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.
Climate Seance!
By “the NE” he meant the NorthEast, not Nebraska.
Dreadnought: “What’s not to like?!”
The burlesque girls are a bit burly.
gregladen: “… these comments strongly suggest that there are about three people doing all this writing and the rest of you are sock puppets. ”
As long as I get to be Tallbloke’s sock. The accent takes quite a bit off the leg hair.
“Very strong hurricanes add much more to the total energy budget, and they are on an upward trend in that graph which swamps out the apparent downward trend for overall hurricanes. ”
So what you’re saying is that if we can get just a few more strong hurricanes in a given season then we can make a perpetuum mobile out of wind power? Not my first choice, but a fun manner to gain energy independence from questionable countries.
Karl says:
September 4, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Actually, they can be… in a way.
http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~bodo/pdf/gabet08_modern_erosion_himalaya.pdf
All things considered, I prefer “dumb as a box of rocks”.
AHarris: I’m coming late to this but since no one has responded to your question, I’ll give it a try. Shep Smith may have said something like that – I don’t listen to him so I don’t know for sure. But I heard/saw the same thing and was watching TWC almost exclusively so I assume it was them who were pushing that particular spin.
It always amazes me, are hurricanes new? Even UK had one some years ago blew down 1 million trees, that was unusual. We have cyclones here in Oz, people build houses that are cyclone proof. Mind you if you build on a flood plain even on stilts, your insurance is very high. Same as people that live near Mt.Vesuvius, they don’t get any insurance. I expect it is because your income is generated locally and your can’t move to a safer place.
Adam Gallon says:
September 4, 2012 at 11:47 am
Shades of Spinal Tap? Turn it up to 11!
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Damn. Beat me to it!
And all this during the recent global warming and the “hottest decade on the record”. An honest scientist would ask themselves wuwt?
All the newer and better detection technology is just a thing of the past and is best ignored. Forget the facts and stay with the program folks.
Greg Laden said
Did you know that the first historically recognized hurricane to hit New England in several centuries of recorded history was in 1938? The word “hurricane” was not even known then in that area.
I suspect that New Englanders could read in 1938, though of course I have no actual proof of that. That they tended to use words like “storm” where we use “hurricane” is beside the point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_England_hurricanes
Moderators: was this actually *that* Greg Laden? Such stupidity makes me suspect a troll pretending to be the great man himself.
Yes but are they climate related. Never underestimate Warmists. 😉
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/26/why-climate-change-shake-earth
Give me patience, they will say anything thinking we are a load of richard craniums. Hurricanes are weather related, so are floods, snow and hail. And they will still come, remember when Nature turns nasty it kills.
Is it me or is this actually a reasonable indicator of Global Warming. As the poles heat up relative to the tropics the temperature difference is less so there is less atmospheric disturbance,. Therefore less Hurricanes.
The interesting thing is that the alarmist powers can’t use it as it would be a boon for the planet if there was less atmospheric disturbance so it doesn’t fit their real paradigm – that we are damaging the planet.
rogerknights says:
September 4, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Rats I almost had it. You’ve nailed the term for the misuse of climate models!
Climate Seance! ROFLOL!
I know why N.O. exists, it’s at the terminus of one of the greatest shipping rivers in the world, but it doesn’t mean you have to have hundreds of thousands of people living basically underwater for it to serve its purpose.
Once again, Mr. Abraham and his cohorts dismiss historical evidence. Coastal lake sediment data for the northern Gulf of Mexico indicate that both hurricane frequency and strength are substantially lower today than in the past several mellennia. Therefore, how can atmospheric CO2 content enter into the equation.
Bad science, I presume.
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Pull My Finger says:
September 4, 2012 at 10:23 am
Wonder what changed in the 30s that caused so few hurricanes to hit the N.E.? There are many reports of Cat 3-5 hurricanes hitting from Maryland to Maine from 1810s to 1930s, including ones large enough to wipe out towns and break barrier islands in half.
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In the ’30s IIRC, a hurricane’s storm surge blasted thru the barrier island at the south end of Ocean City, MD & made a new channel to the inland bay. Imagine the weeping & gnashing of teeth if that happened today, especially when all the elites from Wash DC area spend their summers there in exorbitantly expensive time-shares.
IIRC, the whole Lake Pontchartrain drainage system in Louisiana was created/reshaped by a monster hurricane about 5000 yrs ago.
Pull My Finger says:
September 5, 2012 at 5:15 am
Actually, you sort of do. People go where there is an opportunity to earn a living. People have accessories that make their live more enjoyable and provide them a reason for working other than just getting something to eat… families. Most people prefer to be around their families when they aren’t actually working. Families need schools, grocery stores, entertainment. This is another layer of jobs and employment.
Companies that operate shipping and receiving services tend to form where they actually provide the service, that way they can manage the production of their product or service.
I’m pretty certain that if you can get or make a filled section of land, above sea level, and provide that property at a price that is competitive to the low lying land, you will find a buyer that would build on it. It has to be stable land that doesn’t just ooze out into the street when the next rain comes along. That means that you are going to have to put a little effort into how you drain the fill material and reduce the water content so that it becomes more like normal soil. That will drive up your price a bit… or a lot.
Contrary to what folks might be told, the Western Pacific typhoons typically make the Atlantic hurricanes that hit the eastern USA look mild in comparison.
In the Pacific, houses and buildings at risk from Typhoons are required by code in many countries to have a steel frames. Houses and buildings that are at risk from storm surge are required to be on stilts. This allows the houses and buildings to ride out severe weather with minimal damage and minimal loss of life.
Had this very simply building code been adopted in the coastal areas of the US hurricane zone, the damage from severe weather would be minimal. Had the houses below sea level in New Orleans been on stilts the flood damage and deaths from Katrina would have been minimal. Had the houses on the coast been build on stilts, the deaths from storm surge would have been avoided.
Yet the building codes continue to allow houses to be built with wood frames and at ground level in hurricane prone areas, where storm surge can be a killer. This is the real policy failure. Instead of building houses to suite the weather, the politicians are trying to change the weather. Rather than admit their policy failures, the politicians use “climate change” as an excuse.
I call BS on this excuse. Hurricanes and storm surge have been destroying buildings and killing people on the east coast of the US for as long as people have lived there. A very simple and sensible change to the building codes, in line with the example set by countries in the western pacific would minimize this risk. Yet the politicians fail to act. Using “climate change” as an excuse to do nothing.
How about if we start building houses in the Colorado without insulation, and warm the planet to keep everyone inside warm? Or build houses in Arizona without air conditioning and cool the planet to keep everyone comfortable. How is this any different than trying to change the weather to prevent hurricanes?
It is much simpler and less expensive to build houses to suit the weather than it is to change the weather to suit the houses.
Why do the Alarmists go so all-in with obvious untruths that time will prove out? These are the same people who are in Charlotte telling us that the last four years has been an overwhelming economic success. There are a lot of bad people in power right now. Time to vote these people out of power once an for all.
There are economic consequences to what we do. If you build lots of expensive stuff in areas where hurricanes frequently hit, you will see a commensurate “economic consequence” when a hurricanes do what they do, and have been doing longer than any of us have been around.
Davidmhoffer, you incorrectly attributed a comment by Larry Geiger to Lazy Teenager.
Here is the comment you were responding to:
And here is your reply:
I think you have a couple of apologies to issue.
“””””…..Joseph Bastardi says:
September 4, 2012 at 12:32 pm
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…..”””””
Yeah Joe, ya screwed up; we’re all Ryan Maue fans here including the geezer. glad to hear Ryan is working with you now.
George