From THE EARTH INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Tropical cyclones on track to grow more intense as temperatures rise
Aerosols have compensated for greenhouse gases, but won’t in future
Powerful tropical cyclones like the super typhoon that lashed Taiwan with 150-mile-per-hour winds last week and then flooded parts of China are expected to become even stronger as the planet warms. That trend hasn’t become evident yet, but it will, scientists say.
So far, the warming effects of greenhouse gases on tropical cyclones have been masked, in part by air pollution.
Over the past century, tiny airborne particles called aerosols, which cool the climate by absorbing and reflecting sunlight, largely cancelled out the effects of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions when it came to tropical storm intensity, according to a new scientific review paper published this week in the journal Science. That might sound like a good thing, but many of those particles came from the burning of fossil fuels and wood, and contributed to acid rain, smog and lung damage. As vehicles and power plants added filters and scrubbers to reduce their impact on human health, levels of man-made aerosols in the atmosphere began to decline. At the same time, greenhouse gas concentrations continued to rise.
That compensating effect won’t continue if greenhouse gas warming keeps increasing, the scientists write. Using model simulations, they provide new calculations of the cancelling effects of aerosols and greenhouse gases on tropical cyclones worldwide. They also take a closer look at the still-developing understanding of how climate change will affect tropical cyclones, also known regionally as typhoons or hurricanes.
“The fact that global warming’s fingerprints don’t yet jump out at us when we look at hurricanes isn’t surprising – it’s what current science tells us we should expect,” said lead author Adam Sobel, a professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and School of Engineering. “The same science tells us that those fingerprints will show up eventually in more ultra-powerful storms.”
Increasing potential intensity
The scientists examined a wide range of published analyses of tropical cyclone data and computer modeling, looking specifically at potential intensity, which predicts the maximum intensity that tropical cyclones could reach in a given environment. Their new global calculations of the cancelling effect follow a 2015 study led by Lamont’s Mingfang Ting, with Suzana Camargo, also a coauthor on the new paper, that showed similar effects over the North Atlantic, where hurricanes that make landfall in the United States form.
Many factors contribute to a tropical cyclone’s intensity. At the most basic, the storm’s convective strength – the boiling motion of air rising from the ocean surface to the atmosphere – depends on the temperature difference between the surface ocean and the upper atmosphere. Computer models that simulate the physics of tropical cyclones suggest that this difference should increase as the climate and sea surface temperatures warm, and that tropical storm strength should increase with it.
Less well understood is how climate change should influence the number of tropical cyclones that form each year. Computer models indicate that while the total number of cyclones should decline in a warming climate, more intense, highly destructive storms like Super Typhoon Nepartak are likely to become more common.
We have seen harbingers of that change in recent years: Typhoon Haiyan, also known as Yolanda, killed more than 6,300 people as it devastated parts of the Philippines as a Category 5 storm in 2013. Last year, Hurricane Patricia became the second most-intense tropical cyclone on record when its sustained winds reached 215 mph before weakening to hit Mexico with winds still powerful at 150 mph.
The scientists’ review finds that the largest increases in tropical cyclone potential intensity are expected to be at the margins of the tropics, particularly in the Atlantic and Pacific. The amount of rain that tropical storms bring is also expected to increase as the planet warms, due to increasing water vapor; and coastal flooding from storm surges that accompany tropical storms are expected to become more of a problem as sea levels rise. The scientists also describe a shift in tropical cyclone tracks toward the margins of the tropics, noting that it is unclear if the shift is a response to warming. Simulations for the western North Pacific suggest that it is, at least in part.
Detecting the influence of climate change
Two factors make it difficult to detect greenhouse gas-related trends in tropical cyclone intensity, as the authors explain.
