size of a storm, the amount of rain it dumps, and the size of the wave surges it produces also determine how damaging a hurricane will be, even though the category scale doesn’t take those details into account.
…
“The hurricanes that really matter, that cause damage, are increasing,” Abraham said. “What scientists have been saying would happen for decades is now happening. There’s an economic cost to not doing anything about this problem.”
Umm, no, when you look at the frequency and accumulated energy in hurricanes at Dr. Ryan Maue’s Tropical web page, you find it trending down:
Historical Tropical Cyclone Activity Graphics
Figure: Global Hurricane Frequency (all & major) — 12-month running sums. The top time series is the number of global tropical cyclones that reached at least hurricane-force (maximum lifetime wind speed exceeds 64-knots). The bottom time series is the number of global tropical cyclones that reached major hurricane strength (96-knots+). Adapted from Maue (2011) GRL.
Figure: Last 4-decades of Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sums. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months for the Northern Hemisphere (bottom line/gray boxes) and the entire global (top line/blue boxes). The area in between represents the Southern Hemisphere total ACE.
1970- July 2012 monthly ACE Data File (Maue, 2010, 2011 GRL) [–] 1970-2011 global tropical cyclone frequency monthly Data File
Dr. Patrick Michaels points out last Friday in this excellent essay on hurricanes:
It’s been 2,535 days since the last Category 3 storm, Wilma in 2005, hit the beach. That’s the longest period—by far—in the record that goes back to 1900.
Quite a drought. He adds:
Aren’t there more whoppers—the powerful Category 4 and 5 monsters that will mow down pretty much anything in their path? As is the case with much severe weather, we simply see more than we did prior to satellites and (in the case of hurricanes) long-range aircraft reconnaissance. As the National Hurricane Center’s Chris Landsea (with whom I have published on tropical cyclones) has shown, if you assume the technology before satellites, the number of big storms that would be detected now is simply unchanged from the past.
There’s a pretty good example of this spinning in the remote Atlantic right now, which is Hurricane Kirk, far away from shipping channels, land, and nosy airplanes. Kirk is compact enough that it would likely have been completely missed fifty years ago. If it spins up into a Category 4 (which is currently not forecast), that would be another biggie that would have gotten away, back in the day.
There’s another reason that the increase in frequency is more apparent than real: “shorties”. That’s what Landsea calls the ephemeral tropical whirls of little consequence that are now named as storms more because of our detection technology than anything else. There’s also probably an overlay of institutional risk aversion in play, as it is now recognized that seemingly harmless thunderstorm clusters over the ocean can spawn decent floods when they hit land.
There is another driver for an increase in Atlantic hurricane frequency that isn’t operating elsewhere. In 1995, a sudden shift in the distribution of North Atlantic temperatures increased hurricane frequency. Landsea predicted—at the time—that the Atlantic would soon fire up from its hurricane doldrums of the previous two decades, which it did. This type of shift has occurred repeatedly in the last century, both before and during (modest) global warming from greenhouse gases.
The influence of technology on storm reporting is something I’ve talked about in great detail before:
Abraham is clueless. Freelance writer Emily Sohn, judging by some of her other articles, might well fit into the label Maue applies to the hurricane story.
Shades of Spinal Tap? Turn it up to 11!
It seems there is a high correlation between hurricanes and stupid…
‘Batshit stupid’ is pretty good, almost on par with ‘Stuck on stupid’, nice job Dr. Maue!
oops, ignore or delete my previous comment – I just spotted ACE later in the post
John Stossel did a report many years ago on the billions of dollars that are wasted on coastal mansions that are destroyed and rebuilt, funded by your dollars through increased insurance premiums, for the rich and famous to gallavant in a few weeks a year even though it is almost a certainty that these places will be destroyed or severely damaged every 15-30 years.
There is no sensible reason for people to live in N.O. at this point.
“The hurricanes that really matter, that cause damage, are increasing,”
I am almost tempted to agree with this statement ONLY on the basis that resorts, high-end communities, luxury homes, etc are being built in seaside locations that include spectacular views and hurricanes. If developers insist on expanding into areas that get clobbered by hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, landslides, etc, why should one be shocked when the inevitable happens?
So, perhaps, yes, damaging hurricanes are, perhaps, increasing but only because of what is being placed in their path.
You cannot control the weather, but building permits are another story.
keith at hastings uk says:
September 4, 2012 at 11:36 am
@ur momisugly Jeff D. says:
September 4, 2012 at 11:13 am
“How has the ” Climate Science ” failed me? Let me count the ways.”
“The worse problem is that science has little to do with it now.”
I am in total agreement. One of the reasons i denoted “Climate Science”. I am a geek at heart and really do enjoy Science. To see what the idiots have done to it really just pisses me off.
lazy teenager;
Hurricanes would have to blow my house away just about every year before I would choose to move to someplace with REAL winter. Period.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, you’d risk death and the certain loss of all your personal possessions on an annual basis rather than move. You must be some kind of genius.
