From the University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST, coin flip climatology?
More hurricanes for Hawaii?
News of a hurricane threat sends our hearts racing, glues us to the Internet for updates, and makes us rush to the store to stock up on staples. Hawaii, fortunately, has been largely free from these violent storms in the recent past, only two having made landfall in more than 30 years.
Now a study headed by a team of scientists at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, shows that Hawaii could see a two-to-three-fold increase in tropical cyclones by the last quarter of this century. The study, which appears in the May 5, 2013, online issue of Nature Climate Change, though, leaves open the question, how worried Island residents should get.
“Computer models run with global warming scenarios generally project a decrease in tropical cyclones worldwide. This, though, may not be what will happen with local communities,” says lead author Hiroyuki Murakami.
To determine whether tropical cyclones will become more frequent in Hawaii with climate change, Murakami and climate expert Bin Wang at the Meteorology Department, University of Hawaii at Manoa, joined forces with Akio Kitoh at the Meteorological Research Institute and the University of Tsukuba in Japan. The scientists compared in a state-of-the-art, high-resolution global climate model the recent history of tropical cyclones in the North Pacific with a future (2075–2099) scenario, under which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, resulting in temperatures about 2°C higher than today.
“In our study, we looked at all tropical cyclones, which range in intensity from tropical storms to full-blown category 5 hurricanes. From 1979 to 2003, both observational records and our model document that only every four years on average did a tropical cyclone come near Hawaii. Our projections for the end of this century show a two-to-three-fold increase for this region,” explains Murakami.
The main factors responsible for the increase are changes in the large-scale moisture conditions, the flow patterns in the wind, and in surface temperature patterns stemming from global warming.
Most hurricanes that might threaten Hawaii now are born in the eastern Pacific, south of the Baja California Peninsula. From June through November the ingredients there are just right for tropical cyclone formation, with warm ocean temperatures, lots of moisture, and weak vertical wind shear. But during the storms’ long journey across the 3000 miles to Hawaii, they usually fizzle out due to dry conditions over the subtropical central Pacific and the wind shear from the westerly subtropical jet.
Surprisingly, even though fewer tropical cyclones will form in the eastern Pacific in Murakami’s future scenario, we can expect more of them to make their way to Hawaii.
The upper-level westerly subtropical jet will move poleward so that the mean steering flow becomes easterly. Thus, storms from Baja California are much more likely to make it to Hawaii. Furthermore, since the climate models also project that the equatorial central Pacific will heat up, conditions may become more favorable for hurricane formation in the open ocean to the south or southeast of Hawaii.
“Our finding that more tropical cyclones will approach Hawaii as Earth continues to warm is fairly robust because we ran our experiments with different model versions and under varying conditions. The yearly number we project, however, still remains very low,” reassures study co-author Wang.
The paper:
Hiroyuki Murakami, Bin Wang, Tim Li, and Akio Kitoh: Projected increase in tropical cyclones near Hawaii. Nature Climate Change, May 5, 2013, on line publication: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE1890
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Another fairy tale. All these assumptions, scenarios, SSTs in this highly complex system can only lead to another failed
predictionprojection. Just ask the IPCC about the divergence of their temperature projections with current observations.The great thing about this paper is that the authors will be 6 foot under, escaping from tar and feather.
Thank you Pierre. Well said.
Mayon volcano (Philippines) erupts again. Although its eruptios are frequent, the 1814 eruption coinciding with the Dalton minimum ( together with Tambora) is often credited for a major global cooling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCp9LuKFDD0&feature=player_embedded
“Our finding that more tropical cyclones will approach Hawaii as Earth continues to warm is fairly robust because we ran our experiments with different model versions and under varying conditions.”
And my machine that picks winning lottery numbers – a pencil on a bit of string – is fairly robust because it gave me the same number three times. I ran it multiple times with different lengths of string so it must be right..
“Our finding that more tropical cyclones will approach Hawaii as Earth continues to warm is fairly robust because we ran our experiments with different model versions and under varying conditions.”
