Comments by Kip Hansen — 8 September 2024
There has been a lot of attention paid to this year’s Hurricane Season in the weather media. We even had one re-post here at WUWT — Mysteries Surrounding The 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season. CO2 Definitely Not the Driving Factor – from NoTricksZone which itself is a re-post translated from KlimaNachrichten. Not bad, but, to me, not really satisfying – after all, no one could possibly think that the slowness of a single hurricane season could be really driven by changes in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
A sampling from the press, in no particular order:
—
—
“This hurricane season is confounding experts and defying forecasts. What the heck is going on?”
—
And, finally, actually quoting someone who might have a professionally informed opinion:
We all saw the headlines earlier this year:
—
And then, later in the year, just a month ago:
Highly active hurricane season likely to continue in the Atlantic — Near-record sea surface temperatures and the possibility of La Nina are key factors (August 8, 2024)
That last NOAA press release includes this magnificent night-time satellite image of Hurricane Beryl as it approaches the coast of Texas:
[The full high-resolution image is well worth downloading here ]
Phil Klotzbach at CSU even issued a new forecast on August 6th still predicting an above-average season:
Most readers will know already that the season has thankfully under-performed:
And there we sit, still today on the 8th of September with the Atlantic Tropical Weather outlook, for the next 7 days:
The orange area represents a weather phenomenon where “a tropical depression could form during the early or middle part of next week while the system moves slowly northwestward to northward over the southwestern Gulf of Mexico.” So, not yet even a tropical depression. The yellow area has this: “Some slow development of this system is possible while the disturbance meanders through the early part of next week, then begins to move west-northwestward across the central tropical Atlantic during the middle to latter part of next week.”
And what might be forming? A Tropical Depression:
“Cyclones are characterized by a circular wind pattern or circulation.
Meteorologists identify the growth phase of hurricanes into three categories of development:
Tropical Depression — wind speeds less than 36 mph
Tropical Storm — wind speeds between 36 mph and 74 mph
Hurricane — wind speeds greater than 74 mph” [ source ]
So, to work its way up to being a hurricane, an area of low pressure with thunderstorms must first produce a circular wind flow with maximum sustained winds below 39 mph. Without the circular wind flow, winds of just below speed would be called a ‘near gale’ – or “A gale is a strong, sustained wind with wind speeds between 39 mph and 54 mph. The word is typically used as a descriptor for maritime weather.”
Note: I have sailed in a full gale, once, accidentally, and I did not like it.
The Seven-Day Outlook means that we will pass the historical peak day of Atlantic hurricane activity (below) without adding to the tally issued on 1 September (above).
From the 10th September, hurricane activity historically begins to slow down rather sharply by the 1st of October. After the 1st of October, probability of a hurricane drops by 40 to 50% compared to the peak. By the 1st of November, the season is pretty much over but officially ends on the 30th.
If I were still in the Virgin Islands (US or UK), I’d be feeling pretty confident and not running to Salinas, PR, which is the nearest dependably safe hurricane hole. The advantage of Salinas is that it is downwind and a quick easy sail, less than 24 hours, much of which can be accomplished overnight, even being chased by a storm arriving from the east.
Does any of this mean that the islands, the Yucatan, the Gulf Coast, both Florida coasts, the U.S. East Coast or the Bahamas can relax and think they dodged the hurricane bullet for the season? Absolutely not.
As NOAA keeps reminding us, it only takes one hurricane hitting your area to make a disaster.
The questions being asked in the Weather/Climate press are:
What does the obvious hurricane prediction failure mean?
Have we really gotten it that wrong?
Is there still a chance that the season will heat up and make up lost ground?
How did we/they get it so wrong?
Is there something fundamentally wrong with our models?
Those are all good questions and there have been a lot answers and a lot of excuses.
Many readers here are quite familiar with hurricane science and I’d like to read their opinions in the comments.
Here’s my take:
The basic cognitive error that I have identified is a confusion between:
1. Favorable conditions and indicators, learned from the experience of past seasons along with hypotheses about hurricane genesis
and
2. Cause
Hurricane predictions are naturally, quite correctly, made based on the historical past – identifying conditions that seem to have resulted in more hurricanes – and the statistical historical results (such as the Peak Season graphic) These are then coupled with hypothetical causes – things we think ought to cause more hurricanes – to come up with a guess – a prediction – of how activity the coming season will be.