One is the influence of aerosols. Model calculations indicate that aerosols have about twice the effect of greenhouse gases on a tropical cyclone’s potential intensity. So while greenhouse gas levels have been greater than aerosol levels for many decades in terms of absolute magnitude – which is why the planet has warmed by about 1.5?F since the Industrial Revolution – they have only recently surpassed the cooling effect of aerosols in terms of their influence on tropical cyclone intensity.
The other challenge is natural variability. Tropical cyclones are relatively rare – the world averages around 90 per year – and that number fluctuates from year to year and decade to decade, due in large part to natural causes. It is statistically difficult to detect long-term trends within that large natural variability, Sobel said. Satellite records that can monitor tropical storms worldwide also only go back to the 1970s.
Scientists at Lamont, including Sobel, Camargo and coauthors Allison Wing and Chia-Ying Lee, are using both observations and computer models to expand understanding of how tropical cyclone behavior has changed and the physical mechanisms by which climate affects extreme weather. Among other projects, they are developing a tropical cyclone risk model that can be used in urban planning that incorporates climate factors in determining the probability of a tropical cyclone making landfall at a given location.
###
The other coauthors of the paper are Michael Tippett of Columbia’s School of Engineering, and Timothy Hall of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Funding for the research was provided by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.
The paper, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6296/242
Human Influence on Tropical Cyclone Intensity
Abstract
Recent assessments agree that tropical cyclone intensity should increase as the climate warms. Less agreement exists on the detection of recent historical trends in tropical cyclone intensity. We interpret future and recent historical trends by using the theory of potential intensity, which predicts the maximum intensity achievable by a tropical cyclone in a given local environment. Although greenhouse gas–driven warming increases potential intensity, climate model simulations suggest that aerosol cooling has largely canceled that effect over the historical record. Large natural variability complicates analysis of trends, as do poleward shifts in the latitude of maximum intensity. In the absence of strong reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, future greenhouse gas forcing of potential intensity will increasingly dominate over aerosol forcing, leading to substantially larger increases in tropical cyclone intensities.
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” but will ” I did get that. When 15 years ago? Still waiting.
So if GHG have recently surpassed the effect of aerosols then we should finally see cyclone energy showing the effects of global warming. Let’s check the data:
https://judithcurry.com/2016/01/11/ace-in-the-hole/
So N. Atlantic data ( the most closely and accurately monitored cyclone region ) shows the exact opposite of their claims. There has been a very notable decline cyclone activity in just period where they claim aerosols are finally overcome by “global warming”.
I guess they should try validating their models with DATA before making fools of themselves in high profile journals.
1) There is a difference between tropical cyclone intensity and ACE. To illustrate, imagine we get half as many storms, but each has twice the energy. ACE will be the same, but it would be accurate to say that average cyclone energy had increased, and also that the strongest cyclones had got stronger.
2) The Atlantic is not the world, so any conclusions based on this one region cannot be extrapolated.
3) From your graph is is not at all clear that energy is in a long term downward trend.
In short, it is not they who have made fools of themselves.
The notable decline you mentioned is related to the recent el Nino.
seaice,
You filled the fool’s role quite nicely.
Thanks for playing.
Seaice, imagine that all of these projections are wrong. It’s easy, if you try.
So this is new information? I thought the science was settled.
It is the science is Settled! And this is how it works: take solar variability. In the original paper they assume some low number. Then a true believer picks it up and changes it ever so slightly to IS . So a skeptic that might think that the sun might have something to do with climate change is left wondering about sunspots and TSI, when all the while the CAGW argument rests on an assumption that somehow became a fact. It happens quite frequently.
Well hurricanes cool the surface so we need more of them if CO2 is going to roast us.
g
“climate model simulations suggest that aerosol cooling has largely canceled that effect over the historical record.”
The aerosol question is almost entirely unknown and basically complicated guesses are all there is. So the paper relies on that one point to hold scientifically, and it does not
Wait, what? Aerosols? Now? They lean on aerosols only now? My brain hurts … Anyone see “Scanners”?
