Claim: aerosols prevented hurricanes from getting stronger, but will intensify now

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.

super-typhoon-nepartak
NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of Super Typhoon Nepartak approaching Taiwan on July 7. CREDIT NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response/Jeff Schmaltz

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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rishrac
July 14, 2016 4:40 pm

” but will ” I did get that. When 15 years ago? Still waiting.

Greg
Reply to  rishrac
July 14, 2016 4:59 pm

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.

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:comment image
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.

seaice
Reply to  Greg
July 15, 2016 4:05 am

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.

Reply to  Greg
July 15, 2016 7:02 am

The notable decline you mentioned is related to the recent el Nino.

hunter
Reply to  Greg
July 15, 2016 12:15 pm

seaice,
You filled the fool’s role quite nicely.
Thanks for playing.

Not Oscar, just a grouch
Reply to  Greg
July 15, 2016 9:56 pm

Seaice, imagine that all of these projections are wrong. It’s easy, if you try.

oeman50
Reply to  rishrac
July 15, 2016 6:42 am

So this is new information? I thought the science was settled.

rishrac
Reply to  oeman50
July 15, 2016 8:37 am

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.

george e. smith
Reply to  rishrac
July 15, 2016 8:29 am

Well hurricanes cool the surface so we need more of them if CO2 is going to roast us.
g

July 14, 2016 4:45 pm

“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

brians356
Reply to  Mark -Helsinki
July 14, 2016 10:10 pm

Wait, what? Aerosols? Now? They lean on aerosols only now? My brain hurts … Anyone see “Scanners”?

Editor
Reply to  Mark -Helsinki
July 14, 2016 10:13 pm

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.

george e. smith
Reply to  Mark -Helsinki
July 15, 2016 8:32 am

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

MarkW
Reply to  Mark -Helsinki
July 15, 2016 9:51 am

The amounts chosen make the models work. Ergo, the amounts chosen are correct. /sarc

Tsk Tsk
July 14, 2016 4:47 pm

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.

Robert of Texas
July 14, 2016 4:48 pm

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?

Steamboat McGoo
Reply to  Robert of Texas
July 14, 2016 8:25 pm

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.

1saveenergy
Reply to  Steamboat McGoo
July 14, 2016 10:19 pm

The results of global warming in … 1957 ( I remember it well )
BBC: Spaghetti-Harvest in Ticino https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU

brians356
Reply to  Robert of Texas
July 14, 2016 10:11 pm

You! You saw “Scanners”. Does your brain hurt, too?

george e. smith
Reply to  Robert of Texas
July 15, 2016 8:40 am

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

MarkW
Reply to  george e. smith
July 15, 2016 9:54 am

Any talk about lose ends in relation to climate models, can’t end well.

July 14, 2016 4:49 pm

The old aerosol fudge has come in very handy for the climateers

Reply to  Mark - Helsinki
July 14, 2016 6:27 pm

Yup. And its really old and really discredited.

Goldrider
Reply to  ristvan
July 15, 2016 6:36 am

It’s way past time these people went and found honest work.

rishrac
Reply to  Goldrider
July 15, 2016 6:58 am

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.

Mjw
July 14, 2016 4:50 pm

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.

Latitude
July 14, 2016 4:57 pm

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

Sparks
Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 6:35 pm

She’s a mystery…

Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 9:46 pm

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.

Tom Halla
July 14, 2016 4:58 pm

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.

philincalifornia
July 14, 2016 5:05 pm

It’s definitely worse than we thought.
….. we’re gonna need a bigger lunatic asylum

July 14, 2016 5:18 pm

“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.

Latitude
July 14, 2016 5:23 pm

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

Latitude
Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 5:25 pm

…but at least he admitted natural variability and natural causes….trumps everything they know

Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 6:58 pm

“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.

Steve Fraser
Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 9:57 pm

Latitude… Cyclone is just the male for a low pressure system. It spins counterclockwise in the NH, and clockwise in the SH.

NW sage
Reply to  Latitude
July 14, 2016 5:29 pm

“anything that spins”? I must be a cyclone now because my head is spinn-nn-nn-ing!

Michael Jankowski
July 14, 2016 5:24 pm

“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?

TA
Reply to  Latitude
July 15, 2016 2:33 pm

Love that picture, Latitude! A picture is worth a thousand words.

simple-touriste
Reply to  Michael Jankowski
July 14, 2016 6:15 pm

This is ultra-credible science.
Also, ultra-scary predictions projections.
(Or ultra-gullible peer review.)

