Essay by Eric Worrall
“… It is difficult to predict whether changes in cyclone formation and behaviour will pose a risk to Australia …”
Tropical cyclones in Australia: How severe are they, and what impact will climate change have on them?
By Emily Bennett 7:09am Dec 11, 2022
Tropical cyclones have killed hundreds of Australians and caused billions of dollars in damage – and we’ve been warned they’re only going to get worse.
With another cyclone season upon us, what lies ahead for our region in the coming months?
…
Is the number of cyclones predicted to increase due to climate change?
The total number of cyclones in Australia is predicted to decrease – but that’s not the full story.
Climate models project an increase in the proportion of high-intensity storms, with stronger winds and higher rainfall, according to the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub.
University of Melbourne expert Professor Kevin Walsh agrees with the modelling.
“The most likely outcome for the future frequency of tropical cyclones in the Australian region is a slight decrease,” Walsh said.
…
It is difficult to predict whether changes in cyclone formation and behaviour will pose a risk to Australia, according to Walsh.
…
“The possibility exists that tropical cyclones might strike slightly further south than they do at present, but the most vulnerable regions will still remain the more populated regions of the tropical coasts,” he said.
…
Read more: https://www.9news.com.au/national/tropical-cyclones-australia-natural-disaster-frequency-severity-death-toll-damage-bill-climate-change-impact-explained/3895a34b-8ca1-4b02-afb5-e831ebc04e96
This isn’t the only note of caution we’ve seen lately. Who can forget Professor Pitman’s disclosure that climate science cannot us whether droughts will become more or less likely? Though Pitman later qualified his statement “there is no link between climate change and drought”, claiming what he meant to say was “there is no direct link between climate change and drought”.
We still get a few entertaining academics from time to time, who throw caution to the winds – like UNSW academic Dr. Clara Stephens, who in 2020 predicted “… even if we get heavier downpours in the future, they won’t necessarily produce the floods we rely on to fill dams …”.
Bad timing Clara – 2022 has been a year of extreme rainfall and floods, thanks to a rare triple La Nina. Probably Clara meant starting from 2023, right?
Of course, climate scientists have been quick to blame the 2022 rainfall on climate change.
Don’t be distracted by all this apparent inconsistency. Climate change is such settled science, in 2021 Naomi Oreskes called for WG1 to be defunded, so more resources could be directed to mitigation efforts. If climate science wasn’t so settled, climate scientists would be making all sorts of incorrect and outright wrong predictions.
“End of Worlders” never learn from their failed predictions, they simply change their signage to a new date, while still walking their same beat.
Their behavior is all but indistinguishable from a doomsday cult. When the prophesized date inevitably comes and goes, the cult leader will make some excuses, revise the date and double down. These things don’t generally end well, and the “Catastrophic Global Warming” cult is significantly larger than almost any doomsday cult in recent history. This makes them very dangerous to wider society.
That’s because they have gotten so much tied up in it. Academic careers, research grant, renewable subsidies… Most doomsday cults are a few hundred ‘believers’ and a few million bucks. Not millions of ‘believers’ and billions of bucks.
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You reminded men of our local pizza restaurant that had a sign on the wall reading,”Free Beer Tomorrow!”
The sign should be updated to “Free reliable wind and solar power, tomorrow“
Reading/listening to any of ‘the usual suspects’ regarding global warming/climate change is about as convincing as those on line gambling app advertisements. Pure, self serving horse manure.
Out-of-Control Gamblers need: Gamblers Anonymous
and
Out-of-Control Human-caused Climate Change Alarmists need: Human-caused Climate Change Anonymous.
Both groups need to purge themselves of their destructive thoughts and actions and come back to reality. They will feel a lot better about their lives afterwards.
Failed predictions are the same as Alinsky’s Rules for Radials, if you are caught in a lie, tell a bigger one and keep going.
The alarmists have a basic problem. All their previous specific alarms failed.