So this is the requirement for a climate science finding to be “fairly robust”? Run a climate model with different versions of your code and vary the boundary/initial conditions??? REALLY?! [sigh]
Ah, models… Don’t you just love em…
I have a model which predicts that unless we cease all fossil fuel use by next Saturday morning, the Earth will be eaten by a giant intergalactic space goat.
Well, actually I don’t, but I could have, for twenty minutes’ coding.
Some people have too much time on their hands.
Looking at the diagram showing the ensemble model changes between present conditions and the +2C world, why isn’t the article headline “Fewer hurricanes for Mexico”? That would seem to be a far more important consequence of a “warmer world.” But, of course, it isn’t negative so it isn’t mentioned.
The sad thing is that since this is in “Nature” Climate Change, it is automatically a “top-notch” paper. I really picked the wrong field of science. Looking for new antibiotics it is really hard to get funding but apparently if you predict that there might be a few more hurricanes at one spot on earth in 50-100 years, this deserves funding.
“Our findings are fairly robust..”? I didn’t know smoke could be classified as robust.
Armageddon for Hawaii
I lived through the last 2 hurricanes that made landfall in Hawaii. Been lots of misses.
As the hurricanes form and move about more than 1,000 miles away, the media sure loves to generate storm paranoia, and predictably they are always totally out of step with the storm strength. (They do the same thing with Tsunamis, but that’s another story)
Every single time the ranting on TV has the storm at a much higher rating than it really is.
It’s not like we can hop in a car and drive north…
So glad there is the internet!
Just before I ditched my TV … I did see satellite tracking of one hurricane moving towards the Big Island of Hawaii.from the East.. I have heard that the 13,000′ high volcanoes turn hurricanes, my thought was yea sure,heh…. As it turned out the satellite view was amazing… as the outer clouds of the storm moved on shore, they were indented by the volcanoes, like a car tire hitting a pot hole… The next view the storm bumped 50 miles north, and missed the state…….
“Our finding that more tropical cyclones will approach Hawaii as Earth continues to warm is fairly robust because we ran our experiments …” on a PS3, Xbox, and a Wii.
This is good news. It means drug companies no longer need to carry out drug trials. They can do this in the virtual world on virtual humans and then put their products on the market for real human ingestion. 🙁
Joe D Aleo over on Weatherbell had an interesting post a few months ago about how vulnerable Hawaii is to hurricanes and how frequently they form and pass by. I got the impression the Islanders are mostly just lucky and its only a matter of time until they get slammed. A little bit like Katrina and New Orleans. Up until Katrina New Orleans had never taken a major hurricane directly. BTW D Aleo’s post didn’t mention changing climate conditions and certainly didn’t imply Global Warming had anything to do with Hawaii’s vulnerability. His post provided evidence its always been like that for Hawaii. They are just lucky, so far – a small target in a big ocean.
If there are less typhoons overall and more hit Hawaii, then less will be hitting Japan. We have only one global weather pattern. If we could indeed influence and direct the course of storms (which I don’t believe for one second) should we do so to benefit Hawaii or Japan? If I could choose whether a typhoon would make landfall in Hawaii or Japan I’d probably send it to Hawaii.
* Hawaii has a much lower population. Less people would die, and there would be less costly damage to infrastructure.
* There is considerably less destruction from storm surge on an island – you don’t get coastal amplification of tides.
* The poor Japanese deserve a break. Mother earth has been a bit nasty to them of late. It is Hawaii’s turn.
So imagine you had some magic switch that could direct the next typhoon to either Hawaii or Japan. Where would you choose to send it and why? If we truly did have the power to manage the climate then there are massive issues as to who should most benefit from this management that have not even been considered yet.
I read climatology for good belly laughs. This nonsense of modeling an almost infinitely complex chaotic system has to put a smile on your face (if you actually have a brain)….. ONLY wack-jobs
do this stupid stuff and pretend that it is science…. BUT it is actually humor in disguise. All the warmists’ climate modeling should be treated with the derision that it deserves.