Since Dorian didn’t cause any significant U.S. death and devastation that the MSM was looking forward to covering in the vein of “See, climate change!”. NPR had a go at it though, citing a NOAA study that is nothing more than an exercise in cherry picking data. The slow movement of Hurricane Dorian prompted the search for connections.
Is Climate Change Contributing To Slower Moving Hurricanes?
NPR’s Steve Inskeep talks to atmospheric scientist Jim Kossin of NOAA about why more hurricanes like Dorian are moving at slower speeds, and if that has anything to do with climate change. Link to audio interview.
The study cited has data that produces this graph, prepared by “Inside Climate News” one of Tom Steyer’s well funded PR outlets if I recall correctly. They wrote:
Hurricane Dorian’s slow, destructive track through the Bahamas fits a pattern scientists have been seeing over recent decades, and one they expect to continue as the planet warms: hurricanes stalling over coastal areas and bringing extreme rainfall.
…
Recent research shows that more North Atlantic hurricanes have been stalling as Dorian did, leading to more extreme rainfall. Their average forward speed has also decreased by 17 percent—from 11.5 mph, to 9.6 mph—from 1944 to 2017, according to a study published in June by federal scientists at NASA and NOAA.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03092019/hurricane-dorian-climate-change-stall-record-wind-speed-rainfall-intensity-global-warming-bahamas
Note the starting point, 1944. Also note that the majority of “slow moving hurricanes” are during the satellite era, when hurricane tracking improved by at least an order of magnitude.
“Climate Denial Crock of the Week” producer, Peter Sinclair jumped all over this of course on Twitter “See, climate change!” But atmospheric scientist Wei Zhang would have none of it.
Later in the Twitter thread, there is this telling exchange:
So in a nutshell:
There’s no good storm motion data from earlier recorded hurricanes.
- What data they had has been “reconstructed” from old charts, which may or may nor be accurate.
- The study cited doesn’t go back further than 1944, which means the majority of data is from the post 1960 (TIROS-1) satellite era, which is more accurate as a given. This skews the data set towards the present, while the past remains highly uncertain.
- The study’s graph from 1944 ignored data on slow moving hurricanes as far back as 1915. Evidence exists that many slow moving hurricanes occurred well before the satellite era.
Here is the chart Wei Zhang presented:
Cherry picking to fit the climate alarm agenda, clear and simple.
Wei Zhang said this when the Dorian threat loomed large:
He’s talking about people like Peter Sinclair and Tom Steyer….and people like this, captured by cartoonist Rick McKee:
US Democrats have announced investigations into Russian influences on Dorian’s path away from Trump properties in Florida.
As I contemplated the comment from Right-Handed Shark above I began to lament the lack of a “LIKE” button for these insights.
Have to say, it really bothers me that they would drop the 1920s data where a number of storms were estimated at 2 and 3 miles per hour, and then claim a 17% drop after 1944 based on about two miles per hour difference of much quicker moving hurricanes. Would have been interesting to know the average speed during this earlier time for comparison.
The climate change and hurricane obsession of climate science
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/08/01/tropical-cyclones-climate-change/
“Since Dorian didn’t cause any significant U.S. death and devastation”
But it DID cause death and truly awful devastation in the Caribbean, in the Bahamas…
Where it was a record storm, behaving exactly as climate science predicts.
Similarly we had Maria in 2017 which devastated Dominica, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.
There seems to be a certain US centric blindness going on here.
IPCC and NCA say global and US storms show no trends over the century, in numbers or intensity.
Global weather mortality is down near 98% since the 1920s.
You seem to have a data blindness here, Griff.
yeah reports I heard today say 20 dead found so far.. mightnt be Mainland but ignoring their deaths and the families left is damned rude!
“exactly as climate science predicts.”
And here I thought weather models were used for storms.
yeh Griff, hurricanes never behaved that way before! Right?
It’s remarkable that the paper incuding the figure, above cited from “Inside Climate News” makes this statement: ” We make no attribution to anthropogenic forcing of the trends in TC stalling frequency and associated annual-mean coastal TC rainfall, and the trends reported here could be due to lowfrequency natural variability. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-019-0074-8.pdf?origin=ppub (Hall/Kossin (2019))
It’s remarkable that the paper incuding the figure, above cited from “Inside Climate News” makes this statement: ” We make no attribution to anthropogenic forcing of the trends in TC stalling frequency and associated annual-mean coastal TC rainfall, and the trends reported here could be due to lowfrequency natural variability. Source(Hall/Kossin (2019)Nature npj
I’m reminded of this classic Piper’s Pit segment starring Rowdy Roddy Piper:
Thank God no lives were lost to this minor storm. Just more proof of the scam.