BallBounces
July 14, 2016 5:28 pm

– “it’s what current science tells us we should expect”
I always love that bit. The science gets retrofitted.

Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
July 14, 2016 5:30 pm

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

Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Reply to  Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
July 14, 2016 6:46 pm

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

asybot
Reply to  Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
July 14, 2016 9:44 pm

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.

Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Reply to  Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
July 15, 2016 12:50 am

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

mwh
Reply to  Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
July 15, 2016 6:22 am

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!!!

mwh
Reply to  Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
July 15, 2016 6:24 am

Sorry obviously I meant a strong el Nina

H.R.
Reply to  Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
July 14, 2016 6:54 pm

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.”

Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Reply to  H.R.
July 14, 2016 8:17 pm

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

Reply to  H.R.
July 14, 2016 11:13 pm

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.

July 14, 2016 5:30 pm

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?

Johann Wundersamer
Reply to  Frederick Colbourne
July 15, 2016 12:20 pm

Yes, Frederick, they do. And sure are they right.

Johann Wundersamer
Reply to  Johann Wundersamer
July 15, 2016 12:41 pm

Never+ forget there was rain, invented by nature, before protheus.

Johann Wundersamer
Reply to  Johann Wundersamer
July 15, 2016 12:57 pm

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

Johann Wundersamer
Reply to  Johann Wundersamer
July 15, 2016 1:18 pm

Says : EPA may rule the diesels. Not the atmosphere.
period.

Johann Wundersamer
Reply to  Frederick Colbourne
July 15, 2016 12:26 pm

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.

July 14, 2016 5:40 pm

This is no longer science. It is a P R campaign by “scientists” who have a higher priority than a search for the truth.

Joe Wagner
Reply to  Dave Andrews
July 14, 2016 7:55 pm

Its good to be an AGW Scientist…

Robert of Ottawa
Reply to  Dave Andrews
July 14, 2016 8:11 pm

Right. The search for funding.

Myron Mesecke
July 14, 2016 6:05 pm

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.

chris y
July 14, 2016 6:07 pm

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…

old construction worker
July 14, 2016 6:15 pm

So again alarmist claim something other than CO2 has a greater influence on our climate. Go figure.

Steve Fraser
Reply to  old construction worker
July 15, 2016 6:49 am

And these undefined aerosols have offset the major ‘control knob’ of the climate change! Hmphh!

TA
Reply to  Steve Fraser
July 15, 2016 2:39 pm

“And these undefined aerosols have offset the major ‘control knob’ of the climate change! Hmphh!”
Are they the cause of the pause?

David
July 14, 2016 6:29 pm

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

Asp
July 14, 2016 6:33 pm

“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.

William H Partin
July 14, 2016 6:52 pm

Is this from the “it shoulda been worse than it is”. department ?

Arnold Townsend
July 14, 2016 6:56 pm

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.

William H Partin
Reply to  Arnold Townsend
July 14, 2016 7:16 pm

Or both.

TA
Reply to  Arnold Townsend
July 15, 2016 2:42 pm

“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?

FJ Shepherd
July 14, 2016 6:58 pm

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.

July 14, 2016 6:59 pm

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.

July 14, 2016 7:00 pm

Right – we’ll end up with a great red spot storm like Jupiter has had for the past hundreds of years.
I’ll cancel my vacation in the morning.

Just Some Guy
July 14, 2016 7:16 pm

Didn’t even bother reading. The headline is enough….
Such a bizarro world we live in where the scientific paradigm says that all weather is in some way or another caused by humans.

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Just Some Guy
July 14, 2016 7:41 pm

The paradigm in which weather is anthropogenically triggered is a religious one, not a scientific one.
To not be outraged at reading such guff as this “study”, one must truly believe in the new saviors of Gaia and not question the consequences of failing to act in blind obedience to what the prophets of progressive science dictate.

Gerald Machnee
July 14, 2016 7:25 pm

Models-Schmodels.
Heard that one before.

John
July 14, 2016 8:26 pm

Oh the insanity a super El Nino year can cause! Nevermind the El Nino…it’s just AGW that came out of hiding….urghhh!

July 14, 2016 9:12 pm

I must thank Anthony and the team for bringing us a constant source of merriment … and a never-ending litany of scare-mongering claims and doomsday scenarios by an ever-more desperate group of failing so-called scientists.