“The aerosol question is almost entirely unknown“. Exactly. Some time ago, I explained how the methods used by the modellers led to large effects being ascribed to the factors about which least was known:
“When you get a discrepancy between a model and reality, you obviously can’t change the model’s known factors – they are what they are known to be. If you want to fiddle the model to match reality then you have to fiddle the unknowns. If your model started off a long way from reality then inevitably the end result is that a large part of your model’s findings come from unknowns, ie, from factors that are not understood. To put it simply, you are guessing, and therefore your model is unreliable.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/17/how-reliable-are-the-climate-models/
Surprise, surprise, they are still doing it.
Errorsouls aka dust, makes good substrates for water droplets / ice crystols aka clouds.
So there is no shortage of dust, 27% of the entire earth surface is covered with dust.
g
The amounts chosen make the models work. Ergo, the amounts chosen are correct. /sarc
These would be the same aerosols that were found to have been overestimated for decades? The same aerosols that when correctly input into the models will show that they (the models) are running even hotter than previously advertised?
This is my worried face. It’s a pure coincidence it looks like like my LMAO face.
Um, since when did scientists get a good understanding of how aerosols affect climate? Did I miss that release? Without that basic understanding, how can they model it? How did they test the model to be sure they had really isolated the effects?
OR, is this more spaghetti thrown up against the wall to see if it sticks? LOL
So much wasted spaghetti.
Doesn’t history tell us that cooling produces more and bigger storms?
Warmists have an infinite supply of spaghetti. The have an entire orchard of spaghetti trees – bought back when you could buy spaghetti tree seeds by mail.
The results of global warming in … 1957 ( I remember it well )
BBC: Spaghetti-Harvest in Ticino https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU
You! You saw “Scanners”. Does your brain hurt, too?
Spaghetti is NOT a good geometry to throw against walls for stiction; too much loose ends.
Ravioli probably much better; it should make a better splat.
g
Any talk about lose ends in relation to climate models, can’t end well.
The old aerosol fudge has come in very handy for the climateers
Yup. And its really old and really discredited.
It’s way past time these people went and found honest work.
Would you hire those people? If they weren’t getting grants, they’d be unemployed. You wouldn’t hire someone who supports CAGW. Have you seen any of them with credentials in the work force? You couldn’t trust them. They have a propensity for fabricating stories.
That trend hasn’t become evident yet, but it will, scientists say.
My cousin is a clairvoyant as well, she is a complete fake but make a nice living out of if.
define “stronger”….without ignoring physics
Does that mean bigger? covers more area….or does it mean intense as the eye spins down and gets smaller
She’s a mystery…
It is whatever they need it to be.
Cyclone Wind field size, storm surge, arreal coverage of rain bands, central low pressure, delta of SST after passage across a parcel of ocean, diameter of the eye wall… whatever means necessary to continue the scam and fear mongering.
It iIS how pseudoscience works.
Trust mee! Eventually our theory will work to produce all those dreadful storms we have been predicting! In the meanwhile, just keep sending us money.
It’s definitely worse than we thought.
….. we’re gonna need a bigger lunatic asylum
“The fact that global warming’s fingerprints don’t yet jump out at us when we look at hurricanes isn’t surprising – it’s what current science tells us we should expect,” – Meaning that the old science was wrong so we changed it (again). When this is wrong, they’ll change it yet again and claim they were right no matter what.
I hate it when they started called over excited clouds “cyclones”…
Cyclone sounds so scary….but if he’s counting an average of 90 per year….then he’s counting anything that spins
…but at least he admitted natural variability and natural causes….trumps everything they know
“Two factors make it difficult to detect greenhouse gas-related … blah blah blah”
Only 2? How about the most important one. You can’t detect something so close to zero it’s indistinguishable from zero.
Latitude… Cyclone is just the male for a low pressure system. It spins counterclockwise in the NH, and clockwise in the SH.
“anything that spins”? I must be a cyclone now because my head is spinn-nn-nn-ing!
