Climate goalpost migration: if you can’t prove more hurricanes, say it’s making them relocate

From NOAA HEADQUARTERS (via EurekaAlert) and the “Climate Refugees” department comes this inane claim that can easily be explained by natural ocean current pattern changes such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Atlantic Meridontal Oscillation, but instead get the universal boogeyman of “climate change” applied as the driver. Takeaway: “the global average number of tropical cyclones each year has not budged from 86 over the last four decades”.


Study: Climate change has been influencing where tropical cyclones rage

While the global average number of tropical cyclones each year has not budged from 86 over the last four decades, climate change has been influencing the locations of where these deadly storms occur, according to new NOAA-led research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

New research indicates that the number of tropical cyclones has been rising since 1980 in the North Atlantic and Central Pacific, while storms have been declining in the western Pacific and in the southern Indian Ocean.

“We show for the first time that this observed geographic pattern cannot be explained only by natural variability,” said Hiroyuki Murakami, a climate researcher at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and lead author.

Murakami used climate models to determine that greenhouse gases, manmade aerosols including particulate pollution, and volcanic eruptions were influencing where tropical cyclones were hitting.

3 forces influence where storms are hitting

Greenhouse gases are warming the upper atmosphere and the ocean. This combines to create a more stable atmosphere with less chance that convection of air currents will help spawn and build up tropical cyclones.

Particulate pollution and other aerosols help create clouds and reflect sunlight away from the earth, causing cooling, Murakami said. The decline in particulate pollution due to pollution control measures may increase the warming of the ocean by allowing more sunlight to be absorbed by the ocean.

Diminishing manmade aerosols is one of the reasons for the active tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic over the last 40 years, Murakami said. However, toward the end of this century, tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic are projected to decrease due to the “calming” effect of greenhouse gases.

Volcanic eruptions have also altered the location of where tropical cyclones have occurred, according to the research. For example, the major eruptions in El Chichón in Mexico in 1982 and Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 caused the atmosphere of the northern hemisphere to cool, which shifted tropical cyclone activity southward for a few years. Ocean warming has resumed since 2000, leading to increased tropical cyclone activity in the northern hemisphere.

Looking ahead: Scientists predict fewer tropical cyclones by 2100 but likely more severe

Climate models project decreases in tropical cyclones toward the end of the 21st century from the annual average of 86 to about 69 worldwide, according to the new study. Declines are projected in most regions except in the Central Pacific Ocean, including Hawaii, where tropical cyclone activity is expected to increase.

Despite a projected decline in tropical cyclones by 2100, many of these cyclones will be significantly more severe. Why? Rising sea surface temperatures fuel the intensity and destructiveness of tropical storms.

“We hope this research provides information to help decision-makers understand the forces driving tropical cyclone patterns and make plans accordingly to protect lives and infrastructure,” Murakami said.

###

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philincalifornia
May 5, 2020 10:13 am

Earth to Planet Dork

Please leave us alone. We have enough problems right now.

Jack Dale
May 5, 2020 10:14 am

This has been the stance of Kerry Emanuel for some time.

Derg
Reply to  Jack Dale
May 5, 2020 3:16 pm

Except his predictions go out to the year 6666?

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Jack Dale
May 5, 2020 7:42 pm

He’s a paid alarmist.

May 5, 2020 10:15 am

We show for the first time
Further studies will show ??? 😀
Fund bait 😀

Lance Flake
Reply to  Krishna Gans
May 5, 2020 11:07 am

Correction: we don’t show, we guess from our wild-ass assumptions to fit the funding narrative

Latitude
Reply to  Krishna Gans
May 5, 2020 1:20 pm

“We show for the first time that this observed geographic pattern cannot be explained only by natural variability,”

don’t know sh1t

Len Werner
May 5, 2020 10:16 am

There’s that phrase again–‘Murakami used climate models to determine that…’

(Delete)

Jay Willis
May 5, 2020 10:17 am

“We show for the first time that this observed geographic pattern cannot be explained only by natural variability,” said Hiroyuki Murakami, a climate researcher at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and lead author.

Murakami used climate models……

Why both reading further? ….to show something cannot be explained by natural variability! Through the use of models! The lack of the use of the logic of scientific discovery is clear.

It’s a comfort to me that this fiction wasn’t written by Haruki Murakami, who I much admire as an author of fiction. He would have done a better job of it.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Jay Willis
May 5, 2020 7:43 pm

What they fail to comprehend, seemingly willfully, is that natural variability IS climate change.