Their ‘falsification’ solution now has two parts: (a) be vague about timing and (b) hedge, as here. The problem with their solution is that it is no longer alarming.
The sea level rise according to the tide gauges is only half that purported by the satellites and do not accelerate.
Failures have no consequences.John Holdren, a collaborator and co-author with Paul Ehrlich, was Obama’s science advisor.
Perhaps true in the short run. But certainly not in the long run when reputational ‘history’ gets written. Ehrlich is thoroughly discredited—his ‘population bomb’ bombed. Mann is now ‘A disgrace to the profession’. Summer Arctic sea ice is now measured in Wadhams’ (1 Wadham is 1 million square kilometers—this years summer Arctic sea ice minimum was 4.7 Wadhams) in honor of Prof.Wadhams who predicted it would be gone by 2014 or so.
One of Alinsky’s rules for radicals (paraphrased) is ‘ridicule is the best weapon’. Another is ‘make them live up to their own game.’ Both apply to climate alarmists, since us skeptics are the radicals going against the establishment ‘settled’ climate science.
I am not quite as sangine. Rachel Carson is still trotted out as some sort of prophet, despite being almost as mistaken as Erhlich.
Mann is still working, despite being a joke to anyone who follows alternative media.
It is the media catering to the low information voters that matter, at least in the short term.
Tom, I see Rachel Carson and ‘Silent Spring’ a bit differently. She was partly right, but overcooked it. For example, US raptors made a resurgence after DDT was throttled.
Yes, Mann is still a full prof at Penn State, but with tenure they are stuck with him. Ditto Oreskes at Harvard—but they forever lost my until then considerable alumni contributions as a consequence. The ‘major gifts’ gang stopped coming annually for me to treat them to a nice lunch or dinner after they did not take my hints and we had a couple of brutally honest meetings.
Here in Australia Flim Flam Flannery is still a government advisor even after being proven wrong time after time over decades.
I don’t understand why governments can’t see that their ‘advisors’ her in Australia are all of the extreme left. To the point that our major conservative political party don’t even realise just how far left they’ve gone. The bureaucrats are running our country now. It wouldn’t matter who was in power the ‘unelected’ are the ones who run the circus. The greens are well and truly firmly entrenched.
We have very few politicians who research policies themselves, they rely on their ‘advisors’ to the point that many have the power to rubber stamp issues that favour their interests. Even though covid is pretty much a non issue now, parliament has been almost empty all year. Just a handful of stalwart politicians who actually do care speaking to an empty room.
Politics in this country is a joke! Except it’s not in the least bit funny.
“The bureaucrats are running our country now”
In the US we call them the “Deep State”
And heavy and continuous rain in Australia can be measured in Flanneries.
And of course Australia had its “Ship of Fools”, stuck in Antarctic sea ice while on a mission to prove that ice in Antarctica was melting more.
Yes, that would be the rain that will never again fill our dams. Along with the disappearing snow that our children would never witness. The geothermal he recommended to the tune of 90 million dollars didn’t work out either.
I’m sure there’s more. Yet he is still advising the government!
Michael Mann is Ivy League now, University of Pennsylvania.
Did he move? He was, and I think still is, at The Pennsylvania State University, in State College, Pennsylvania, not at The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
US raptors were recovering years before DDT was “throttled”. It was laws restricting hunting that resulted in their recovery.
There was never any evidence that DDT played a role in the thinning of eggs, the one “study” that found a relationship was a complete fraud.
“It is the media catering to the low information voters that matter, at least in the short term.”
I agree.
The Elite Media is the most dangerous organization in the Western world because they tell lies and create false realities which cause low-information voters to vote against their own best interests, thinking they are doing just the opposite because they have been misled by the Media.
Currently, the Leftwing Media is censoring the TwitterGate Files by completely ignoring the story. All the people who watch those news organizations have no idea what is going on in the real world concering TwitterGate or anything else.
The Elites/Swamp Critters running this country are manipulating the public for their own political purposes, their chief instrument being the Leftwing Media, and that purpose is to acquire political power and keep it in perpetuity by lying to the Public.
