Image Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)
By WUWT Regular Just The Facts
From the Insurance Journal:
“The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season looks set to go down as a big washout, marking the first time in 45 years that the strongest storm to form was just a minor Category 1 hurricane.
There could still be a late surprise in the June 1-Nov. 30 season, since the cyclone that mushroomed into Superstorm Sandy was just revving up at this time last year.
But so far, at least, it has been one of the weakest seasons since modern record-keeping began about half a century ago, U.S. weather experts say. Apart from Tropical Storm Andrea, which soaked Florida after moving ashore in the Panhandle in June, none of this year’s cyclones has made a U.S. landfall.”
“It has been “a very strange sort of year” in the unpredictable world of cyclones, said Jeff Masters, a hurricane expert and director of meteorology at Weather Underground. “We’ve been in this multi-decadal pattern of activity but it just didn’t happen this year,” Masters said, referring to the prolonged period of increased hurricane activity that began in 1995.”
“There were two short-lived Category 1 hurricanes this year, making it the first Atlantic season since 1968 when no storm made it beyond the first level of intensity, according to the National Hurricane Center.
It has also been a year marked by the fewest number of hurricanes since 1982 and the first since 1994 without the formation of a major hurricane.
In terms of so-called “Accumulated Cyclone Energy” (ACE), a common measure of the total destructive power of a season’s storms, 2013 ranks among the 10 weakest since the dawn of the satellite era in the mid-1960s, said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. “The ACE so far in 2013 is 33 percent of normal,” he said.”
“Phil Klotzbach, a Colorado State University climatologist, readily admits that the forecasts are based on statistical models that will “occasionally fail,” since the atmosphere is chaotic and subject to fluctuations that cannot be predicted more than a week or two in advance.”
For reference here are Global Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) – 1971 to Present;
Global Tropical Cyclone Frequency- 1971 to Present;
Global Hurricane Frequency – 1978 to Present;
US Hurricanes 1851 – 2010;
and Australian Region Tropical Cyclones 1970–2011 (Severe tropical cyclones are those which show a minimum central pressure less than 970 hPa);
So I guess that we don’t need to buckle up for those Category 6 hurricanes after all?:
If you look at superstorm Sandy on October 29th, the ocean water east of New Jersey was nine degrees fahrenheit above average. That’s what put so much more energy into that storm. That’s what put so much more water vapor into that storm. Would there be a storm anyway? Maybe so. Would there be hurricanes and floods and droughts without man-made global warming? Of course. But they’re stronger now. The extreme events are more extreme. The hurricane scale used to be 1-5 and now they’re adding a 6. The fingerprint of man-made global warming is all over these storms and extreme weather events. Al Gore – Washington Post
To see more information on Sea Ice please visit the WUWT Tropical Cyclone Page and WUWT “Extreme Weather” Page.
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Could someone explain to me, when measuring hurricane activity, why only landfalling hurricanes are considered.?
It is interesting to speculate, of what other things accumulated cyclone frequency and global hurricane frequency might be a proxy.
“Phil Klotzbach, a Colorado State University climatologist, readily admits that the forecasts are based on statistical models that will “occasionally fail,” since the atmosphere is chaotic and subject to fluctuations that cannot be predicted more than a week or two in advance.”
Well, d’uh, Phil. Was Dr. Trenberth in the room when you wrote that? C’mon, just say it: MODELS DON’T WORK. Simple. Fact.
@Latitude
You didn’t explain why ACE is a stupid metric. I think it is a useful measure. Why do you think it is stupid?
@chris
It isn’t the case that only landfalling hurricanes are considered. There are many metrics, and people look at both total hurricanes as well as landfalling.
However, there are (at least) two reasons for being interested in landfalling hurricanes.
The obvious one is that if you are interested in the damage caused, as you might be if you are an insurance company, or a relief agency, it is the landfalling hurricanes that are of interest.
A second technical reason is if you are trying to do some analysis of long term numbers. Prior to satellites, non landfalling hurricanes could be missed. If they weren’t tracked by ocean going ships, no one might know they existed. In contrast, no one missed a landfalling hurricanes, so the count of landfalling hurricanes is accurate over long period of time, while the counts of all hurricanes is much less accurate in earlier years.