That is a perfectly proper way to make these predictions. Not a piece out of place…..
Except…..
Statistics about the past are not causes.
Hypotheses about hurricane causation (or hurricane genesis) are not causes.
But, but , but….yes, I know. I suspect you are right, if those are not causes – meaning that looking at those non-causes might lead us astray in our prediction – then….
What does cause hurricanes?
Good question! Go to the top of the class.
Can I get an answer? Well, gee, I asked the Windows Copilot and it gave a sort of sciencey* non-answer that contained no causes, only favorable conditions and hypotheses about hurricane genesis.
* – “Appearing scientific without actually being so” [ source ]
We know the favorable conditions, we know the unfavorable conditions, we have some idea of the atmospheric mechanics involved (low pressure, circular wind patterns, etc).
If we knew the true causes, we would just need to look and see if the causes existed (or were likely to exist) and make a prediction.
Oddly, in 1963, David Fultz may have peeked at the answer in his rotating dishpan experiments at Chicago. [ here and here ] Edward Lorenz’s toy climate model, L96, could churn out the underlying chaotic genesis of hurricanes. In both cases, the causes are themselves related to topics in Chaos Theory studies.
If that is true – and I am not drawing a line in the sand here – then hurricane genesis is – buried under all the historic statistics, favorable conditions and hypotheses – basically unpredictable before the fact.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
Don’t get me wrong, we can comfortably predict that there will be a hurricane season and it will have tropical cyclones and some of them will develop into hurricanes. But we can’t predict, for the next hurricane season or even the remainder of this hurricane season how many, precisely where or when, nor can we predict where those hurricanes that develop will go.
I am betting that there are conflicting opinions out there and I’d like to read them.
I don’t usually include graphics in this section, but was taken with this one:
We still might get some hurricanes after all – there have been more than a few (732) cyclones recorded in Septembers past.
Thanks for reading.
# # # # #
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The experts predict no hurricane when I visit St. Petersburg in September. Well crap, that means we’re getting one for sure.
Coach ==> Sorry…ain’t that the way. In reality, St Pete gets very few hurricanes historically.
Take some Prozac with you and throw it into the ocean. No better cure for a Tropical Depression
Bryan ==> Most use the Jimmy Buffett prescription.
‘Record season’ eh?
BTW, the ‘prop’ (propagation) on the lower HF bands and MW 160 meter band has been great the last few weeks.Here’s a sample of three WSPR records showing a spot in Australia from the mid-US:
Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az Mode
2024-09-05 11:36 AA5** 1.837998 -25 0 EM13qc 10 VK2WF QF55bg 13972 248 W-2
2024-09-05 11:40 AA5** 1.837998 -17 0 EM13qc 10 VK2WF QF55bg 13972 248 W-2
2024-09-05 11:46 AA5** 1.837998 -23 0 EM13qc 10 VK2WF QF55bg 13972 248 W-2
Good prop on 160 typically means a weak D layer. Not sure how much that has to do with weather other than a reduction in lightning induced QRN. Sporadic E skip, OTOH, has been shown to correlate to weather.
re: “Good prop on 160 typically means a weak D layer.”
Almost a tautology; The D layer or D-region (aka ‘Daylight’ region) being excited by the sun creating free electrons and an absorptive region for MW frequencies (but not SW or over 3 MHz frequencies) but with the free electrons almost totally disappearing during the night because they recombine with Oxygen ions to form oxygen molecules.When the D-region forms the longer wavelength MW EM/Radio waves cannot t pass through it to the strongly reflecting E and F layers above.
Now, good prop STILL relies on F layer being ‘in play’, and we saw some very weak periods some 3 to 5 years back but not so much on 160 tho … there there is the phenom where E-region can be seen to form at night night and again that forms a bit of a ‘shield’ as the D-region does during daylight hours.