JohnKnight
July 14, 2016 9:20 pm

This struff is just getting so old ;
“Computer models that simulate the [blah blah blah …] ”
“Computer models indicate that while [blah blah blah …] ”
I say at least use real real computers if you want me to take you seriously . . ; )

climatologist
July 14, 2016 9:25 pm

Trash!

asybot
July 14, 2016 9:47 pm

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.
DUH

rishrac
Reply to  asybot
July 15, 2016 6:30 am

Also pressure, sea water will boil under reduced pressure. Years ago they tried to develop a power plant in Hawaii using that principle. Or were going to, I never heard anything more about it.

July 14, 2016 10:35 pm

Please feel free to snip this Mods, but on a day 80 innocents so far are dead in France, due to the words Barack Obama can’t utter, “Islamic Terrorism” I thought I’d come him to relax, but to listen to these AGW clowns telling me to fear CO2 when the real threat is so obvious, I probably should just retire to bed and say nothing, but then maybe that is the problem nobody says nothing and the slaughter continues, how about some priorities?

Reply to  MartinRettig #AFFF76 (@miner333)
July 15, 2016 1:39 am

Truck, drone, it’s all terrorism. Algerian rams people kills many innocents, Obama wipes out wedding party, the second wedding party killing many innocents, children and all and it’s “opps my bad”.
Can’t call one terrorism and the other “?”.
We bomb regime change create civil war, fund terrorism in the middle east and then wonder why there are lots of terrorists in the refugee problem we created.
We’re letting in the extremists, and angry desperate and vengeful victims of our government’s wars in unchecked and this is the result

Kaiser Derden
July 14, 2016 10:59 pm

seems like they are grasping at correlation …. lower aerosols and flat temperatures simply MUST be hiding the extra heat … they of course can’t explain just how aerosols actually “cool” the planet more than CO2 supposedly heats up the planet …

Reply to  Kaiser Derden
July 14, 2016 11:48 pm

A CO2 warmth driver model needs aerosols to provide the cooling because the model’s physics cannot achieve the same thing, because it\they are incomplete.
Aerosols are a knob you tune to get the model doing what earth is doing, which is why they have deleted the 1930s warming, because the aerosol knob could not get the model to replicate that warming, no doubt they tried with no aerosols to see, they would have had to turn CO2 up to get 1930s that hot, so they invented a bunch of hockeysticks instead.
Many of these papers are being solicited, which is why the work on so many is so poor.

July 14, 2016 11:44 pm

I think there is some CCoHB here. There are and have been many papers and claims of the impending cooling and an impending cooling will obviously bring cooling and more weather extremes.
Papers have been solicited for everything models cannot explain, and the data tortured accordingly.
Ugghh sure McIntyre is again looking for data that has not been archived, after climate audit actually corrected the paper, of course the authors said they “fixed the problem the day before CA spotted the problem”. Liars.
Once the media alarm value wanes, then they will archive the data, paper will be debunked, media will not be interested

Science or Fiction
July 14, 2016 11:54 pm

How am I supposed to believe that we have proper measurements of aerosols in the atmosphere, a proper and reliable record over historical aerosol levels and that we are able to accurately quantify the effects of aerosol on the climate? The aerosol hypothesis sounds like inductive logic and pseudo science to me. Lots of assumptions few measurements.
Climate science in a nut shell.

Reply to  Science or Fiction
July 15, 2016 1:26 am

We are at a point where burst guesses with no real way to evaluate estimates.. are treated as almost empirical in research, as in “this estimate we cant evaluate confirms we are correct”.
The climate models when they can hind cast is because they are configured to repeat past climate. This is why they cannot predict future climate, models are a tool for understanding, until all of the factors are understood and the physics can be gridded with required resolution, they cannot be used for prediction.

Reply to  Mark - Helsinki
July 15, 2016 1:26 am

*best guesses “burst”? lol

JohnKnight
Reply to  Mark - Helsinki
July 15, 2016 1:16 pm

I went with it . . Are you sure that’s not a part of newscience? ; )

mikewaite
Reply to  Science or Fiction
July 15, 2016 6:14 am

S/F: There is a recent article in Reviews of Geophysics which may go some way to answering your questions :
-Stratospheric aerosol—Observations, processes, and impact on climate –
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015RG000511/full
Written by a large number of scientists from around the world (including interestingly Cuba) , it is full open access and deals with the problem of accurate measurements of aerosol and sulphur precursor concentrations (even in this quiet period, volcanic injection is still “clouding ” the issues) and the attempts to improve the modelling of climate response.
They seem not to be exaggerating the effects on climate , but that may be my misunderstanding of their thesis.