Graemethecat
Reply to  Jay Willis
May 6, 2020 5:43 am

Only in Climate “Science” are the outputs of computer models considered to be data. In every other field of scientific enquiry data are generated from observation of the external world.

kenji
Reply to  Graemethecat
May 6, 2020 10:27 am

WRONG!! We have now discovered the same science-FICTION practiced by the CDC pandemic “experts”. Lots of bureaucrat “modelers” passing as “scientists”. 2-3 MILLION DEAD Americans!! predicted the CDC models. OMG!! Do something! Shut-DOWN the BOOMING Trump Economy!!

Question: do models ONLY have the capability to predict doom, gloom, and utter annihilation of the human species? Where are the models that produce happy results? Hint: This was my first clue to utter bullshittery in the “modeling community”

Betapug
May 5, 2020 10:17 am

“…the global average number of tropical cyclones each year has not budged from 86..”
Budge verb (I or T)
Def. If something will not budge or you cannot budge it, it will not move:
For example “I’ve tried moving the desk but it won’t budge/I can’t budge it.”

If at first you don’t succee… try, try again??

May 5, 2020 10:17 am

Venus: 96% CO2, No Hurricanes
Mars: 96% CO2, No Hurricanes

Conclusion: More CO2, Less Hurricanes.

And don’t forget:
http://phzoe.com/2020/04/29/the-irrelevance-of-geothermal-heat-flux/

DonM
Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 10:28 am

“Greenhouse gases are warming the upper atmosphere and the ocean. This combines to create a more stable atmosphere with less chance that convection of air currents will help spawn and build up tropical cyclones.”

Yes, conclusion was that ‘greenhouse gas’ increases leads to less chance of tropical cyclones.

Michael Jankowski
Reply to  DonM
May 5, 2020 11:02 am

“…Yes, conclusion was that ‘greenhouse gas’ increases leads to less chance of tropical cyclones…”

It wasn’t 15 years ago or so. People like Chris Landsea rightly argued that the historical record was skewed towards the present and that historical storms were undercounted. This summarizes some of his points easily https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/historical-atlantic-hurricane-and-tropical-storm-records/

Even 8 yrs ago, the narrative was being pushed…https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-warming-is-causing-more-hurricanes-8212584.html – Global warming is ‘causing more hurricanes’

Walter Sobchak
Reply to  DonM
May 5, 2020 12:04 pm

The atmosphere can no more heat the oceans than a chihuahua can lift an elephant.

Heat energy flows from the oceans into the atmosphere. The oceans hold 1,000 x as much heat as the atmosphere.

Bryan A
Reply to  Walter Sobchak
May 5, 2020 12:26 pm

If you put the fulcrum at the right point such that the bar plus Elephant is balanced then a Chihuahua could lift an Elephant

Reply to  Bryan A
May 5, 2020 1:05 pm

By that standard, “nothing” could lift and elephant.

meiggs
Reply to  Bryan A
May 5, 2020 8:03 pm

Bryan: We’re told heat is IR and that IR is comprised of photons. We’re also told photons have no mass . Thus, photons can’t be leveraged. Neither can heat.

Yes you can focus heat but that is not the ACO2 dogma. It’s mystic diffuse and dilute heat swimming up stream toward the hotter surface that it originated from in the first place.

If the atm was heating the ocean I would guess we all be long gone by now.

This blog would no longer exist….

Philo
Reply to  Walter Sobchak
May 5, 2020 4:10 pm

In classic thermodynamics heat flows from higher temperatures to lower temperatures. A cold ocean(most of it) can’t heat the atmosphere.

Modern electronics can be tweaked, outside of Classic Thermo to use electrical energy to transfer heat from one side of a sheet to the other, and electrical refrigerator.

The oceans transfer heat to the atmosphere through convective formation of clouds in the atmosphere. Evaporation of water takes a lot of energy(~32cal/gr) and moves it into the air where it causes the convention.

Melbourne Resident
Reply to  Philo
May 6, 2020 1:42 am

Then what is the Gulf Stream doing in moderating the UK climate?

Alasdair Fairbairn
Reply to  Walter Sobchak
May 6, 2020 2:51 am

Yes. Try boiling a pan of water with a blow lamp on the surface. This why the oceans never get much above 35C in spite of tens of thousands of years of solar radiation.

Jack Dale
Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 10:30 am

Surface water on Venus – 0
Surface water on Mars – 0

Where do hurricanes develop? Over water.

Reply to  Jack Dale
May 5, 2020 11:11 am

Whirly winds don’t need water.
CO2 Fluid – what is found on Venus should suffice. No?

Jack Dale
Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 11:52 am

No

“At temperatures between –56.6 and +31.1°C, and pressures of at least 5.2 bar, CO2 can exist in liquid form.”

“The temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (9.3 MPa), ”

The CO2 at Venus is gaseous.