Accessible here is the Ionospheric sounder in Austin Tx where the condition of the Ionosphere can be seen throughout the day (scroll down the page; there are a few other data plots missing at the moment): https://region6armymars.org/resources/solarweather.php
Attached is an example of an E-region feature ‘sounding’ out to about 4.5 MHz just above 100km altitude and a very healthy F region above that beginning at 210km and sweeping upward as the sounding went up in frequency.
That phrasing bothers me. It implies that the predictions based on jacked models are actually divine decrees or a form of predestination.
“make up lost ground” a climate version of the gambler’s fallacy.
The warmists are in a cult, so of course their language is theological in nature.
They believe, rather than test. They reject facts when the facts are not supported by the cults elders, and they are trying to tell you and me, that science is an effect of White thinking and colonialism, precisely because they are in a cult, and don’t want any science bothering them with its puny facts.
Their language was the first thing that clued me in that there is something seriously wrong with the entire movement.
I was always, since childhood, skeptical of any cults or beliefs that were not based in the reality or that were unduly catastrophic.
Because of brainwashing, I didn’t figure something was wrong with this particular cult until my twenties, and then there was nothing like WUWT to read so I just had suspicions,but no hard facts.
The UN that has the loudest voice on the planet and it’s IPCC are the main ones pushing the so-called “Climate Change” agenda. The West is just following their lead.
It illustrates their desire for more hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, bleached coral reefs, etc.
Yes. They are the catastrophism reheated. There is nothing original about them, no though that wasn’t previously conceived, not even in their subject matter.
They are the Revelation catastrophisrs of the Christian faith, but they removed God so now they pray to people and half-wited thoughts of their elders.
They are a part of a death cult, that has so much power now. At the very basic they loathe themselves so they loathe humans.
They dress it in some words, words, words, and make themselves feel special but it’s a bunch of deeply insecure, traumatized people who hate their own existence, and because they are so insecure, they want everyone to feel just like them. Not something that a normal person does.
The term “misery loves company” was coined by people who saw this ilk and how they behave.
When I’m miserable I want the people around me to be happy so that I may feel better. If I was of a seventh day warmist cult, I would probably try to convince the other people to kill/castrate themselves so I can wallow in my misery and have a perpetual pity party.
Bob Dylan is a better judge of human nature than you are.
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in
And here I thought the saying was from the Missouri Tourism Board (“Missouri loves company”)
… death and destruction … What lovely people.
Steve ==> Well, it is pretty human to want “not to be wrong”. They are Initial-Cap Experts, so being wrong hurts more.
It implies that there’s a goal which hurricanes should achieve each year. If they don’t achieve or exceed, they’ve failed “the cause”.
Well, what do the chicken bones say?
Bones? No, only entrails will work…
Haven’t we been over this? Tortoise shells! Don’t be a Science Denier!
AGW ==> I don’t think anyone is hoping for more hurricanes. Hurricane Experts are puzzled by the difference between their predictions and the actuality of the season.
There have been season with a slow start and a busy last three months.
Extremely naive.
Climate activists need their scary stories. DeSantis needs to be proven to be a villain.
Hurricane formation is chaotic. So very minor changes in the starting conditions can result in quite different outcomes, despite being “deterministic”.
The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore
the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.
IPCC TAR Chapter 14 Page 771 pdf3
Looks like short-term prediction isn’t possible either.
On CHAOS ==> For a Hurricane Season, initial conditions are medium-term climatic factors — sea surface temperature in the genesis area, North African climate state, atmospheric states at all levels, Sahara dust, wind shear potential, and a lot more.
For any day or week, initial initial conditions are more immediate like “today” and “this week”.
The test of the predictability comes when NOAA and others do as in the Outlook — assign percentage chances of a disturbance developing into a Tropical Depression and the chance of it advancing along the development stages to a hurricane.
Steve,
In a setting where models say all is ready for a hurricane, there is an event that starts the process. I do not know what that event is, even if there is more than one candidate. Right or wrong, my mind has long thought that a combination of breeze strength, size and direction in the middle of nowhere can be the required ingredient. Similar to the Amazon butterfly wing flapping concept.
If so, good luck trying to predict the happening of a pattern of a few cubic metres of air somewhere.
