By P Gosselin on 10. October 2021
In the latest climate and energy video by German site Die kalte Sonne, media claims of increasingly stronger and frequent hurricanes are examined closely and reach the conclusion: “Over the past 170 years, hurricanes have not occurred more frequently or gotten more intense.”
In the wake of hurricane Ida, a number of mainstream media outlets, like German ZDF, blared that hurricanes have gotten worse over the recent decades – due to global warming. But that statement has been found to be driven more by alarmism and activism, and not based on data.
New paper by Vecchi et al
Citing a new paper by Vecchi et al, 2021, appearing in the journal Nature, Changes in Atlantic major hurricane frequency since the late-19th century, the authors found: “The homogenized basin-wide HU and MH record does not show strong evidence of a century-scale increase in either MH frequency or MH/HU ratio associated with the century-scale, greenhouse-gas-induced warming of the planet.”
Hurricane recording before satellite observation started in 1972 was based on eye witness observation, meaning a number of hurricanes before 1972 never got recorded. After adjusting, the authors came up with the following chart:
Source: Nature.
The adjusted median frequency for major hurricanes was higher in the 1920s and 1950s than after 2000.
Nothing unusual today
The authors suggest that hurricane frequency is in large part modulated by the natural Atlantic oceanic variability:
After homogenization, increases in basin-wide hurricane and major hurricane activity since the 1970s are not part of a century-scale increase, but a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s–1980s. We suggest internal (e.g., Atlantic multidecadal) climate variability and aerosol-induced mid-to-late-20th century major hurricane frequency reductions have probably masked century-scale greenhouse-gas warming contributions to North Atlantic major hurricane frequency.”
Despite the 1°C global warming seen since the mid 18th century, hurricane intensity and frequency remained well with the range of natural variability and have not trended upwards. “If anything, it’s a decrease,” reports Die kalte Sonne.
That still leaves them droughts, tornados, forest fires… and locusts.
While adjusted data sets are usually suspect, the rationale behind this adjustment does seem valid. It is rather like the change in the count of tornadoes only detected by Doppler radar.
Oh my goodness, this is very inconvenient. Think of the damage done to the fundraising and grants if this is allowed to be shared to the masses.
Does the WUWT audience support the adjustments made in this publication?
Does the WUWT audience support the conclusion that the dip in the mid-to-late 20th century may at least be partially the result of anthropogenic aerosol emissions?
Does the WUWT audience support the position of the publication that it cannot be used as evidence against the hypothesis that greenhouse-gas-induced warming may lead to an intensification of North Atlantic hurricanes?
Hurricanes-
NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dyamics Laboratory (GFDL): Leaders in Climate Model Development and Research.
For about a decade (or even longer), GFDL has annually updated their statement on hurricanes and climate change. This excerpt from their 15 August 2019 update lists some of their negative findings about current hurricane activity.
“We find that, after adjusting for such an estimated number of missing storms, there remains just a small nominally positive upward trend in tropical storm occurrence from 1878-2006. Statistical tests indicate that this trend is not significantly distinguishable from zero. In addition, Landsea et al. (2010) note that the rising trend in Atlantic tropical storm counts is almost entirely due to increases in short-duration (<2 day) storms alone. Such short does not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced long-term increase.“-lived storms were particularly likely to have been overlooked in the earlier parts of the record, as they would have had less opportunity for chance encounters with ship traffic. …
“The evidence for an upward trend is even weaker if we look at U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which even show a slight negative trend beginning from 1900 or from the late 1800s. …
“While major hurricanes show more evidence of a rising trend from the late 1800s, the major hurricane data are considered even less reliable than the other two records in the early parts of the record. …
“In short, the historical Atlantic hurricane frequency record does not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced long-term increase.“
Reminds me of the headline of the Washington Post that was something like
“The US coast is in an unprecedent hurricane drought – and why it is a bad thing”(no matter what.Even if you admit that the prediction was 100% wrong, give it somehow a negative spin to scare people and push the agenda).
Some other experts(weather.com 2016) were not so kind
“10 reasons why the major hurricane drought is misleading ” (reason 1 – i Would instantly be cancelled and lose my job if i would admit the failure)
“US hurricane drought a matter of Luck ” climate central.org 2015
Once there used to be hurricanes that killed 200000 people(typhoon nina 1975 china)
and floods (1931 ) that killed 2 million people.
All this happened during the perfect 350 ppm co2 climate control knob.
Nowadays 200 people get killed and it’s an unprecedent record breaking Armageddon(the 0.01% co2 logic at work)
just because a bunch of parasites can make a very good living by selling fear disguised as science.
One culprit in the spread of this disinformation is the ever morphing definition of what is and is not a hurricane/cyclone. Add to that the “news” calls every low pressure system that is named a hurricane, no matter that it is simply a low pressure system with no rotation and sustained winds well below 100 mph. Stop naming every half assed bunch of clouds over water, and while we are at it stop naming snow storms. It is all just weather, stop pushing hysterical narratives to drive leftist political agendas which are destroying our civilization.
Whack-a-mole…LA Times says heat waves in the west are now more often, hotter, longer, more humid, and deadlier. Sigh
Dr. Neil Frank did the complementary study in the 1990’s where he discounted hurricanes that would NOT have been detected using only pre-satellite observations. He drew the same conclusions.