Pillage Idiot
Reply to  Jack Dale
May 5, 2020 12:20 pm

Past 74 bar, CO2 is a supercritical fluid.

Right-Handed Shark
Reply to  Jack Dale
May 5, 2020 12:23 pm

Gases are fluids too..

tty
Reply to  Jack Dale
May 6, 2020 11:52 am

No. Gases are not fluids. And it is quite unknown what effect on climate it has that the lowermost part of the atmosphere of Venus is a supercritical fluid.

By the way a supercritical fluid is neither a gas nor a fluid, but have some of characteristics of both.

Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 1:00 pm

Jack,

For CO2, above 30.98C and 72.79 atm, is all supercritical FLUID.

https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/General_Chemistry/Map%3A_General_Chemistry_(Petrucci_et_al.)/12%3A_Intermolecular_Forces%3A_Liquids_And_Solids/12.4%3A_Phase_Diagrams#Summary

Jack Dale
Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 1:28 pm

“Page not found
Close message
Sorry, the page at https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/General_Chemistry/Map%3A_General_Chemistry_(Petrucci_et_al could not be found.”

That being said, your logic is bizarre.

Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 1:49 pm

How is my logic bizarre?

CO2 is more viscous than H2O and H2O Vapor.

The more CO2 you add to water and/or water vapor, the more viscous it becomes.

The more viscous, the more energy needed to stir up a hurricane.

Sticky (viscous) things are more difficult for whirly winds.

QED

What’s wrong with this?

Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 2:34 pm

https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/General_Chemistry/Map%3A_General_Chemistry_(Petrucci_et_al.)/12%3A_Intermolecular_Forces%3A_Liquids_And_Solids/12.4%3A_Phase_Diagrams#Summary

That should work.

Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 3:07 pm
sycomputing
Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 6, 2020 7:24 am

Zoe:

Try – https://tinyurl.com/

MarkW
Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 2:40 pm

It’s the evaporation of water that provides the energy for hurricanes.

Reply to  MarkW
May 5, 2020 3:37 pm

Evaporation is an energy drain.
You need energy for it.

Do you mean condesation?

MarkW
Reply to  MarkW
May 6, 2020 12:55 pm

Warm water evaporates, that wet air gets elevated by the hurricane where it condenses, causing the air to rise further and faster.
It’s the reason why hurricanes start to die once their eyes get over land.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 7:45 pm

“Conclusion: More CO2, Less Hurricanes.”

Actually it would be fewer hurricanes.

Eric
May 5, 2020 10:20 am

The way hurricanes are measured & reported is misleading. If you track a hurricane & the nearby winds at buoys & on shore, it’s clear that the winds touted in the media are much higher. Perhaps 2 times higher, maybe more.

The hurricane hunters search for the highest winds aloft, report that, & estimate the winds below them.

Usually the winds are not the issue. It’s the storm surge.

Long-term FL resident Eric

Reply to  Eric
May 5, 2020 10:36 am

If reporters, earlier known as journalists talk about hurricanes, they always tell us they “rage” to what ever coast line. They always confound the windspeed in the hurricane with the foreward motion of the hurricane. I never read otherwise 😀

Capn Mike
Reply to  Krishna Gans
May 5, 2020 12:06 pm

I normally would agree with you, but…Dorian!. That SOB whacked my home island in the Abacos and just stayed there. No forward motion to add but 229 MPH winds and lots of spawned tornadoes.
It ripped the cables which tied my rather large catamaran out of the tarmac and flipped her right over. Totaled.
I was blase’ before the storm thinking, like you, that storm coverage was overblown (sorry for the pun), only to discover that by God, it was WORSE than predicted.

Bob Vislocky
Reply to  Eric
May 5, 2020 12:10 pm

Part of the issue is that the hurricane center uses 1-minute average to determine max sustained wind whereas most land reporting stations use a 10-minute average. This is an important distinction because it’s easier for the wind to blow very strong for 1 minute rather than 10 minutes. That explains some of the discrepancy between hurricane hunter reports and that from observing stations.

Ed Zuiderwijk
May 5, 2020 10:27 am

Junk ‘science’.

n.n
May 5, 2020 10:28 am

Social justice for cyclone refugees! Think of the polar b… seals! Clear the Green Blight. Abort a wind turbine. It’s for the bats.

philincalifornia
Reply to  n.n
May 5, 2020 2:17 pm

Dammit yeah, the climate crisis is so bad that even the cyclones are having to relocate.

……. and the twister comes. Here comes the twister
Same as it ever was

– Talking Heads (Remain in Light, 1980)

Gunga Din
Reply to  n.n
May 5, 2020 3:35 pm

Social justice for cyclone refugees!