Geoff S
You might say hurricanes are as unpredictable as the weather. 🙂
I believe I understand the idea in chaos theory that a small change in the initial condition of a partial differential equation’s calculation can result in large changes in final results. However, in the real world of the atmosphere (or many other parts of the Earth System), small factors like the butter fly are totally irrelevant because there are so many ongoing major factors that any small one is quickly damped out. Its energy is so far below the general uncertainty level that it can’t even count as a tiny bit of background noise.
“ Its energy is so far below the general uncertainty level that it can’t even count as a tiny bit of background noise.”
Climate science doesn’t usually recognize that general uncertainty even exists.
If their “theory” was backed by any semblance of science they could easily say this: when the Earth gets warmer there will be fewer hurricanes and less wind.
Because, from my understanding, there would be no “opposing” cold and warm winds, so there will be no big storms.
But they aren’t backed by any science and it’s simply an alarmist cult so they are painting themselves into a corner.
These “storms” begin between 7° & 12° N. Lat. — “opposing” cold and warm winds are not much of a thing there.
I’ve read that some folks think there should be fewer but stronger storms because of the generally warmer air and sea-surface and 100 ft. depth temperature. The Coriolis force remains.
John ==> “some folks think there should be fewer but stronger storms because of the generally warmer air and sea-surface and 100 ft. depth temperature. The Coriolis force remains.”
I believe that is a pretty good statement of the consensus position going forward. Every time there is a “stronger” storm, they drag it out and claim a successful prediction.
Atlantic tropical cyclones typically develop initially within the intertropical convergence zone (ITZ), so named because it is an area of low pressure where the northeast trades and southeast trades converge, drawing in cool dry air from up high that flows downward to the lower atmosphere where the air picks up moisture and warmth from the warm equatorial waters of the ocean, which causes it to be less stable. So yes, there actually is a large transition from cool air to warm air where most tropical cyclones form.
And from a theoretical basis, if the upper atmosphere warms, the temperature differential in the ITZ would be reduced leading to less storminess.
The Coriolis effect is of course what creates the easterly trade winds both north and south of the equator.
I like to bring up a couple of facts whenever the warmunists claim that a warming atmosphere is stormier:
The hottest planet in our solar system is Venus … its surface winds average near 0 mph
The stormiest/windiest planet in our solar system is Jupiter, which is one of the coldest planets that has a gaseous atmosphere, with winds averaging into the hundreds of mph.
‘Warm upper levels’ (but still pretty cold) in the Troposphere (or should that be Stratosphere?) at 50km are due to increased stratospheric water vapour caused by the Tonga volcano explosion, which increases the optical depth of the atmosphere in the 15micron band (and not by warming by CO2).
Is this the mystery “hot spot” they used to speak of?
No, I don’t believe so.
I think the “hot spot” was a flaw in the models that often predicted a warm area that didn’t occur.
______________________________________________________________________________
Stubbornly? Could these people be any more transparent?
It’s reminiscent of this headline from NASA:
NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
They want there to be more hurricanes, rising seas and dead polar bears.
If there are no disasters, there is no reason to give up our freedom so that we can be saved from a disaster.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”. H. L. Mencken
Steve ==> Yes, they are worried about their reputations — predictions being too wrong can be damaging.
The also worry that if their prediction are regularly “too wrong” then their assumptions about causes in climate matters might be wrong too. (which I believe is the reality).
Humility is likely the litmus test for an outstanding scientist.
I agree Steve. They, meaning the Team, really do want more disasters just to satisfy their egos and prove themselves right. They don’t want to admit they are wrong, on anything. And “Many widely used forecast models signaled the same thing. It didn’t pan out.” means the models are wrong. Just plain wrong. Statistics suggest an average number of storms and hurricanes, so they should just leave it at that. That might leave them out of a job though.
True forecasting methodology weights historical data to have less weight than more recent data. What happened with hurricanes in 1950, 1980, etc has far less predictive value than what happened with hurricanes in 2005, 2015, and 2020.
It appears that hurricanes in more recent times are fewer than earlier in history. Proper weighting would thus say we are more likely to see less activity rather than more activity in the next year.
Far too many climate models don’t seem to do proper weighting of past data. And since they are primarily data matching algorithms rather than true physical theory algorithms (i.e. what *are* the real causes?) they get things wrong more often than not.
Where am I wrong?
