Guest essay by Dr. Neil Frank, former Director, National Hurrricane Center
As former Director of the National Hurricane Center (1974–1987), I was appalled when, in a campaign rally at Miami-Dade College October 11, Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said, “Hurricane Matthew was likely more destructive because of climate change.”
That is false.
We were extremely fortunate that Matthew—category 5 through much of the Caribbean—weakened to category 2 before landfall in South Carolina. It could have been much worse.
In 1893 a much stronger hurricane followed nearly the same track. When its eye reached the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, a 15–20 ft. storm surge inundated the coastal islands. Though population was a small fraction of today’s, between 2,000 and 3,000 died, making that the second deadliest hurricane in U.S. history. The same year another major hurricane killed 2,000 in Louisiana.
All together five hurricanes hit the U.S. in 1893, something that’s happened only 4 times in over 150 years (1886, 1893, 1916, 1933)—all long before CO2 levels rose enough to theoretically cause rapid global warming.
Clinton wants us to believe CO2, emitted when we burn fossil fuels for electricity and transportation vital to life, health, and prosperity, causes global warming that causes more and stronger hurricanes. She’s wrong.
There has been a worldwide 30-year lull in hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones despite the simultaneous warming—manmade or natural. It has been 11 years since a major hurricane hit the U.S. Before that we expected, on average, 1 every 2 years. In the 7 years 1944–1950, well before the rapid rise of CO2, 6 hit Florida alone.
Clinton is ignorant about more than hurricanes. Based on computer climate models that fail test after test, predicting two to three times the observed warming, she claimed that because of rising sea level driven by manmade warming, “one in eight homes in Florida could be underwater by the end of the century.”
Empirical observation says otherwise. Since 1992 sea level in Miami has risen only a little over 1 inch—a rate of 4.2 inches per century, no faster than for millennia. Mrs. Clinton is wrong. It’s not time to move to the mountains.
Yes, Earth’s atmosphere is warming. It has been, off and on, for 150 years. What causes it? CO2, natural cycles, or some combination? Sun and ocean current cycles correlate better with global temperature than CO2.
If CO2 doesn’t control Earth’s temperature, why has our government spent some $150 billion on “green energy” alone—not to mention billions on research to bolster belief in man-made warming—over the last 15 years?
What do we have to show for it? We lost $500 million when solar panel maker Solyndra went bankrupt. In 2009 we subsidized 11 electric car companies for $2.5 billion. Six are bankrupt and 5 floundering. In 2015 Sun Edison, America’s largest “green energy” company, went bankrupt, costing us $3 billion. Abergeo, the largest international solar energy company, threatens bankruptcy costing us $2.5 billion. We’ve committed $3.5 billion toward a $100 billion climate fund for developing nations.
Projected future costs are staggering. Clinton wants to build and install 500 million new solar panels in the next four years. The Institute for Energy Research estimates this will cost $205 billion—plus higher electric rates for consumers. She wants all residential energy to be “green” by 2025.
A peer-reviewed study concludes that full implementation of the Paris climate agreement, which Clinton supports, would cost $1–$2 trillion per year ($70–$144 trillion from 2030–2100). The payoff? An inconsequential 0.3˚F reduction in global average temperature.
If climate alarmists want to protect life, why aren’t they as concerned about the 1.5 billion people without electricity and the 2–3 billion without pure water? Millions die each year from these two factors. At a fraction of the cost of fighting global warming, electricity from abundant, affordable, reliable fossil fuels, not diffuse, expensive, intermittent wind and solar, could prevent those deaths.
Neil L. Frank, Ph.D. (Meteorology), the longest-serving Director of the National Hurricane Center (1974–1987) and retired Chief Meteorologist of KHOU-TV, Houston (1987–2008), is a Fellow of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.
Originally published on The Daily Caller, republished with permission
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Well said by a top authority on hurricanes and the atmosphere.
We can also note the 1954 hurricane season, which featured 3 major hurricanes striking the East Coast in just 3 months.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Atlantic_hurricane_season
The strongest of the 3, Hurricane Hazel, was similar to Matthews path and strength for a time but went farther west, slamming into the coast of North Carolina with 140 mph winds, as a cat. 4, then continuing inland.
Hazel accelerated northward and was absorbed into an upper level mid latitude trough in Southeast Canada but still had some hurricane force winds and torrential rains when it stalled over Toronto.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Hazel
1954 was a year in the midst of modest global cooling.
Superstorm Sandy, in 2012, touted as unprecedented, actually did something similar to Hazel during its final days, as it also phased with an upper level trough(from a strong -NAO) and stalled for a longer period in the Northeast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy
Interestingly, what was most unprecedented with regards to Sandy, was the attention this storm got for being worsened by global warming/climate change.