“The same science tells us that those fingerprints will show up eventually in more ultra-powerful storms.”
“Ultra-powerful?” This is an alleged professor/scientist, and this is the terminology he uses?
http://www.armandhammer.com/Images/Fabric-Care/Package_Group.png
Love that picture, Latitude! A picture is worth a thousand words.
This is ultra-credible science.
Also, ultra-scary
predictionsprojections.(Or ultra-gullible peer review.)
– “it’s what current science tells us we should expect”
I always love that bit. The science gets retrofitted.
Temperature is not as such driving force for tropical cyclones. In India, tropical cyclones occur in pre-monsoon [summer with with severe heat waves condition], post-monsoon [seasonal temperature curve presents a descending arm] and as well monsoon. Also El Nino [warmer conditions] presented more or less free from tropical cyclones while La Nina [colder condition] presented more tropical cyclones.
Also, the article says natural variability is playing important role. This what I am saying since 70s-80s. Do the aerosols helping tropical cyclones or acting against them?
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
cont— weather is highly sensitive to temperature gradient and change in temperature over a short period. These two are nothing to do with global average temperature, wherein global warming is one part — the average is the sum and total of in some parts positive and in some parts it is negative.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Dr S. Jee, I am not sure of the cloud seeding methods have proven themselves. Just not enough positive results . But if you can link me to more research, I would like to see it, Thanks.
asybot — I have summerized this in my publication “Cloud Seeding – Myths and Realities”, Proc. of AP Akademi of Sciences, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2004, pp. 109-117.
Chinal Olympics — cloud seeding was used to stop rains in the sports arena. They were successful in this. This resulted farmers revolt, as this affected rains in the downwind direction. AP government conducted cloud seeding commercially. The same thing happened and brought to he notice of the government on the negative impact on seasonally dry areas in the state by seeding cyclonic system — in Chine they are frontal system — that gives widespread rains. After my letter, the government stopped extending the project.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
It seems to me on this ‘storm’ topic there is a real lack of joined up thinking from the warmists. I am relieved that the temperature gradient has been mentioned. Surely with the Arctic amplification effect, as the atmosphere warms and the Arctic warms even more the gradient is considerably less between the equator and the Arctic, so that in the NH anyhow storms are less likely because there is less energy available. When the cooling occurs the Arctic amplification will make the gradient far greater – making storms far more likely and far more violent.
I cant see how fractions of a degree in actual heat over decadal periods is going to make a great deal of difference to the number or energy of NH storms. However the swings in temperature gradient being seen over the last 30 years – now that is a cause for concern. Will a strong El Nino for instance kick off greater cooling and ice cover in the polar and sub polar regions, creating much greater gradients between the equator and the Arctic and therefore much greater storm potential?
As usual it is global cooling that should frighten not warming, as is perfectly evident from all the present benefits of greater warmth in our crop growing temperate regions and the greening effect on deserts. !.5 degrees above a cold preindustrial period – BRING IT ON!!!
Sorry obviously I meant a strong el Nina
Dr. Reddy asks:
Do the aerosols helping tropical cyclones or acting against them?
The way I read the article the answer to your question is “Yes.”
H.R. — Cloud seeding technique is the answer. Aerosols help in creating conditions at the place but weakens the weather system in downwind direction.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Removing moisture (through manmade seeding) removes the fuel (energy) from the local weather system.
Our weather is dictated by the season (axial tilt) and local atmosphere water vapor amount. Nothing else.
I find my mind acting in a perverse manner.
Do these authors mean that, by reducing pollution, we will be increasing the damage done by tropical cyclones?
Yes, Frederick, they do. And sure are they right.