Sounds like he’s claiming the cyclones are the refugees!
Man’s CO2 has forced them to relocate.
(Well, plus volcanoes which he, for some reason, seems to lump in with what Man does.)
But he has a computer model!
Proof enough, right?
(Maybe not. Now if he only had a tree ring ….)

Dave O
May 5, 2020 10:29 am

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/07/how-climate-change-is-making-hurricanes-more-dangerous/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-Z_58J2d6QIVyEXVCh25zQG-EAAYASAAEgIL7vD_BwE

“”decrease due to the “calming” effect of greenhouse gases.””

The climate predictors provide something for everybody.

Chaswarnertoo
May 5, 2020 10:31 am

Arguing with a leftard is like punching fog. They lose, then change the previously agreed terms. Bleepers!

HD Hoese
May 5, 2020 10:34 am

““We hope this research provides information to help decision-makers understand the forces driving tropical cyclone patterns and make plans accordingly to protect lives and infrastructure,” Murakami said.”

It looks like we may we witnessing the exploitation of the most widespread scientific fraud in modern history, based on two fallacies. One is statistical, not properly presenting the error ranges, whatever they are, of predictive hypothetical models along with their assumptions, coincident with denigration of observations as not being scientific. The second is the movement of the science profession into thinking that it can make policy, confusing assessment with management. Although the problems have been well discussed here and elsewhere, the major scientific organizations are allowing, some pushing and damaging, if not losing, the credibility of the many scientific professions they claim to represent, not just of climate workers as above.

Ethics committees aren’t going to cut it.

Reply to  HD Hoese
May 5, 2020 10:41 am

Hope is the last to die

Geoff Sherrington
Reply to  HD Hoese
May 5, 2020 4:31 pm

Hi HDH,
I second your words strongly. Geoff S

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  HD Hoese
May 5, 2020 7:49 pm

Judging from the utter wrongness of many early storm tracks, I’m not willing to give their models any credence.

CD in Wisconsin
May 5, 2020 10:39 am

“Greenhouse gases are warming the upper atmosphere and the ocean.”

“..The decline in particulate pollution due to pollution control measures may increase the warming of the ocean by allowing more sunlight to be absorbed by the ocean…”

I’m not a scientist and maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree here. But aren’t those two statements above contradictory? Does GHG’s warm the oceans or does sunlight?

This, coupled with NOAA’s lack of interest in surface temperature stations that do not meet their siting guidelines, leads me to believe that the level of corruption at NOAA over this climate alarmist narrative is something that increasingly requires attention.

That fact that the corruption may never get any attention should be an increasing source of frustration for honest scientists who care about science. It certainly is for me.

DMacKenzie
May 5, 2020 10:46 am

“… Greenhouse gases are warming the upper atmosphere …” well that depends where you think the upper atmosphere is…..higher CO2 at high altitude radiates more heat to outer space, which makes the upper atmosphere colder….

https://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/7/697/2016/esd-7-697-2016.pdf

Petit_Barde
May 5, 2020 10:47 am

For the first time, high space-time precision models are able to predict that dextrogyre sharknados will be the new norm.

Brooks Hurd
May 5, 2020 10:53 am

Murakami plays around with climate models which have shown no predictive skill, draws conclusions and then calls his work research. Really?

4caster
May 5, 2020 10:56 am

What an absolute piece of garbage of a “study” from GFDL. They used to be a premiere fluid dynamics / atmosphere / oceans laboratory, but they have been going steadily downhill for the past 3-plus decades. “Diminishing manmade aerosols is one of the reasons for the active tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic over the last 40 years,” says Murakami. That, on it’s face, is utter tripe. Have they never heard of cyclicity? Were man-made aerosols responsible for other periods where tropical cyclones diminished in this region? Well, no, because they weren’t IN the atmosphere. So, perhaps other factors were and are at work. They seem to be reaching for more and more esoteric, and third and fourth order, mechanisms to explain what they think they see, and what they wish to see.

I believe strongly that the main reason that our academic research labs and partner universities have deteriorated so markedly is because of the progressive group-think that infects academia at large. There is no room for debate, or counter-argument, or contrary thought. Hence, results such as this stunningly poor piece of “research” are produced.

May 5, 2020 11:24 am

“Climate goalpost migration: if you can’t prove more hurricanes…”
To claim the goalposts have moved, you need to establish where they originally were. In fact this article says that:
“Climate models project decreases in tropical cyclones toward the end of the 21st century from the annual average of 86 to about 69 worldwide”
I hadn’t seen such exact numbers quoted, but the AR5 in Table 11.2 gives the projections for TC activity global and various regions. For global it says:
“Reduced global, Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere frequency 2016–2035 relative to 1986–2005”
It then lists the varying prospects for the various regions, as here.

Who was trying to prove more hurricanes?