“Far too many climate models don’t seem to do proper weighting of past data.”
________________________________________________________________
Since they “know” that more CO2 causes more hurricanes, their weighting algorisms are correct, and that’s why you are wrong.
</sarc>
re: “Where am I wrong?”
Phrenology; You didn’t mention phrenology as it applies to hurricane prophecy (isn’t that what we are really discussing here – hurricane prophecy? Akin to reading ‘chicken entrails’ or tea leaves as a clue to future weather or other events?)
Maybe those who make predictions of this nature need a refresher as to past historical methods:
“10 Historical Divination Methods for Predicting the Future”
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/585258/historical-divination-methods-predict-future
If needed: </sarc>
Tim ==> Hmmmm…..the long-term state should be the higher weighted values.
“What happened with hurricanes in 1950, 1980, etc has far less predictive value than what happened with hurricanes in 2005, 2015, and 2020.” That includes the assumption that causes of hurricanes change over time — newer causes being more likely (or something like that).
If hurricane genesis is truly chaotic in nature, then that would not be true.
Giving the past a higher weight has never been done in anything I’ve done. From stocking inventory in a hardware store, planning infrastructure for telephone traffic patterns, or ordering findings for my jewelry practice.
If we are going to give the past a higher weight then the late 1920’s and early 1930’s should dominate any and all weather predictions for the central US. That would not work out well for the farmers trying to forecast what variety of seed to plant next spring.
Tim ==> We are talking about tropical cycle activity – whose patterns are only known with any kind of certainty for the last 70 years or so; since the start of the satellite era. Despite commercial applications, I do think that long-term activity patterns are more appropriate for any climatic phenomena of this type.
I respectfully disagree. I don’t know of any farmer that says they are going to base their choice for next year’s variety of seed or even type of crop based on the weather in the 50’s. Tropical cycle activity isn’t that much different. Data matching algorithms, which is what you are basically describing, are not good predictors of weather, let alone climate. Recent trends are far more important than trends 50 years or more in the past.
There are known longterm cycles. Saying this year will be similar to last year, tweaked by expected changes in water temps and wind shear, is perfectly understandable, but somewhere in the narrative one must warn that if a new change in a longterm cycle happens, the forecast goes out the window,
I agree with the exception that nature very seldom has step changes. Even the change from a long term cycle evolving is typically done over a period of years. It may match what happened a long time ago but that doesn’t mean that the measurement data from what happened a long time ago is a causal factor in what is happening today. Measurements, even temperature data, are not causal factors, they are just a way to track what the actual causal factors are causing to happen. (don’t know if that makes sense or not). If you don’t know the actual causal factors themselves then depending on the past measurements to create a data matching algorithm has a good chance to be a poor algorithm.
It still boils down to what you said: “saying this year will be similar to last year”
Recent *data* trends should carry more weight in forecasting than older “data” trends if you are creating data matching algorithms. If you are deciding how many shovels to order for the hardware store next year, the last 5 years annual sales data should carry more weight than the sales data from 30 years ago.
This year saw changes of all types. The developing Atlantic La Nina was a distinct step-change that happens infrequently. The shift in African thunderstorm activity resulting in dust over the Atlantic was just a small change having a significant impact. I have no criticism with their forecasts except they KNEW of these anomalies and chose not to consider them in their forecasts. They can raise the topside of their predictions all they want, but the bottom range of their predictions needs to stay on the low side because of the number of low-probability events that could diminish storm development. They may lose a lot of credibility this year.
Not even Nino’s and Nina’s are truly “step changes” as far as time is concerned.
“They can raise the topside of their predictions all they want, but the bottom range of their predictions needs to stay on the low side because of the number of low-probability events that could diminish storm development. They may lose a lot of credibility this year.”
100%. They may as well have shown their uncertainty to begin with. It would have allowed them to say the forecast covered all the basis instead of having to say the forecast was *wrong*!
I am sick and tired of people mentioning Hunga Tonga in relation to the Atlantic hurricane season. Anybody who say the two are related has absolutely no idea what they are talking about. It is just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. It is idiotic.
Agree. And the more time that passes since January 2022, the more HT stratospheric water vapor becomes selective in where and when it “chooses” to appear, or not.