Sandy was assumed by many to be greatly effected by human caused climate change. Speculated and exaggerated evidence of this was sensationalized into a narrative that defined Sandy and turned it into an unprecedented “Superstorm” caused by climate change.
Climate/weather history shows that none of the recent events are unprecedented. Imagine another Dust Bowl drought, like the 1930’s for instance. How would this be reported in today’s age?
The Midwest drought of 2012 was purportedly from climate change but the previous 24 years without a severe drought in this same area, a new record for the best growing conditions in climate history……….was not climate change?
“We were extremely fortunate that Matthew—category 5 through much of the Caribbean…….”
Now wait a minute here. I thought Matthew only reached CAT V for a brief period?
Consider the witness well and truly impeached. Everything that comes out of “that woman’s” mouth is a lie (or worse).
Two things…
Hillary will say (lie) and do anything to get elected.
If CO2/global warming was a real threat…..define developing country..they would be screaming their heads off about China, India, Kuwait, etc
Wonder how he missed this?
In 2005, 6 hurricanes made landfall on a US Coastline. I believe that 4 were major (cat 3, or higher). http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tracks/tracks-at-2005.png
Kind of a fanatic hurricane watcher myself. Been caught in/ or around a few, including being on Cozumel for Hurricane Gilbert, in 1988. That was a thrill.
Also, he said, “It has been 11 years since a major hurricane hit the U.S.,” should instead say, ” . . since one made landfall.” It’s a bit difficult to say that Matthew didn’t hit the US; but it (the eye) did not make landfall as a major.
It’s a great column, but such misspeak, gives ammunition to the crazies.
Nope, only three made landfall (meaning the eye of the hurricane passed over land, not “the wind bands reached land”). Katrina, Rita, Wilma. Cindy and Tammy were tropical storms, not hurricanes, at landfall, and Ophelia made no landfall, like Matthew. So Dr. Frank is correct, which shouldn’t surprise anybody.
Thank you Dr. Frank, for publishing the real science on this. I hope this can somehow be more publicly known before E-day.
Excellent and succinct!
Thank you!
No trends in North Atlantic Hurricanes or Western Pacific Typhoons 1945-2014
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2630932
I have posted this on other blogs but will post it here because I believe it to revealing.
They say Matthew was a CAT IV and for some period a V with 50 foot waves. 50 footers are babies compared to waves witnessed in past times in strong Tropical Cyclones.
Here is one such account of mega waves from WW II that was disregarded from an account by Dick O’Kane as skipper of the US submarine Tang. His Sub was caught on the surface in a powerful Typhoon east of Formosa (now Taiwan) and south of the Ryukyus islands. Paragraphs are transcribed from his book ‘Clear the Bridge’ which IMO is the greatest nonfiction account of a submarine during the war in the Pacific. The following occurred Oct 6th and 7th of 1944.
http://www.ss563.org/306/tang5.html
They had buttoned up the ship and the barometer reading taken just before the boat was sealed showed 27.8 inches. A few minutes later the sub rolled 70 degrees before a huge wave and managed to recover. He writes:
“When submerged, looking through the scope gives the viewer the impression that his eye is just above the surface of the sea, at the position of the lens. When the boat is on the surface, it’s like looking down from a 55-foot tower. I was looking up at a single monstrous wave, so big it had normal waves on it’s crest, which were blowing out into spume as it rolled in. Reflexes made me duck momentarily just before it hit, and then green water, solid green sea, went of the top of everything, burying ‘Tang’ scope and all. I had expected a mangled tube, if indeed it was not broken off above the roots, Jones lowered away lest the next wave finish it off.”…………..
“…….. Our present position was untenable, for we were being pushed ahead in addition to our own turns, and our total speed likely equaled the advance of storm. We could thus remain in this dangerous semicircle for days, even into the Ryukyus to the immediate north…..”
O’Kane managed to get his boat through a 180 degree turn so as to head into the waves and wind and thus the sub was saved. He could not dive in such seas without taking a great chance of losing control of the boat so they rode it out just making steerage into the waves and the wind. When the seas and winds moderated enough to open the hatch they didn’t know if they were in the eye or if they had passed beyond the storm. They had to use their compressors to equalize the pressure in the boat before they could budge the hatch.
Later as the officers discussed what they had been through.
“……I recalled an experience at sea with a hurricane packing 100-knot winds and spoke conservatively when I estimated that the winds of this typhoon had half again the speed. In the height of the seas, there was no comparison. We were not just guessing, for in the Quartermaster’s Notebook were recorded various periods during which the scope had been completely buried, the longest being 14 seconds. Sketching the wave crests in their most modest form and arriving at their speed from the recorded frequency, Tang’s Jr. Officers calculated that on occasions a minimum of 40 feet of sea had rolled above the lens of our scope. I would not dispute their figure nor would Frank [Executive officer and navigator], we had seen the waves, and 95 feet from crest to trough seemed conservative.”