Mr.
Reply to  Nick Stokes
May 5, 2020 12:48 pm

“Who was trying to prove more hurricanes?”

Nick, the mainstream media’s relentless regurgitation of alarmist drivel never seeks to PROVE anything, but they never stop CLAIMING tosh such as more hurricanes / tornadoes / cyclones / pandemics / whatever.

The mainstream media is the chief enemy of rational discussion about climate, and that’s probably why such scientific luminaries as Al Gore, David Suzuki, David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg, etc etc get such an open platform there.

Jack Dale
Reply to  Mr.
May 5, 2020 1:26 pm

The mainstream media also got the got the “1970 cooling” wrong. Science was 6:1 warming cooling. The paper quoted above is an example of the science trumping the MSM. The view offered is the as that offered by Kerry Emanuel for some time.
That being said, the number of folks who bring up the “70’s cooling myth” to this day is astounding.

MarkW
Reply to  Jack Dale
May 5, 2020 2:46 pm

The vast majority of actual scientists do not agree that CO2 is a problem either.
As you say, it’s a media sensation, nothing more.

Mr.
Reply to  MarkW
May 5, 2020 3:12 pm

But as we all know Mark, the count of “for / against” scientists matters not a jot to nature – the thing that counts is what is observed to actually happen.

“if it’s consensus, it’s not science” said a real scientist.

Derg
Reply to  MarkW
May 5, 2020 3:24 pm

97% of them…it’s a fact 😉

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Jack Dale
May 5, 2020 7:55 pm

Kerry Emmanuel is nothing but an alarmist. I prefer more sedate “experts” like Chris Landsea and Ryan Maue.

Graemethecat
Reply to  Jack Dale
May 6, 2020 5:55 am

jack Dale: You are lying. I remember the 70’s very well, and absolutely no one was talking about Global Warming. Why were there “documentaries” at the time like this one?

MarkW
Reply to  Nick Stokes
May 5, 2020 2:45 pm

This is the advantage to having climate alarmism prognosticators being all over the map with what they are telling us is going to happen.
Whenever something bad happens, somebody predicted it so climate science is “proven”.
Whenever nothing bad happens, not everyone was predicting it, so that means they are off the hook. At least in their minds.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Nick Stokes
May 5, 2020 7:53 pm

“Who was trying to prove more hurricanes?”

Mostly politicians, like Obama, who repeatedly told us extreme weather was becoming more frequent and extremier, in spite of all the data to the contrary.

Rob_Dawg
May 5, 2020 11:27 am

> “the global average number of tropical cyclones each year has not budged from 86 over the last four decades”.

I would assert that we are “finding” more hurricanes than ever before. 40 years ago there weren’t many satellites and far fewer aircraft. Back then with fewer flights into storms the chances of catching a large tropical storm briefly nudge up to hurricane status was less. With more direct readings and extensive Doppler measurements the chance of an upgrade is higher.

DHR
May 5, 2020 11:29 am

“Greenhouse gases are warming the upper atmosphere…”

No. All measurements of temperature in the upper atmosphere, satellite (both UAH and RSS) and balloon, show that it is cooling steadily for at least 40 years. For those interested in the data, see climate4you.com. Perhaps it is Murakami’s models that show increasing temperatures.

bwegher
Reply to  DHR
May 5, 2020 9:12 pm

“Upper atmosphere” downward trend is clearly shown.
Short link to C4U graph of UAH 17 kilometer temperatures since 1978
http://tiny.cc/644hoz

ren
May 5, 2020 11:38 am

Cold water is already below the sea surface in the equatorial Pacific.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/oceanography/wrap_ocean_analysis.pl?id=IDYOC007&year=2020&month=05

tty
Reply to  ren
May 6, 2020 11:54 am

Deep water is very cold in every ocean, since it originates in The Arctic and Antarctic.

Earthling2
May 5, 2020 11:43 am

Cyclonic hurricane activity and location may vary for a number of factors, but in the big picture scheme of things the same primary process will take place, which is shedding heat from the tropics to the poles. Alterations in climate patterns may vary for multiple reasons which is to be expected, but the fundamental process of moving heat away from hot to colder to space is a permanent feature of our climate process.

As of 2015, LiveScience reported: https://www.livescience.com/50704-hurricane-drought.html

“In a stroke of luck, no major hurricanes rated Category 3 or higher have struck U.S. soil during the past nine years, a new study finds. This is the country’s longest “hurricane drought” in recorded history, or since 1851, the researchers said. The previous record lull lasted eight years, from 1861 to 1868, they said.