/sarc
You are going to hear it a lot more in the future. There are a lot of unprecedented atmospheric phenomena lately, so they require an unprecedented cause (as per Occam’s razor). The only recent unprecedented cause we know is the Hunga Tonga volcano.
You sound like some guy in the summer of 1816 saying “this bad weather cannot be due to the Tambora eruption because it happened a year and a half ago and last year we had a fine summer. Radiative perturbations cannot possibly be responsible.”
Hurricanes are a meridional heat transport feature. They move heat from near the equator to the midlatitudes and even further north. But heat transport has been altered by the changes in atmospheric circulation as a result of stratospheric anomalies. The ITCZ has moved 1-2° north of its usual position. This indicates an energy imbalance between the hemispheres. Less energy is being transferred from the SH to the NH because there is an excess of energy in the NH. This moves the climatic equator north and has a suppression effect on hurricanes.
The only mystery is why climate scientists stick to their models when they haven’t been built to handle an anomaly like the Hunga Tonga, of which we ignore almost everything.
Well, that depends as to how far back in time one wants to look for precedent . . . the last 100 years, yeah, we probably have good objective evidence to examine and define the limits of precedents . . . the last one thousand years (let alone the previous 100,000 years, the approximately period between glacial periods), not so.
Speaking of “unprecedented causes”, I am reminded of Carl Sagan’s popularized quote:
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” That phrase itself being a rewording of Laplace’s principle, which says that “the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.” Note the use of the word “evidence” in both statements.
Neither models or speculations produce evidence.
Evidence has been produced. Large volcanic eruptions produce stratospheric circulation changes that affect polar vortex strength, produce changes in atmospheric circulation and induce an El Niño the following year. There is a lot of literature on this. This effects have been observed also with Hunga Tonga. The problem is that models don’t know how they do it. Regular volcanoes warm the stratosphere and cool the surface. Hunga Tonga cooled the stratosphere and warmed the surface.
But said evidence is NOT conclusive. There is a lot of literature on this.
The scientific support for that assertion is far from being certain. For example, here are some comments on this exact topic from “Can volcanic eruptions cause El Niño? Maybe, maybe not” by Tom DiLiberto [2020] available as a free download at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/can-volcanic-eruptions-cause-el-ni%C3%B1o-maybe-maybe-not :
“A study using climate models, specifically of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, seemed to indicate that the volcanic eruption primed the tropical Pacific to shift into an El Niño by reducing the tropical trade winds, which can kick start El Niño with warm water sloshing to the east . . .
“Luckily, scientists have gone out and collected various cores and tree ring data that let us peek at the state of ENSO going back in some way 700 to 7000 years. The multiple datasets allow us to test this volcano-ENSO relationship using independent data . . .
“A more recent ENSO reconstruction study led by Dr. Sylvia Dee (Dee et al., 2020), though, used fossil coral found smack dab in the middle of the central tropical Pacific Ocean at Palmyra Island. This coral reconstruction of ENSO allowed scientists to look back a little further, to around 1150 C.E., but the record was not continuous; it had gaps from 1465-1634 C.E. and 1703-1886 C.E. When compared to the modern ENSO record, it was found to be even more similar to ocean temperatures in the Niño3.4 region than the tree-ring reconstruction! . . .
“Yet, when the scientists compared this newer coral-based ENSO reconstruction to the largest volcanic eruptions within the same period—ID’d by volcanic sulfate residue found in ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica—there wasn’t a clear ENSO response. The scientists found a hint of an El Niño response for large eruptions, but the signal was not strong enough for a confident attribution. For instance, the largest eruption in the last 900 years, the 1257 Samalas eruption, had no subsequent El Niño. (Head to the footnotes to see how the scientists also showed that climate models’ ENSO response to the volcanic eruptions was overdone.) . . .
“We know enough to know we can’t make any definitive claims.“
(my bold emphasis added)
Javier ==> Yes, one of the many ‘could be’s’ — when we see one change, we look for a recent change elsewhere that might be to blame. Perfectly human and sorta scientific.
If it is the major change that is affecting this season, it sure took its time getting around to it.