They have been dangerously successful at their task. They are almost to the point where they can take our personal freedoms away from us with impunity. Almost. Republicans need to grow a spine, or we are cooked.
The Republicans are talking a good game. Let’s see how that works out when the entire universe of the radical Left comes down on their heads, and you can bet that is what is going to happen.
The Leftwing Media is going to smear Republicans with the intensity they used to smear Trump. Trump stood up to the pressure and gave as good as he got. Let’s see if these Republican House members have the same mettle. Let’s hope they do for all our sakes, even the stupid Democrat voters who don’t know any better.
Tom:
Yes. Cato did a book length review “Silent Spring at 50” [2012] for the 59th anniversary of Carson’s book. IIRC “chemical muckracking” was a common description of her book by the editors of the review.
Carson made lots of errors, even granting her the limited knowledge of the day. Errors of both omission and comission. But the impact of the book on the environmental movement was profound. For good and ill.
Having abandoned the scientific method, Most Climate “scientists” aren’t even capable of believing their absurd assumptions could be wrong. They think invalidated model projections trump empirical data.
Worse still, some would posit that output from the models is…data..In fact, that is what drives Nut-Zero and every other CAGW illogical green policy. The policy makers truly think that the models are the “truth”.
Even worse, Erroneous model output is treated as unquestionable truth.
The twattle will continue being published as long as the MSM is provided with juicy “facts”. The “facts” will continue as long as the providers are being paid. No one, especially in Australia, can take these prognostications seriously one way or the other.
Have Embarrassing Failed Predictions Taught Climate Scientists to be Cautious?
Yes, they learned only engage with people who agree with them.
Another positive thought triggered by this post. It took about 40 years to get where we are:
I don’t think it will take another 40 years to unwind the alarmist beliefs/momentum and move on. A hard EU winter should suffice there given the natgas shortage imposed by Russia. A failed California grid should suffice there. A hard NE winter should suffice there. Heck, Switzerland is proposing to ban EV’s this winter to keep the lights on.
One can pretend to ignore reality until it bites hard. The attempt to spin the Feb 2021 ERCOT failure after the fact is an early example of trying to ignore reality. Feb 2021 did not bite quite hard enough in Texas.
Eric,
“This isn’t the only note of caution we’ve seen lately. “
You didn’t highlight this bit from the quote:
“Climate models project an increase in the proportion of high-intensity storms, with stronger winds and higher rainfall, according to the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub.
University of Melbourne expert Professor Kevin Walsh agrees with the modelling.”
It isn’t a new prediction; it says what the IPCC reports, at least since AR3, have been saying. Probably fewer cyclones, but the fraction of high intensity storms may increase.
‘Probably fewer but maybe worse’ is just parseltongue for ‘we haven’t a clue but are very worried’.
Or, to be more technically precise, it has been shown in several peer reviewed papers that global climate models do NOT regionally downscale using either of the two accepted downscaling methodologies. Australia specific future cyclone predictions are classic regional downscaling. For footnote references, see essay ‘Last Cup of Coffee’ in ebook Blowing Smoke.
Rud,
The headline says
“Have Embarrassing Failed Predictions Taught Climate Scientists to be Cautious?”
which it follows up with someone currently being cautious. But on this topic, scientists have always been cautious, for the reasons you indicate.
Failed prediction haven’t hindered any of the most squawking of self-styled “climate scientists”
They just get promotions and squawk louder.
Nick,
Certain scientists of a certain persuasion seem to default to the “cautious” prediction of alarming news. Few seem to have the gumption and humility to admit that they just don’t know. Professor Walsh “agrees with the modelling”.
Is Walsh agreeing with the modelling because he has independent confirmation or because he likes the tenor of the projections?
You could ask Eric. He chose to feature this report.
“Is Walsh agreeing with the modelling because he has independent confirmation or because he likes the tenor of the projections?”
Nope. No independent varification of anything.