Hey, cut the [snip] a break–she couldn’t tell the truth if her life depended on it. /sarc
An excellent article that all climate alarmists need to read to open their eyes to reality. Incidentally, Dr. Frank could have also mentioned that 20,000 years ago the North Sea didn’t exist. The area was comprised of low-lying expanses laced by creeks and tidal pools where hunter/fisher/gatherers lived in sparsely populated bands. Two thousand years later, the great Scandinavian ice-sheets began to melt as a result of a climate that began to warm somehow without human industrial activity, and these people had to move to higher ground on what is now continental Europe. All this took centuries, so if the world’s coastal areas are being affected by the alleged warming, we have plenty of time to built the infrastructure necessary to keep the waters in check, or simply move further inland. The Great Plains of North America are currently underpopulated as is southern Siberia.
“The Great Plains of North America are currently underpopulated”
Nope. All full up out here. Not enough room to sneeze. Don’t bother coming, nothing to see. These aren’t the ‘droids you’re looking for. Uh Uh.
Moderator, Can you remove the comment by RockyRoad calling Hilary a hag please? This is not the dignified debate we want to have.
Moderator, could you remove all posts where one poster whines about the lack of dignity in other posts.
[whining isn’t a policy violation -mod]
Her campaign calls her jet – Broomstick 1
I thought it was Hillary’s Secret Service Detail that called it Broomstick One.
Apparently, guarding Hillary Clinton is the worst job on the Secret Service list. One new Secret Service agent on her detail, the story goes, met her in a hallway on his first day on the job, and gave her a friendly greeting, to which she replied, “Go to Hell!”
A real sweet woman.
You missed the “hag” in littleoil’s post. Don’t mind me, I’m just nitpiking.
“You missed the “hag” in littleoil’s post.”
I’ve always been fascinated by that. At what point does a woman turn into a “hag”? Men are said to become “distinguished”, at least until they get to the point the family keeps them locked in the upstairs bedroom and hires a tender to change their shorts. But women seem to go through a “hag” phase that’s unique; I can’t think of a male simile.
Maybe it’s just public exposure of women past their “sell by” date that men are hidden from?
Let me get this straight … Hillary said something FALSE . OMG say it ain’t so .
About 60 million people will demonstrate on NOv 8 they enjoy being lied to .
The Don isn’t squeekie clean but Hillary wins that big prize . Throw the sex poodle in and
you have the perfect USA candidate . Tabloid fodder for years and the American political system
remains as dysfunctional as a banana republic .
Sad for the truly brilliant, honest, hard working people in the USA . When the White House went on sale it was over for 95% of the population that is staring in stunned amazement at their country slipping away .
I lived in New Orleans long enough to know that when it comes to hurricanes, Dr. Frank is the man.
If the gods don’t bow down to his knowledge, experience, and proven track record, then they must have him on their email list, because when he gives the word on a hurricane you can take it to the bank.
I would add the recently deceased Dr. William Gray to that declaration as having once been “the man” when it comes to hurricanes.
True without reservation
I would add that Dr. Gray refused to toe the AGW line before he was retired and paid the price.
My theory is the people at the top and their hedge fund backers know the ship is going down and they are accumulating wealth as fast as they can before it goes below the water line . $ 20 Trillion in debt ,exhausted Q easing , screwed pension plans and a liberal government working hard to out source the economy to Asia based on the false pretence of saving the planet from global warming .
The poor and middle class are about to get a lot poorer . But worst of all the right to freedom of speech
is going to be stripped away with the excuse of the government trying to protect people .
Amber writes: “worst of all the right to freedom of speech
is going to be stripped away”
Is going to be? I have to take issue with that Amber; it has been taken. That part’s over, fait accompli.
When I began working on the internet I hadn’t thought much about free speech. It wasn’t until the mid 90’s I realized we were doing something that might fundamentally improve it, along the lines of the Gutenberg press. It took one of my co-workers, who I frankly didn’t like much, to bring it to my attention. Back then I was apolitical and didn’t care about society at all, I was in it to get mine as fast as I could and get out with my skin.
Later I started to understand what we’d done and I felt a little bad about not paying more attention to people like Paul. What was I thinking? He was right, we’d opened the door. For awhile it was some sort of magic renaissance, a golden age of communication that lasted about 15 years.
But it’s well and truly over now. With news aggregators like Google and Yahoo dominating the portal space and “content” originators like the Guardian and WaPo controlling the dialog, freedom of speech is mostly over. This site represents a last standout and frankly I don’t understand why it hasn’t been co-opted, but I expect it will be soon. Once reputable publications like Scientific American, Nature and National Geographic are gone. Most websites actively censor comments. Some are blatant about it like Ars Technica, others like WaPo play clever games; if they don’t like the way a public dialog is going they just take down the article, strip off the comments and re-publish.