Never+ forget there was rain, invented by nature, before protheus.
http://www.google.at/search?ei=ehmJV4PlJoivgAaL9rCYBQ&q=sahara+dust+rain&oq=sahara+dust+rain&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.12..0i13j0i22i10i30j0i22i30j0i22i10i30j0i8i13i30.4041.18387.0.35345.27.23.0.8.8.0.390.4331.0j16j4j2.22.0….0…1c.1.64.mobile-gws-serp..9.18.2372.3..0j41j46j0i3j0i3i46j46i3j0i46j0i10.MnPQavuuiV0
Says : EPA may rule the diesels. Not the atmosphere.
period.
But never forget -there’s more than man made pollution. There’s pollen of plants, aerosols from woods, dust from Sahara. China gets it’s nature made pollution from taklamakan.
And sure this has impact on weather.
This is no longer science. It is a P R campaign by “scientists” who have a higher priority than a search for the truth.
Its good to be an AGW Scientist…
Right. The search for funding.
When it cools and hurricanes increase, as data shows it has in the past, these same aerosols will change their state and be the cause of the hurricanes. Because we know they won’t ever admit it is because of cooler weather.
This is the common refrain-
“At the most basic, the storm’s convective strength – the boiling motion of air rising from the ocean surface to the atmosphere – depends on the temperature difference between the surface ocean and the upper atmosphere. Computer models that simulate the physics of tropical cyclones suggest that this difference should increase as the climate and sea surface temperatures warm, and that tropical storm strength should increase with it.”
However, at the most basic, it actually does not seem to work out that way. The temperature difference is T(surface) – T(tropo), and T(tropo) is much lower than T(surface). In the tropics, climate models predict that T(tropo) warms faster than T(surface). This is one of the signatures of AGW.
But if the colder T(tropo) warms faster than the warmer T(surface), then the temperature difference actually gets smaller as the world warms, and so tropical storm strength should decrease with it.
Hmmm…
So again alarmist claim something other than CO2 has a greater influence on our climate. Go figure.
And these undefined aerosols have offset the major ‘control knob’ of the climate change! Hmphh!
“And these undefined aerosols have offset the major ‘control knob’ of the climate change! Hmphh!”
Are they the cause of the pause?
I only have one thing to say Hazel vs Sandi in a cage match. Alternatively the Long Island express of 1938 vs Super wuss Sandi
“The Return of the Hockey Stick: Things are OK for now but will get worse. Long Live the Hockey Stick!”
Pity these ‘scientists’ have lost the ability to objectively critique the clap-trap they write and publish.
If they want to have a serious discussion on the role of aerosols, then they need to include the effect of fine volcanic dust, which has had demonstrable marked effect on the earth’s climate in the past.
Is this from the “it shoulda been worse than it is”. department ?
I enjoyed reading that but I couldn’t help but laugh all the way through. It has been amusing to see all the various “studies” posted, over the months, at various science news websites that try to explain one failure after another of the AGW theory. The “missing heat” was a sore point with them for a while. I have lost count of all the “studies” suggesting one species after another “may be” stressed by global warming.
Somewhere along the line, critical thinking skills among many scientists took a nose dive. Or their ethics.
Or both.
“Somewhere along the line, critical thinking skills among many scientists took a nose dive.”
Yeah, really. How many times do you have to bang your head into a wall before you realize it’s not a good idea?
Oh boy, the desperation, the grasping at straws, the contradictions, and all that talk about human fingerprints – it’s as it there is a foreboding about being caught and booked for practicing voodoo science.
Why do these so-called climate scientists continue to publicly embarrass themselves with reports like this? Climatology was barely recognizable as a scientific discipline previously (eg. non-testable theories and non-reproducible results all based on models of poorly understood phenomena) and has in recent years been completely discredited due to the fraudulent words and actions of a large segment of its practitioners. Computer models of long-term climate change mean absolutely nothing in the real world. We still have only the vaguest understanding of the massively complex and chaotic (mathematically speaking) physical interactions which drive climate change, and yet studies and statements like the above continue to spew from the politically-motivated institutions and individuals who benefit from perpetuating the fraud that they have any testable, provable, repeatable means of predicting a future which actual hard science can demonstrate is utterly impossible.