There does appear to be a slight correlation between the PDO and hurricanes. However, given the small amount of data it might just be coincidence. Has anyone studied this?
As for the value of ACE, I think it is important. Tropical cyclones are heat pumps. They pump energy from the surface and oceans to space very efficiently. The ACE index gives us a global indicator of how much energy is involved in this process. The current low ACE values show us the planet is retaining more energy. That may be one reason why we haven’t cooled as much as we might otherwise would have with a negative PDO.
Phil Klotzbach notes that the atmosphere is chaotic. If you read Chaos Theory you will that there are “attractors” that are identified to explain how choatic systems behave. Currently a number of models, other than long term climate models, are showing varying degrees of bias in their outputs. Joe Bastardi, on Dr Spencer’s blog noted that for the last 7 months weather models have forecast warm and the forecast gets colder as the date approaches. The NOAA forecast on the Southern Oscillation is biased toward El Nino. The hurricane forecast was a bust and the number of tornados was much lower this year. These are the ones that I have noticed, there are probably more. I suspect that one or more attractors in the climate system have changed and the changes are not recognized by the models. Does anybody have any ideas?
In my neck of the woods the expected storm to hit the UK on Monday is already being blamed by the alarmists from FOE on climate change and say the next 3 or 4 years will give us even bigger storms. I do wish these morons would just go away and leave us in peace.
John C
Well, somehow Reuters, with help from Jeff Masters, has been able to report this as a brief lull in a period otherwise high in tropical storm activity–
“We’ve been in this multi-decadal pattern of activity but it just didn’t happen this year,”Masters said, referring to the prolonged period of increased hurricane activity that began in 1995.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/atlantic-hurricane-season-quietest-45-years-experts-170425159.html
As my son points out, technically, a lack of hurricane activity is “Extreme Weather”. It does negatively impact rainfall in the SE US as that region is somewhat dependent on tropical storms and the like to replenish their reservoirs. Also, I seem to remember reading Pat Michaels saying that one impact of warming due to CO2 would be a lessening of the temperature gradient between the arctic and tropics which would cause fewer rather than more hurricanes and TS’s. Precisely what has happened. If only the temperature had not stagnated for 17 years …
Meanwhile, across the Pond:
http://news.yahoo.com/england-wales-brace-worst-storm-years-103639850.html
Mike O says:
October 27, 2013 at 8:46 am
Correct about T gradient & storms. Wrong that warmer temperatures are attributable primarily to CO2. In uncooked books, temperatures were higher during the last warm interval, in the 1920s to ’40s, the second such phase since end of the LIA.
As you know, milder WX isn’t what CACA advocates mean by “extreme”.
milodonharlani says:
October 27, 2013 at 9:05 am
To compare & contrast with present storm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1987
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1703
Re forecasting by NOAA:
1)”(ACE), a common measure of the total destructive power of a season’s storms, 2013 ranks among the 10 weakest since the dawn of the satellite era in the mid-1960s, said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. “The ACE so far in 2013 is 33 percent of normal,” he said.”
2) “Phil Klotzbach, a Colorado State University climatologist, readily admits that the forecasts are based on statistical models that will “occasionally fail,”
Given 1), why was 2) forecasting an active hurricane season? I recall Bob Tisdale’s article here at WUWT showing the underwhelming warmth of hurricane alley from W. Africa onwards showing a bit of heat in the Gulf of Mexico but otherwise lower SST on average. At the time, I, a mere layman was perplexed at the “active h. season” forecast. Even the ENSO was neutral, which is apparently unfavorable. La Nina’s are indicators of strong Atlantic huricane seasons.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/lanina/
Here is a paper from NOAA itself on the subject.
Naturally, any deviation more than 0.5% from the long-term average is proof positive that MMGW exists and requires governments to take control over energy and the means of production immediately or we’re all doomed doomed DOOMED!
As my late father used to say, “How can believe they know the temperature and sea levels fifty years from now when they can’t even tell me if it will rain tomorrow?”