Science or Fiction
Reply to  mikewaite
July 15, 2016 6:16 am

Thanks a lot – I will dive into it. 🙂

Science or Fiction
Reply to  mikewaite
July 15, 2016 10:46 am

Thanks again – I haven´t been through it yet, it´s a big bite, but I recommend all to have a look, and in particular to search for the term “uncertain” through the paper.
The level of assumption and confusion is well described by the abstract:
” Currently, changes in stratospheric aerosol levels less than 20% cannot be confidently quantified. The volcanic signals tend to mask any nonvolcanically driven change, making them difficult to understand. While the role of carbonyl sulfide as a substantial and relatively constant source of stratospheric sulfur has been confirmed by new observations and model simulations, large uncertainties remain with respect to the contribution from anthropogenic sulfur dioxide emissions. New evidence has been provided that stratospheric aerosol can also contain small amounts of nonsulfate matter such as black carbon and organics. Chemistry-climate models have substantially increased in quantity and sophistication. In many models the implementation of stratospheric aerosol processes is coupled to radiation and/or stratospheric chemistry modules to account for relevant feedback processes.”
Impressive only to the climate industry and United Nations.

Patrick MJD
July 15, 2016 2:26 am

Models, again?

July 15, 2016 4:22 am

then why is that not in the models? is the science not settled yet?

son of mulder
July 15, 2016 5:49 am

Ever since they started making the Simpsons hurricanes have weakened.

TD
July 15, 2016 5:53 am

I used to build model’s when I was a kid and PAINTED them to my liking. There is one thing though, tropical storms and hurricanes have increased since 2000. 1950-59 104 storms, 71 hurrs. 60-69 95 storms,61 hurrs. 70-79 96 storms 49 hurrs. 80-89 102 storms 53 hurrs. 90-99 101 storms 64 hurrs. 00-09 142 storms 71 hurrs. 10-15 105 storms 44 hurrs. so far in the Atlantic. Don’t know about the science of it all

Coach Springer
July 15, 2016 6:12 am

I do not see any science described in the posted summary. Just computer models (partially informed guesses) and theories injected as assumed facts. Also, no explanation of how or why aerosols are now being “overwhelmed” or evidence of an actual tipping point. Not even up to the level of shoddy empirical science.

ferdberple
July 15, 2016 6:29 am

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.
===================
what they are describing is called the “lapse rate”, which is 9.8C/km excluding the condensation of water. Which any high school physics student will recognize as the force of gravity.
When you add water to the atmosphere, this number reduces to 6.5C/km, as the water moderates the temperature change due to gravity.
So, if you want to increase the temperature differential between the surface and the atmosphere, you CANNOT do this by warming the surface, because this will simply force more water into the atmosphere, which reduces the lapse rate.
The ONLY way to increase the temperature difference is to REDUCE the amount of water in the atmosphere, which will increase the lapse rate from 6.5C/km to something closer to the gravitational limit of 9.8C/km.
So, if you want to make cyclones stronger, make the surface of the earth cooler. This will reduce the water in the atmosphere, and thus increase the lapse rate.
Water and gravity are the key. They control the lapse rate, and you cannot increase the lapse rate by warming the surface, because of the condensation of water vapor will increase, which will reduce the lapse rate, not increase it.
The failure of Climate Science to even get the basic physics right shows what happens when you add the word “Science” to what would otherwise be an Arts course.

TA
Reply to  ferdberple
July 15, 2016 2:56 pm

Thanks for that explanation, ferberple. Succinct and to the point.

July 15, 2016 6:29 am

Greta the Psychic told the scientists if they repeat the predictions long enough and enough times things will eventually come to pass, at least there’s a 97% probability they will.

July 15, 2016 7:43 am

Once again then ignore such changes, such as an increase in vertical shear over tropical cyclone spawning regions that the models simulate occurring in a warmer world scenario. This decreases the number of cyclones generated while only marginally increasing the intensity of those that do form (by about 5%). That intensity increase is well within the noise level of naturally occurring storm strength. So the overall damage done by tropical cyclones should DECREASE in a warmer world. Fewer storms and an undetectable strength increase. But that would not INCREASE grant funding if your predictions are for improved conditions.
Of course, this is all occurring in “Model World” anyway, and thus is booshwah.

MarkW
July 15, 2016 8:33 am

And there evidence that they actually know the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere, both today and in the past is????

Bruce Cobb
July 15, 2016 9:01 am

Yes! Reach down in that grab-bag of excuses for why the models have failed, are failing, and always will fail. Reach down deep, now. Need to keep that recycling component fresh, ya know?