You know as well as I do that, regardless of whether or not what they said was a crock, the important point was to say it. For the overwhelming majority of sheeple that listen to NPR religiously, the barb has already been set. This just further reinforces their already made up minds. As this “reporting” was intended to do.
I guess so. One would think that it would be hard to set a hook in fish species that have a boney head but apparently it is quite easy.
Defining a “slow-moving” hurricane as one that stalls in an “area” for two days or more is rather sketchy–how large is a “coastal area” that a hurricane stalls in, and does that mean that the eye is in that area, or only some of the rain bands? Harvey, which dumped 50 inches of rain in the Houston area, came ashore as a Cat 1 near Corpus Christi, then drifted eastward about 200 miles over five days, although many of its rain bands stayed over the Houston area all that time.
It’s also a lot easier to measure the movements of hurricanes in recent decades using weather satellites than prior to the space age, when we relied on eyewitness accounts from people living on the coast or on islands. There may have been many hurricanes as slow-moving as Dorian prior to 1960, but there were fewer eyewitnesses, and a slow-moving hurricane over a Caribbean island wouldn’t make the news in the U.S. before weather satellites were invented.
Slow-moving weather systems frequently cause problems–not only hurricanes, but also floods, blizzards, or even droughts, heat waves, or winter pollution-trapping inversions if an anticyclone is stationary for more than a few days. But what is the scientific evidence that additional CO2 in the atmosphere causes weather systems to slow down?
More frequent? — No
More powerful? — No
So, let’s go with slower.
How about less interesting clouds, or , …. well, we’ll find something that works, since everything else we’ve tried is contradicted by evidence.
Um, so, the records before 1930 are better than the records between 1944 and 1960? And that includes not just their forward motion, but the wind speed, since Zhang’s graph applies to those above 112 MPH?
“Note the starting point, 1944. Also note that the majority of “slow moving hurricanes” are during the satellite era, when hurricane tracking improved by at least an order of magnitude.”
The graph isn’t of “slow moving hurricanes,” it is of the percentage that stalled for 2 days or more. It is really necessary to have satellite tracking to know if a hurricane has stalled? Presumably they use the same definition of “stall” for all years.
Zhang’s data and the graph are simply not comparable.
Of course, NPR must fail in order to be reported here – or it must seem to fail. Evidence supporting AGW is not favored on WUWT. Most of the good, credible evidence is either ignored by WUWT or twisted somehow to make it appear wrong through misinterpretation or presentation of cherry-picked data/research by a denier.
Now that Dorian is right on the North Carolina coast would be a good time to study weather stations and buoys to see if Dorian’s sustained winds are actually what they are cracked up to be. When I followed Sandy the recorded winds were about 2/3 of those “called for”.
When I get back from an errand I’ll have a look, but hope others will too.
OK, here’s the highest I found by searching around 34N 76W. It ‘s a buoy, so winds on the land are not so strong. It maxed out at 48.6kt, which is tropical storm force but not hurricane force, just before minimum pressure of 28.33in = 959mb, which is only slightly higher than NHC’s 1.00am 956mb eye estimate. So the eye passed pretty close to this buoy. On the other hand, the buoy only reports once per hour; who know what horrendous winds there were when we weren’t looking?
https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=41037
09 06 2:08 am NW 46.6 64.1 – – – – 28.74 – 74.8 81.5 – 36.07 – –
09 06 1:08 am ENE 29.1 56.3 – – – – 28.38 – 75.9 81.5 – 36.08 – –
09 06 12:08 am ENE 29.1 56.3 – – – – 28.33 – 76.1 81.5 – 36.09 – –
09 05 11:08 pm ESE 48.6 68.0 – – – – 28.62 – 74.8 81.5 – 36.10 – –
09 05 10:08 pm ESE 42.7 54.4 – – – – 28.87 – 74.5 81.7 – 36.09 – –
So what do you think: is it now a Category 2 hurricane, or a tropical storm?
I would add that the visible destruction in the Abaco islands is appalling, and concomitant loss of life, quite consistent with a severe major hurricane at that time. If they had weather recorders there it would be interesting to know their readings as Dorian approached, but they would almost certainly have been destroyed before the maximum wind speeds were attained.
It’s sad state of media affairs when you wish for death and destruction based upon your political viewpoints. Pretty disgusting times we live in. I barely watch any news anymore. It’s so tainted. Even on hurricanes. Remember the faked guy trying to stand on camera during the last one, while others walked by casually in the background? Why?