The Dust Bowl drought 1932-1939 was one of the worst environmental disasters of the Twentieth Century anywhere in the world. Three million people left their farms on the Great Plains during the drought and half a million migrated to other states, almost all to the West. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/dust_storms.shtml
I find that as we are moving back, up, from the deep end of the 88 year sine wave, there will be a standstill in the change of the speed of cooling, neither accelerating nor decelerating, on the bottom of the wave; therefore naturally, there will also be a lull in pressure difference at that > [40 latitude], where the Dust Bowl drought took place, meaning: no wind and no weather (read: rain). However, one would apparently note this from an earlier change in direction of wind, as was the case in Joseph’s time. According to my calculations, this will start around 2020 or 2021…..i.e. 1927=2016 (projected, by myself and the planets…)> add 5 years and we are in 2021.
Danger from global cooling is documented and provable. It looks we have only ca. 7 “fat” years left……
WHAT MUST WE DO?
We urgently need to develop and encourage more agriculture at lower latitudes, like in Africa and/or South America. This is where we can expect to find warmth and more rain during a global cooling period.
We need to warn the farmers living at the higher latitudes (>40) who already suffered poor crops due to the cold and/ or due to the droughts that things are not going to get better there for the next few decades. It will only get worse as time goes by.
We also have to provide more protection against more precipitation at certain places of lower latitudes (FLOODS!), <[30] latitude, especially around the equator.
From
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/
The Dust Bowl drought 1932-1939 (north America) was one of the worst environmental disasters of the Twentieth Century anywhere in the world. Three million people left their farms on the Great Plains during the drought and half a million migrated to other states, almost all to the West. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/dust_storms.shtml
I find that as we are moving back, up, from the deep end of the 88 year sine wave, there will be a standstill in the change of the speed of cooling, neither accelerating nor decelerating, on the bottom of the wave; therefore naturally, there will also be a lull in pressure difference at that > [40 latitude], where the Dust Bowl drought took place, meaning: no wind and no weather (read: rain). However, one would apparently note this from an earlier change in direction of wind, as was the case in Joseph’s time. According to my calculations, this will start around 2020 or 2021…..i.e. 1927=2016 (projected, by myself and the planets…)> add 5 years and we are in 2021.
Danger from global cooling is documented and provable. It looks we have only ca. 7 “fat” years left……
WHAT MUST WE DO?
We urgently need to develop and encourage more agriculture at lower latitudes, like in Africa and/or South America. This is where we can expect to find warmth and more rain during a global cooling period.
We need to warn the farmers living at the higher latitudes (>40) who already suffered poor crops due to the cold and/ or due to the droughts that things are not going to get better there for the next few decades. It will only get worse as time goes by.
We also have to provide more protection against more precipitation at certain places of lower latitudes (FLOODS!), <[30] latitude, especially around the equator.
From
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/
We’re tipping into a dangerous period of lack of extremes. Why isn’t anybody worried?!
Bill Parsons asks
why isn’t anybody worried
henry says
Jesus is with us in whatever storm may come against us
sometimes you must take the time and trouble to wake Him up?
Makes quite a liar out of the alarmists who claimed there were “70 percent more severe weather events in 2012” at the Senate committee meeting, doesn’t it?
HenryP says:
October 27, 2013 at 12:30 pm
Or just pray that people recognize humor when they see it?
@Bill Parson
there was an earlier comment of mine that is no joke
Henry, as far as I know, U.S.is an exporter of most agricultural products – projected net exports at $140 B, and imports at 105 B for 2013.
http://usda01.library.cornell.edu/usda/current/AES/AES-08-29-2013.pdf
Whereas some farmers may be able to parlay a misdirected climate change policy into a subsidy, I’d guess their biggest concerns are with current prices, which determine how much they plant and how much they harvest. As long as there is abundance (and usually there is in the U.S.), prices reflect that. In times of dearth, or when they can keep certain products off the market long enough, farmers can sell what they have at inflated prices. U.S. is big. A drought in one part of the country will mean a bumper crop somewhere else.
One useful adaptation might be to help all our most reliable trading partners to have the strongest annual crop production they can have – in the event that the entire U.S. were to be blighted.
Isn’t this more an argument for global warming that against?
I mean, after all, the more extreme temperature differences are what feeds stronger storms, and smaller temperature differences result in less severe storms… Isn’t that correct?
Snow was never again to fall in Britain. Ever.
Overheated polar bears were to be wandering aimlessly in an iceless North Pole *this* year.
The coasts were to be inundated. (Obama, peace be upon him, was going to stop it, though.)
The answer? Give Gore and the UN billions. Yeah, that’s the ticket.