Walsh is agreeing with the models because they are the only thing he has with which to agree. Walsh is saying, “I agree with these guesses”. Meaningless. Especially when the guesses/models don’t agree with reality.
Scientists have always been cautious, as you say.
All the more evidence that climate scientists aren’t scientists.
” But on this topic, scientists have always been cautious,”
You would be funny if you weren’t so damn hard boiled.
CSIRO chief……(A physicist BTW)
” Climate change started as an environmental ”emergency” then an economic ”emergency” now a health ”emergency”.
Please see below for other ”scientific” gems from this ”scientist”
https://www.facebook.com/abcnews.au/videos/csiro-chief-dr-larry-marshall-on-the-state-of-climate-change-and-megatrends/3355032001450365/
When Einstein predicted the visual displacement of stars behind the sun due to gravity bending the light, did he say it “may” happen?
This isn’t said anywhere near enough.
Pretty obvious 97% of climate scientists don’t have a clue 97% of the time.
But this article is about the legions of failed predictions & projections Nick.
Not whether one more doomster joins the ranks of rank failed weather prophets.
Of course he agrees with the modeling, no matter how wrong it is. He’s more concerned about his job than ethics.
may increase? Oh, how dreadful!
“Probably fewer cyclones, but the fraction of high intensity storms may increase.”
Pure crystal balls gazing… meaningless.
But if you have LESS number of cyclones overall and a slightly less reduction in high intensity cyclones…
.. even a remedial maths student, like you, would eventually figure out that the fraction of high intensity would increase.
Good point, bnice. If there are fewer cyclones overall and a larger fraction is intense, then the absolute number of intense cyclones may decrease.
Their wording is misdirection by portentous vaguery.
The models have been predicting an increase in high-intensity storms for over 30 years.
Much like the predictions of accelerating sea level rise, or accelerating temperatures, these predictions have all failed.
Or may decrease or may stay the same.
Can I get a job in climate science, as my prediction will turn out to be true in any timescale?
It has made them more censorious. But, perhaps their clamoring to shut down debate is starting to open the eyes of some of the masses of people who aren’t paying attention. We are on the verge of a new Lysenkoism, governments and legacy media are falling over themselves to censor anything that does not conform to the “settled science”.
The COVID fiasco is, largely, a facsimile of the Climate Change scenario, just on a much more accelerated timeline. The speed at which it unfolded has allowed many more people to see even a glimpse of what is going on. The pushing of “settled science” that was clearly wrong, the censorship and defamation of real scientists asking important questions, the use of very sketchy computer models to justify the actions, and post hoc claim the benefit of those actions (the “lives saved” by the one and only approved therapy were determined by subtracting the actual deaths from the modelled deaths, even though the model was so wildly inaccurate that it was a joke).
The fate of the modern world seems to hang in the balance. Highly organized forces are conspiring (yep, they have meetings) to control the world through a technocratic authoritarian global regime. They have glossy brochures and tout their interests in “Tolerance” and “Equity” (<– There’s a BIG tell) and “Sustainability”. Scratch the surface and you find the Marxist underpinnings of all of this. Now, the ones truly in charge (the Inner Party if you will) do not actually believe in Marxism, in a communist utopia that will emerge after the evil Capitalists have been vanquished. They are interested only in power. As Orwell noted, power for power’s sake. They have no end goal, no purpose for which they want to take power, they just want the power, to do that, they are willing to destroy the entire world. The degree to which the world currently resembles that of 1984 is disturbing. It seems that they no longer assign that novel as a text in high schools, that is a major error (though, something done intentionally isn’t generally considered an error).
MarkH,
1984 with a hint of the Matrix thrown in thanks to social media!
The thinking of the radical Democrats is definitely “1984”. The radical Democrat cabal currently trying to undermine the United States constitution would love to have the control “Big Brother” has in the novel. And that’s their goal.
“It is difficult to predict whether changes in cyclone formation and behavior will pose a risk to Australia, according to Walsh.”