There is more damage now every time the wind blows, (or a hurricane happens) just because we have built up civilization more and there is more people, especially in coastal areas and flood plains. If we use insurance claims for damages as a proxy such as for hurricanes, of course that statistic will show more damage to infrastructure and buildings, just because more people and infrastructure are in the way and damages happen. Nothing much would change in this regard even if we completely abandoned fossil fuels and CO2 was back at 280 ppmv, so it is very disingenuous to tabulate storm damage, in this case hurricane activity, to a human threat of additional man made hurricane frequency, or that their movement will slightly alter due to cyclic climate patterns, which is to be expected. As the stats show, hurricane frequency hasn’t increased and neither has their strength. In fact in the USA, they were no major hurricanes making landfall between 2005 and 2017. They are barking up the wrong tree.

The narrative should change to resilience in planning and hardening our defences to natural weather events effects of all kinds. These have always been with us and always will be, no matter what we do. We don’t live in Pleasantville.

davidmhoffer
May 5, 2020 11:53 am

tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic are projected to decrease due to the “calming” effect of greenhouse gases.

I have, for over 15 years, been explaining that the physics requires that a warmer world be a calmer world. The historical record confirms this. But for the last 15 year the hysterical record has trumped all else, screaming that warming will increase hurricanes and cyclones.

Now that they’ve admitted that I was right all along, they don’t even bother to credit me. Ungrateful b*st*rds.

Anthony Banton
Reply to  davidmhoffer
May 5, 2020 12:29 pm

“Now that they’ve admitted that I was right all along, they don’t even bother to credit me. Ungrateful b*st*rds.”

The process of TS formation is not the same thing that drives mid-latitude storms, they
have always been expected to weaken as the meridional deltaT lessens under polar amplification of warming.
TSs are driven by extreme sensible/latent heat uptake/release over very warm ocean. A bottom-up convective process not a top-down baroclinic process.

May 5, 2020 12:04 pm

Take special note of the language in the following passage from the study [key words are in bold]:

Here, using a suite of high-resolution dynamical model experiments, we show that the observed spatial pattern of trends is very unlikely to be explained entirely by underlying multidecadal internal variability; rather, external forcing such as greenhouse gases, aerosols, and volcanic eruptions likely played an important role. This study demonstrates that a climatic change in terms of the global spatial distribution of tropical cyclones has already emerged in observations and may in part be attributable to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

“very unlikely” … “likely” … “may”

… and the phrase, dynamical model experiments, raises a flag for me, because an “experiment” within a model is not an experiment in reality.

Gunga Din
Reply to  Robert Kernodle
May 5, 2020 4:00 pm

Computer models are used to design things.
I saw a show about that. The focus was bumpers for cars and trucks.
The computer model was used to design the bumper.
The “experiment” was to then actually build the bumper and see if it performed as the model predicted.
If it didn’t, back to the drawing … er … keyboard.
The closest thing a “climate” model can come to an “experiment” like that would be to look at past predictions vs what really happened. How right have they been?
To only “experiment” within the computer program without such a reality test?
Play a computer turn-based strategy game. Save it before you make your move. If you don’t like the results, reload the saved game and try again until you get the results that look good to you.
Reality not required.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Robert Kernodle
May 5, 2020 7:58 pm

“Model experiments” are simply exercises in determining if the model did what it was programmed to do, Not necessarily an indication of reality.

ren
May 5, 2020 12:09 pm
Craig
May 5, 2020 12:22 pm

My research shows that the observed pattern of changing climate predictions cannot be explained only by science.

alloytoo
Reply to  Craig
May 5, 2020 12:34 pm

but it can by religion.

Gregory Woods
May 5, 2020 12:38 pm

OT, for a few laughs:

Using Humor And Games To Counter Science Misinformation
John Cook

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2020/05/the-nobel-disease-when-intelligence-fails-to-protect-against-irrationality/

for example: Take, for example, an issue such as climate change, which is uniquely difficult for our minds to grasp

see also the preceding article: The Nobel Disease: When Intelligence Fails To Protect Against Irrationality

There is a seeming lack of skepticism on the part skeptical inquirer

Gregg Hill
May 5, 2020 12:40 pm

Years ago I read of a study where someone looked for shallow freshwater pools on the land side of sand dunes along the US Gulf of Mexico coast. He took core samples of the pool bottoms and found that layers of sand, washed into the freshwater pools by hurricane storm surges, were created at different times over a span of several hundred years. The sand horizons showed a pattern that could reflect the E-W shift of the mid-Atlantic high, which influenced the hurricane landfalls.

Janice Moore
Reply to  Gregg Hill
May 6, 2020 5:10 pm

Sounds like an intriguing study, Mr. Hill. If you can find it, please post the link.

Until then, here are a couple of articles that might come close. (Q: do they?)