This is going to get much worse. The short period of intellectual freedom we experienced in the late 90’s and Naughties is over.
Tamino “debunks” the sea level rise figures in this post. Who is right?
Where did/does Tamino get his SLR data for Miami from?
According to NOAA Tides and Charts, Miami Beach shows 2.39mm/year. Infact there is NOT a single Florida reading above 3.56mm/y.
Well Tamino (in this post: https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/hurricanes-sea-level-and-baloney/ ) cites both satellite and tide gauge data.
I’d go with Tamino – Dr Frank is certainly wrong on sea level rise in Florida.
Where did Tamino get his data from Griff? He doesn’t quote it? As I said above, there is NOT A SINGLE NOAA tide gauge above 3.56mm/y.
I might add Griff, according to NOAA, the absolute global sea level rise is believed to be 1.7-1.8mm/year (not corrected for local land movement).
While you’re over at Tamino’s site Griff, can you get him to cite the peer-reviewed literature that states what the global temperature is supposed to be and also what the CO2 level is supposed to be?
And for extra bonus points, cite the peer reviewed study that states what our climate should be.
Better to stick with the fantasy you know than the reality you don’t.
I agree Griff:
Grant Foster, aka; Tamino – some sort of statistician in something (no ‘About’ page on his blog)
Dr Neil Frank – Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in meteorology – Director of the National Hurricane Center (1973–1987)
No doubt about it Griff …. Grant Foster knows more.
“NOAA, the absolute global sea level rise is believed to be 1.7-1.8mm/year”
From: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level
” Sea level continues to rise at a rate of about one-eighth of an inch (3.2 mm) per year, due to a combination of melting glaciers and ice sheets, and thermal expansion of seawater as it warms.”
“Grant Foster, aka; Tamino – some sort of statistician in something”
No snark intended here; it seriously irritates me a person’s credentials can be slighted like that because they’re “some sort of statistician in something”. Honestly, who exactly do you people think are carrying your water? It’s statisticians and computer programmers. I’ve spent many years in research labs and I happen to know for a fact we’re the ones doing the work.
Do you, for a moment, think the people writing the software to perform these analysis are less qualified than the people asking the questions? We’re the ones answering them. We have to understand the questions before we do that.
I’m sick of this arrogant nonsense. When you can do this without us, you let us know and we’ll all go buy farms somewhere and raise cattle.
Hilary Clinton will say anything that will garner votes. Whether she believes in this theory is irrelevant, for as has been revealed her personal and campaign holds dual positions, one public and one private. I see that just in case the election is lost she has prepared the ground for flight, having transferred a large sum from the Clinton Foundation to Dubai where I understand the Obama’s maybe neighbours.
I couldn’t help smiling when the UK’s Sky News cut away from Hillary Clinton’s speech in North Carolina yesterday, just as she mentioned the phrase ‘climate change’…..
As the news anchor talked over her, I heard Clinton start to say: ‘If you believe in SCIENCE…’
Oh, PLEASE – what is that supposed to mean..?
She “believes” in science; she just has no idea what science is.
Dr.Frank, Do you have an opinion about Florida Amendment 1? Thanks.
Dr.Frank, Do you have an opinion about Florida Amendment 1?
I just saw the post about Tamino and i can add some information here. The reason Miami ( Virginia Key ) data only go back to 1992 is because South Beach was widened, which enveloped the pier where the gauge had been for years. The gauge was moved to its current location on Virginia Key, so there is a small overlap problem To skip the overlap problem altogether, we can use the Key West gauge which has been there for 100 years. It shows a rate of 2.37+-0.15 mm/year.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8724580
The progressive ban on DDT has led to the death of 50,000,000 blacks and continues to allow malaria to wreak havoc, killing and maiming a million or so a year.
This anti carbon movement will restrict/reduce our access to consistent and affordable energy. A harsh future for anyone in a cold climate if global warming doesn’t kick in real soon.
The ban on DDT attacked poor black African nations. (Racist?)
The attack on affordable and useful carbon based energy is directed at us.
Do you feel the green love?
DDT, by most recent accounts, no longer works on the carriers of malaria. By “banning” its use in the tropics, resistance to the chemical was delayed 50 years. You figure it out.
Hurricane Hillary is spinning out of control.
She is probably going to reach CAT V with this new FBI investigation in the offing. Still, how much will it really effect the election? My guess is not much since anyone that hasn’t figured out that she is totally corrupt by now never will.
Don’t underestimate those who were still on the fence. Polls appear to have tightened considerably now.
Dr. Frank writes: “In 1893 a much stronger hurricane followed nearly the same track.”
Dr. Frank, I admire your intentions but I have some difficulty with this declaration; who could we possibly know? We didn’t have sophisticated instruments to make comparative measurements? How could we honestly, and with conviction, make such claims?
“how could we possibly know?”