Good- then time to move on to strongly predictable problems- like a shortage of needed energy.
I can’t say the exact date but 2023 will be the year of “the Rapture.”
I might be mixing this up with an August Blue Moon or a Taurids Meteor
Shower in November, or a Tribbles shower on The Beach island of Ko Phi Phi Le.
This prediction stuff is hard.
I’ll see myself to the door.
I put more faith in your tribble shower prediction than nonsensical fantasies of imminent climate catastrophe.
Nice picture of Kevin sitting there, completely vacant and drunk, in a pub.
So nicely captures this entire thing – the effects of eating a high carb diet for year after year are exactly the same as drinking alcohol over an extended time.
Both completely trash our brains, minds and entire nervous systems. Sugar and booze, either alone or in combination, create Zombies
Just what we see in the picture. Brain-dead, belligerent, buck-passing, mendacious, selfish, lazy and unthinking zombies.
i.e. Folks who engage in ‘Unreasonable behaviour‘ – just ask, what is now the majority of adult women = the ones who have asked for and gotten divorced.
They’ll tell you all about it and is why they number so few in The Climate Debate.
They’ve spent a lifetime having exactly similar arguements and they know that there is No Way they can ever win them.
I had a squiz at the bio of Dr Claire Michelle Stephens, currently benefitting from various taxpayer funded research grants at the UNSW.
> PhD in Civil/Environmental Engineering University of New South Wales (with research exchange at Columbia University NY), 2020
> Chartered Professional Engineer and Member, Institute of Engineers Australia
> Bachelor of Engineering (Environmental) (Hons I) University of Queensland (with exchange at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany), 2011
She appears to be very intelligent, with great qualifications. See this is the type of person that should be using her brain power in the fossil fuel industry, such as helping design and engineer, let’s say an African nation’s fossil fuel infrastructure, that can make a tangible difference to real people’s standard of living, in the real world.
Instead, Claire has decided to use that brainpower, sitting in a university office, playing computer games.
They’re not daft. Look at her words carefully. “won’t necessarily”. “I didn’t say they wouldn’t, so there.” If, could, might, chance, etc, etc, etc. But the media ignores the caveats. Maybe they are supposed to.
unfortunately it’s not about the science it’s about the media . while the scientific data continues to weaken the cash going into alarmist media has increased exponentially. organizations like covering climate now and climate central feed news to the simple minded networks and print media while the tsunami of you tube climate propagandists receive billions more from the likes of gates , schmidt , rockefeller and philanthropies with murky motives . organizations like AP and PBS are given millions to hire “ climate journalists “ . sceptics need to match that kind of money to level the playing field .
It is not possible for GCMs to project any events that it cannot spatially or temporally resolve.
And that includes just about all events of interest.
From the article: “Tropical cyclones in Australia: How severe are they, and what impact will climate change have on them?”
What [Human-caused] climate change?
There’s no evidence for Human-caused Climate Change due to CO2. Assuming it exists without evidence of such, is not logical or scientific.
From the article: “This isn’t the only note of caution we’ve seen lately. Who can forget Professor Pitman’s disclosure that climate science cannot [tell] us whether droughts will become more or less likely? Though Pitman later qualified his statement “there is no link between climate change and drought”, claiming what he meant to say was “there is no direct link between climate change and drought”.”
A distinction without a difference.
It hardly matters any more what so-called “climate scientists” say.They will always use just enough waffle words to keep the CAGW scam, which their paychecks depend on, rolling along. Besides, they know that the MSM is doing the heavy hitting for them with their “extreme weather” messaging. Isn’t that convenient? They get to soft peddle the climate alarm, making them appear “sciency”. It’s a win-win for them.
They chase grants by producing flawed models that give the outcomes the grant providers want
They are not scientists, they are simply professionally inept and self serving and they do science a great dis-service in their race to the bottom, with their pieces of silver
Why look to predictions (that are, essentially, subjective guesses) to be cautious? Why not look at past data, which are less subjective?
Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/uahdec2022.jpg