1. Abstract

[Re:] The northern Gulf of Mexico … We collected sediment cores in a pond (3) and adjacent beach (1) in Hancock County, Mississippi. Grain-size, loss-on-ignition, and microfossil analyses were conducted on cores in the context of a Bayesian statistical age model using 137Cs and 14C dating. Using Hurricane Camille to calibrate the archive, similar coarse-grained deposits were identified, and inverse sediment transport models calculated paleosurge intensities similar in magnitude to Camille over the 2500-yr record.

Our multi-millennial annual average landfall probability (0.48%) closely matches previously published studies from the Gulf of Mexico, indicating that intense hurricanes have not varied over these timescales. Over centennial timescales, active intervals occurred between 900 to 600 and 2200 to 1900 yr BP, with relative quiescence between 1900 to 900 yr BP.

Comparisons with other published sites support the notion that southerly shifts in the Loop Current may be responsible for the decline in activity around 600 yr BP.

(Source: Bregya, Wallacea, Minzonib, Cruzhttps (2017) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320079131_2500-year_paleotempestological_record_of_intense_storms_for_the_northern_Gulf_of_Mexico_United_States )

2.

… Liu and Fearn (1993a) have demonstrated that a chronologically and stratigraphically distinct record of past catastrophic hurricane strikes can be obtained by the detailed stratigraphic study and radiocarbon-dating of overwash deposits identified in coastal lake sediments using storm deposits in coastal lakes and marshes as a proxy for paleo-hurricane landfalls in a comprehensive study to reconstruct the Holocene history of catastrophic hurricane activities along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast. So far, more than a dozen coastal lakes and marshes from Texas to the Florida Panhandle have been cored for this study (Liu and Fearn, 1993a, 1993b, 1997, 1998; Gathen, 1994; Li, 1994; Zhou et al., 1998) (Fig. 1). …

(pp. 38, 39)

Coastal lakes situated behind sandy barriers (e.g., barrier beaches, sand dunes, beach ridges) are subject to overwash

(p. 39)

Conclusions … Our data from Lake Shelby and Western Lake suggest that these catastrophic hurricanes typically have “return periods” of 600 to 300 years, with the former undoubtedly being a minimum estimate. If these estimates are representative of places along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast — an assumption to be tested with proxy records from more sites — then the annual landfall probabilities for the catastrophic hurricanes are in the order of 0.16 – 0.33%.

One of the most important findings of our studies is that there are long-term variations in catastrophic hurricane activities at millennial timescales. ***

(p. 45)

(Source: Holocene History of Catastrophic Hurricane Landfalls Along the Gulf of Mexico Coast Reconstructed from Coastal Lake and Marsh Sediments, Kam-biu Liu, Miriam L. Fearn (2000) http://coastandenvironment.lsu.edu/docs/faculty/liu/paleoecology_web/index_files/marsh.pdf )

Joel O'Bryan
May 5, 2020 12:44 pm

“Greenhouse gases are warming the upper atmosphere and the ocean. This combines to create a more stable atmosphere with less chance that convection of air currents will help spawn and build up tropical cyclones.”

That might be a plausible corollary (or result coming out the model) of the WV amplification GHG hypothesis prediction IF the tropical hotspot in the mid-troposphere at 6-10 km (centered at 8km) altitude were actually there as predicted by those same models. But because the observed lack of the hotspot is a major CMIP3/5 ensemble model failure , then everything that comes from that is also failure.

May 5, 2020 1:55 pm

More CO2 = Higher Viscosity = More Energy needed for whirly wind to form same speed hurricane.

MarkW
Reply to  Zoe Phin
May 5, 2020 2:50 pm

Where the heck did you get that factoid from?

MarkW
Reply to  MarkW
May 5, 2020 7:46 pm

The molecular weight of CO2 is higher than the other main components of the atmosphere, O2, N2, H2O. So the atmosphere is slightly denser with CO2 in it. However at only 400 ppm, the difference is so far down below rounding error it doesn’t make much real world difference.
Regardless, denser and more viscous are two entirely different things.
(This is not the same as saying that since CO2 is a small part of the atmosphere it can’t have any influence on how energy flows through the atmosphere. Like density and viscosity, two entirely different mechanisms.)

rbabcock
May 5, 2020 2:02 pm

If and where a hurricane develops has a lot of factors. The ocean has to have enough heat, there has to be low shear, there has to be a way to ventilate the storm as it develops and there has to be enough water vapor (vapour for those that spell funny) in the air. Then there has to be a triggering device to kickstart the spin.

The Pacific has a lot of say whether the Atlantic will develop or not develop hurricanes, primarily by influencing upper level winds and shear levels. Even thunderstorms in the Indian Ocean matters to Atlantic hurricane development. It’s all tied together. Not sure how extensive this study was of areas outside of the North Atlantic Basin or interconnections.