Resourceguy
July 15, 2016 9:46 am

And the award for Saving Al Gore Predictions goes to ……..

MarkW
July 15, 2016 9:48 am

Funny how the warming signal was stronger back in the 70’s and 80’s when we weren’t doing so much to clean the atmosphere.
Yet now that we are in the 2010’s, the now much smaller aerosol levels are masking the warming.

Michael Jankowski
July 15, 2016 9:53 am

“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…
We were told the fingerprints were all over Katrina and (“superstorm”) Sandy. What gives?

Michael Carter
July 15, 2016 11:58 am

In 2012-13 I worked as a rehabilitation engineer after Typoon Bopha ( Philippines). This struck 700 km Sth of the location of Typhoon Haiyan. Destruction of some towns was 90%
The infrastructure had not evolved to withstand a typhoon as the typhoon path was considered to be further north. However, old newspaper records and local stories established that a similar typhoon had struck the same location around 100 years prior. What were wind speeds then? They were not recorded. We don’t know that the latest wind speeds are record-breaking
When will people learn that when it comes to climate one century is just a blink of the eye?

Tom O
July 15, 2016 12:18 pm

This is really good news!! Just think, not only can we turn down the world’s thermostat by switching to solar, but we just fly planes across the fronts of forming tropical cyclones and spray aerosols into the air and knock them back down to thunderstorms. I had never realized just how powerful we have become!

July 15, 2016 12:59 pm

If it gets warmer its CO2.
If it gets colder its aerosols.
A perfect climate theory that explains everything.
Which as Karl Popper points out
Means that it explains nothing.
They forgot to include the world.

Denis Ables
July 15, 2016 1:39 pm

Why do these alarmists (all apparently rent-seekers) always talk about “from the industrial revolution”?
While it is true co2 level, apparently began coincidently rising during the industrial revolution, is it not the case that it would have had to rise (at 2ppmv per year) for about a century BEFORE it could have had any possible measurable impact on temperature? (That brings us to perhaps 1950, so how much of that “1.5 degrees” is valid?

gofigure560
Reply to  Denis Ables
July 15, 2016 1:41 pm

Obama made the same mistake when he referred to two receding glaciers in Alaska. One of them “Exit”, started receding back in 1730, a century BEFORE co2 began rising !

gofigure560
Reply to  gofigure560
July 15, 2016 1:42 pm

.. and, besides, there were other growing glaciers, in Alaska and elsewhere…

chilemike
July 16, 2016 8:52 am

What a great job it must be to make up stuff that panders to an ideology and get paid for it! The stupid people of the world (e.g. ‘seaice’ et al) can nod their heads in their ignorant echo chamber and feel smugly right “because a scientist said so” . I think the one of the problems now is that there is no shame in being outright stupid. If they can find a scientist to agree with it makes them feel somehow smart and educated. No, you are truly stupid people that are costing real people the opportunity to live comfortably and safely like you do. Smug, selfish, liberal morons.

Crispin in Waterloo but really in Spruce Pine
July 16, 2016 9:34 am

Well, the issue I have with the ‘warmer oceans will make….’ meme is that there is no plausible mechanism for GHG’s to warm the oceans. If the air temperature increases, the evaporation increases and more clouds form sooner and more extensively causing massive local cooling.
These facts are not easily overridden by arm waving about tropical storms. Terrible hurricane damage is caused by large temperature gradients exacerbated by cold polar outflows late in the year. We already discussed that on WUWT in extremis. No need to repeat.

Crispin in Waterloo but really in Spruce Pine
July 16, 2016 9:48 am

This Institute is headed by a guy who has wrecked every economy he touched, claiming to know how to transform old state driven economies into liberal private sector economies by ignoring culture and history. What do we then expect to learn from them about the climate, if culture and history are similarly ignored?
Having huge ambition and no track record of success, he then applied himself to the creation of a series of failed ‘sustainable villages’ around the world. He didn’t understand that every culture and society has a different path to the future. It is impossible to standardise the future, as he wanted and he confused economics with technology. The Institute has what, exactly, to show for all this intellectual hubris? They critique America from the outside in, and then having completed it, they then project their conclusions about a supposedly sustainable American future onto the rest of the dissimilar world.
That is the definition of hubris. It is is destructive.

rishrac
July 16, 2016 2:36 pm

Does this make the top ten of excuses of CAGW ? The heat is still hiding..?

PaulID
July 16, 2016 8:55 pm

wow I thought I knew how to churn out bovine processed hay those guys are pros.