So far this year in central Florida we have been threatened by zero hurricanes. Several years ago three hurricanes attacked us from different directions.
This year the panhandle has been hit by a couple.
As far as named storms are concerned, some years ago a storm was not named until it became, or was obviously going to become very shortly, a hurricane. These days they name almost anything that looks as though it might become windy.
“Over the past 170 years, hurricanes have not occurred more frequently …..”
That’s OK then – as they are not project to ….
So your including the “new paper by Vecchi et al, 2021”
is irrelevant as the consensus science conveyed by the IPCC agrees with you!
“A.3.4 It is likely that the global proportion of major (Category 3–5) tropical cyclone occurrence has
increased over the last four decades, and the latitude where tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific
reach their peak intensity has shifted northward; these changes cannot be explained by internal variability
alone (medium confidence). There is low confidence in long-term (multi-decadal to centennial) trends in the
frequency of all-category tropical cyclones. {8.2, 11.7, Box TS.10}”
” …… or gotten more intense.”
“In the wake of hurricane Ida, a number of mainstream media outlets, like German ZDF, blared that hurricanes have gotten worse over the recent decades – due to global warming. But that statement has been found to be driven more by alarmism and activism, and not based on data.”
Sorry, they but it appears they have become more intense via this study …..
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/22/11975
“Theoretical understanding of the thermodynamic controls on tropical cyclone (TC) wind intensity, as well as numerical simulations, implies a positive trend in TC intensity in a warming world. The global instrumental record of TC intensity, however, is known to be heterogeneous in both space and time and is generally unsuitable for global trend analysis. To address this, a homogenized data record based on satellite data was previously created for the period 1982–2009. The 28-y homogenized record exhibited increasing global TC intensity trends, but they were not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. Based on observed trends in the thermodynamic mean state of the tropical environment during this period, however, it was argued that the 28-y period was likely close to, but shorter than, the time required for a statistically significant positive global TC intensity trend to appear. Here the homogenized global TC intensity record is extended to the 39-y period 1979–2017, and statistically significant (at the 95% confidence level) increases are identified. Increases and trends are found in the exceedance probability and proportion of major (Saffir−Simpson categories 3 to 5) TC intensities, which is consistent with expectations based on theoretical understanding and trends identified in numerical simulations in warming scenarios. Major TCs pose, by far, the greatest threat to lives and property. Between the early and latter halves of the time period, the major TC exceedance probability increases by about 8% per decade, with a 95% CI of 2 to 15% per decade.”
Time series of fractional proportion of global major hurricane estimates to all hurricane estimates for the period 1979–2017. Each point, except the earliest, represents the data in a sequence of 3-y periods. The first data point is based on only 2 y (1979 and 1981) to avoid the years with no eastern hemisphere coverage. The linear Theil−Sen trend (black line) is significant at the 98% confidence level (Mann−Kendall P value = 0.02). The proportion increases by 25% in the 39-y period (about 6% per decade).
And these studies …..
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2792
“Intensification of landfalling typhoons over the northwest Pacific since the late 1970s”
Wei Mei & Shang-Ping Xie Nature Geoscience
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab9140/meta
“Increasing trend in rapid intensification magnitude of tropical cyclones over the western North Pacific”
Jinjie Song1, Yihong Duan1 and Philip J Klotzbach
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2867-7
“Slower decay of landfalling hurricanes in a warming world”
Lin Li & Pinaki Chakraborty Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-017-0008-6
“Increasing frequency of extremely severe cyclonic storms over the Arabian Sea”
Hiroyuki Murakami, Gabriel A. Vecchi & Seth Underwood
A warming world should result in fewer storms. Winds and storms come from temperature differentials (which drive pressure changes). As the temperature starts to moderate (lows aren’t so low, highs don’t move, meaning the average moves up) we should have less severe weather events.
In my 55 years after meteorology class in grade school have noticed only an increase in hysteria over hurricanes. After living through the Buffalo blizzard of 1971, the hurricane in 1976 that wiped the campground out in Maine, the Bolixi storm surge of 1979, the Homestead Fl Catastrophe, the Marathon Fl storm surge and 20 or so other Hurricanes
The major difference has been the end of teh world style reporting that has incrementally gotten more sensational many instances of fake reporters floating in canoes or bracing against 5 mile an hour winds are readily available of the net.
When you look at water lines and coastal incursion dunes from prehistorical storms you find evidence of storms orders of magnitude greater than what the MSM waxes so prolifically over.
Why would the warmunists claim warmer climates would increase hurricanes? They are caused by temperature and pressure differentials, not uniformly warmer. Another pack of codswallop.
“After homogenization”
Even if you like the outcome, you need to take it with a pinch of salt until you investigate further. No doubt that the raw data would be meaningless because of the effects of better observations with time.
The only aspect of Hurricanes to become more intense and frequent, has been all the pearl clutching by the media and eco-mongers….
I would imagine that basic physics / thermodynamics would predict calming (smaller and /or less frequent bad storms). If the poles warm, then the differential between the poles and the equator goes down (more or less). The smaller temperature differential leads to less energy for storms to feed on, no?