And based on prior years, this Atlantic season looks like it might be an active one. Living in North Carolina which gets its fair share of these things, you pay attention.

MarkW
May 5, 2020 2:38 pm

Just how much additional energy does 0.003C or ocean warming provide for cyclones?

MarkW
May 5, 2020 2:48 pm

Each hurricane transports huge amounts of heat both poleward and spaceward.
If there actually were to be more hurricanes that would be another negative feedback.

kramer
May 5, 2020 3:45 pm

Greenhouse gases are warming the upper atmosphere and the ocean. This combines to create a more stable atmosphere with less chance that convection of air currents will help spawn and build up tropical cyclones.

toward the end of this century, tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic are projected to decrease due to the “calming” effect of greenhouse gases.

I’ve read many times that more CO2 means more energy and H2O in the atmosphere which means more bad weather. These two excerpts don’t quite convey this message to me.

Joel O'Bryan
Reply to  kramer
May 5, 2020 10:13 pm

The models predict the mid-troposphere of the tropics warms faster than the bear surface (under 2km) under the water vapor amplification they program into the model with parameter tuning.
If this did occur, then the deltaT would diminish and the Pseudoscientist would be correct with that statement.

However the hotspot is non-existent after 20 years of much effort trying to find it in satellite AMSU and radiosonde observational data. Thus the models are wrong on both counts. The theory is wrong. The conclusions from it are wrong. Yet they model onwards like Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

Ian Coleman
May 5, 2020 4:38 pm

Oil companies should just pull an Atlas Shrugged and refuse to sell any oil for a year. They could say, we’re sorry that the consumption of our product must lead to the eventual extinction of human life, and we’ve decided, therefore, to cease selling it forthwith. Or course, after a few months the global death toll would get pretty high, but they’d have made their point.

My Dad was born in 1919 and raised in rural Saskatchewan. The family house was heated with a wood stove, draught horses were used to work the fields, and kerosene lanterns supplied the light after dark. ( In Saskatchewan, the temperature in the winter sometimes falls to 40 below.) By the time Dad was thirty, he lived in a house with electricity, running water and a coal furnace (which he had to stoke with a shovel), and he owned a Chevrolet. Think of how much his standard of living rose from 1940 to 1950. Had you told Dad that fossil fuel consumption was a curse, he would have thought you mad.

It's all BS
May 5, 2020 5:15 pm

There are five requirements for the formation of a tropical revolving storm:
1. Sea surface temperature of 26 degrees celcius or higher (that is 78.8 degrees Farhenheit for those that don’t spell funny but cling to old methods of measuring)
2. a pre existing low pressure system
3. sufficient Coriolis force (tropical revolving storms very rarely form closer than 5degrees from the equator and never inside 4degrees from the equator)
4. little or no vertical wind shear
5. atmospheric disturbance

The little or no vertical wind shear is one of two reasons why the South Atlantic is practically devoid of tropical revolving storms. Hence why there is no alternative name for them in that part of the world (such as Typhoon, Hurricane or Cyclone)

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  It's all BS
May 5, 2020 8:03 pm

“(that is 78.8 degrees Farhenheit for those that don’t spell funny but cling to old methods of measuring)”

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Chaamjamal
May 5, 2020 5:49 pm

Yes sir. Goalpost migration is the exact description of this horrid thing called climate science. Not to determine what the theory predicts and then take data to test theory but rather to look at the data to determine what the theory should predict.

And this is The Science and to be critical of it is to be a science denier.

MikeN
May 5, 2020 6:01 pm

Using a climate model that assumes CO2 is the primary driver of climate to conclude that CO2 is changing the climate.

nw sage
May 5, 2020 6:57 pm

“While the global average number of tropical cyclones each year has not budged from 86 over the last four decades, climate change has been influencing the locations of where these deadly storms occur”
I assume that is why the name ‘climate change’ was invented! Got it?

May 5, 2020 9:32 pm

The essential problem here is that the hypothesis to be tested was derived from the only data that can be used to test that hypothesis.

https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/05/06/tropical-cyclones-climate-change-2/

Ian E
May 6, 2020 1:35 am

Rather more likely is the possibility that windfarms are having (Lorentzian) effects on air movements and thus possibly shifting cyclones etc. [ See for instance https://www.newscientist.com/letter/mg24032021-000-the-possible-chaotic-effect-of-wind-farms/ ]

Ian E
Reply to  Ian E
May 6, 2020 1:41 am
niceguy
May 6, 2020 7:29 pm

“New research indicates”
indicates that “the science” (whatever counts as “science” these days) is no settled on these matters.

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