When the data doesn’t back you up lie, the depressing thing is even when you show people that they are lying they still believe the liar.
‘But storms of Category 3 and above are likely to become more common. In fact, scientists have already observed an uptick in intense hurricanes since 1970, according to an upcoming report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which Abraham has reviewed. And a rating of Category 3 is enough to destroy lives.’ – Oh sorry it’s that bastion of scientific integrity the IPCC.
If Dodgy Geezer was sarcastic, my apology. With the way things are today in this matter, one can never tell as the absurdities that come out of the AGW camp defy reality
My loyalty gene got the best of me too ( Ryan works with us at Weatherbell now)
Dodgy Geezer. This is a truly great site but it seems that many of its readers don’t recognise satire or lampoonery too readily. You are free to add the quite dreadful ‘sarc’ tag but only if you are prepared to give Jonathon Swift another turn in his grave.
My family moved to Florida just in time for Donna in ’60. I have watched hurricanes ever since as you can imagine. There have been few category 5 hurricanes on record and now some bozo wants a category 6? Bizarre. By the way, any long time Florida resident knows we have had less strikes in recent years than in the past — and we are thankful for that.
Counting swirls out to sea! What a racket!
That’s all right. As someone from a place with a real winter, we like it because it keeps folks like lazy teenager out of our backyards.
It’s depressing that this sort of thinking seems to be catching on. Was it The Weather Channel or Shepard Smith who spend so much time during Isaac remarking that even though it was only officially Cat 1, it should be labeled higher because of all the damage it was going to do?
Ken Harvey: nice! And if I recall correctly quite a few people thought Swift was being serious.
The amount of water hurricane Isaac dropped had everyrhing to do with the storm stalling out half on land and half over the Gulf. My town, just east of Baton Rouge, got socked with eighteen hours of tropical rain.
Pull My Finger,
I don’t think you know much about New Orleans. It is not on the coast. It has not been directly hit by very many hurricanes. And it has not flooded from the river very often. The oldest parts of the city rarely flood and housed built before 1940 were often built high enough to avoid flooding. N.O. did not flood in the great flood of 1927 when dozens of other states had huge amounts of flooding. Every few years there are cities in the midwest that get flooded and NO does not. Should all those people leave St. Louis and Des Moine, etc?
Category Six? Is that akin to Category Eleven?
David M Hoffer said:
Yes, you’d risk death and the certain loss of all your personal possessions on an annual basis rather than move. You must be some kind of genius.
He has proven that on many occasions David (do I need a sarc tag here?)
New Orleans is below sea level (and water level) and most certainly is on the coast of the Mississippi and Lake Ponchitrain and needs flood walls and levies to fend off the deluge. Not to mention, NO is hemmed in and very difficult to evacuate, which is not the case in the midwest. And the gulf coast is regularly hammered with hurricanes and now N.O. luck is back to normal with two Hurricane hits in 7 years. If you look at the rate of return of hurricanes all along the gulf coast it is 7-8 years. N.O. has just got real lucky… until now.
davidmhoffer says:
September 4, 2012 at 12:21 pm
“Yes, you’d risk death and the certain loss of all your personal possessions on an annual basis rather than move. You must be some kind of genius.”
It doesn’t matter where you live. There will always be a weather related chance of losing everything. Ice storms in the NE, tornadoes in the Midwest, earthquakes and landslides on the west coast, flooding around every river and along the sea shore, the list goes on and on. It’s all part of living, you do the best you can to prepare and then you stop worrying. Life is more enjoyable that way and it’s a whole lot more interesting than hiding in a cave your entire life just to die of old age.
Bill,
“Every few years there are cities in the midwest that get flooded and NO does not. Should all those people leave St. Louis and Des Moine, etc?”
If they want to rebuild using other peoples money (i.e. tax dollars / tax subsidized flood insurance) then yes, they should be required to re-locate outside the flood zone.
If they are willing to rebuild entierly out of their own pocket, then they can live where they want.
Note: I didn’t find this out until I bought a house, but you can’t buy non-subsidized flood insurance any more and you can’t get the subsidized insurance unless you live in a recongnized food plain.
Matt,
Nearly anyone can buy flood insurance. If you are not in a flood plain, it is very inexpensive.
If I was bat shit, I would be offended by Ryan Maue’s comment!
Pull My Finger
New Orleans exists in part because we need a deep-water port at the mouth of the Mississippi.
“It doesn’t matter where you live. There will always be a weather related chance of losing everything. ”
California’s Central Valley is almost an exception:
* No Hurricanes
* No major seismic fault near enough to do major damage
* Only a few funnel clouds ever develop here… An “F” anything is truly rare
* Snow is a once every 15 to 25 year rarity
* We don’t have any major rivers, so there are no major floods to speak of.
On the downside…. It gets pretty HOT. We do have streets that can flood due to heavy rains. But we don’t get much of that here either. 🙂
@ur momisugly Tom In Florida
Earthquakes are not weather related.