But we don’t really know what perturbations might kick the chaotic dynamics of Atlantic hurricane genesis — either into a more active season or to a less active season.
That’s my point about CAUSES — without a real understanding of causes, we are left with the Chaos Theory of it all.
Stratospheric water vapor sure looks quite anomalous to me.
Charles, ==> Yes, but not until 18 months after HT? (having a little trouble seeing the dates….)
The graph goes turquoise from top to bottom for the first time in early 2022, right after the eruption, but doesn’t get dense green until late 2022 then continues getting denser through 2023 and stays dense to the current date.
Some lag factor or possibly positive feedback of H20 in the stratosphere.
Charles, your graph is for 45ºN.. HT was in the SH. ! See different chart above.
So yes, there was a delay in the WV getting there.
bnice ==> Charles is showing closer to where Atlantic hurricanes occur, NH.
Sorry Kip, thought it was the delay you were talking about.
I was explaining it. Cheers
Well, the plot you presented is labeled as being data only from 45 N (latitude), with the y-axis being stratospheric pressure (somewhat equivalent to altitude above sea level).
In comparison, I’ve attached a similar contour plot but here the y-axis is 75 S–75 N latitude and water vapor content is given for a fixed stratospheric isobar of 26.1 hPa.
Note that in both graphs, the color coding of H2O magnitude represents an anomaly range of ±1 ppm about some undefined zero-base reference point.
The stratosphere typically ranges from about 2 to 7 ppm absolute WV content, depending on season and latitude, and not so much depending on altitude.
This graph reveals many very strange things not revealed in the graph you posted:
1) In the nine months following the HT eruption, the approximately 0.5 ppm step change in water vapor in the stratosphere had spread throughout the southern hemisphere (isn’t it strange that despite that dispersal, the indicated step change remains at about 0.5 ppm and is even higher for latitudes south of about 40 °S).
2) Global lower atmospheric temperature (GLAT) is . . . well, global. One is therefore hard pressed to explain why a 0.5 or higher ppm step change in stratospheric WV spreading across Earth’s southern hemisphere in fourteen months following the HT eruption did not result in any increase in GLAT as measured by UAH? Reference the UAH graph of GLAT in the right column, near the top, of this webpage.
3) Of particular interest, note that during the 11 or so months following the HT eruption, the ~0.5 ppm step change in WV hadn’t diffused north of about 25 °N, but then very suddenly (i.e., within a month or less) the same ~0.5 ppm step change is shown extending all the way up to 75 °N (and probably goes even further north). The reason for that incredible rapid northward dispersal (given the earlier, gradual southward dispersal that is documented) defies scientific reasoning based on our current understanding of the stratosphere.
4) And, again, the gradient in the onset “step-change” of WV concentration does not appear to lessen no matter how far north of the HT eruption site it extends . . . this is not consistent with what is known about dissipation in a fluid media following a point source perturbation.
Charles graph is for 45ºN, showing how long the excess WV took to get there
I like this one. It seems to shows where the anomalous H2O is headed.. towards the poles…
… and the delay in time getting there.
Notice that WV in the stratosphere over the equator diminished a lot by the start of 2023.
Will be interesting a see next time there is a new update.
bnice,
Later I will try to compare the velocity of the water plume to the velocity of seasonal CO2 change. I have no idea how similar they are.
Geoff S
Intelligent Dasein ==> Well, if you read to Hurricane discussions, it is not only climate skeptics that bring up HT. some hurricane specialist think that all that extra “stuff” up so high could be causing something….
ID,
The only supportable position has to be “I do not know.”
Geoff S
Currently living on the central Texas coast with experience as far as Virginia (Donna) have more than an armchair interest. I was cautioned about both satellites and computers by those smarter than me, although they and I both have gotten some professional and other uses of them.
Historically the Gulf was earlier which may mean in a peculiar year that the mess in the southern Gulf will again amount to something since the western part has already had the majority. Chris snuck in there somewhere, been in lots of worse thunderstorms. Not that it mattered much astronomical tides were higher in Alberto than Beryl which showed that some dumb construction still exists.
The western Gulf currents are difficult, often reverse as mostly wind driven. Could be something in our morass of literature but what was known well over a century ago still doesn’t seem to get much study, in the water, that is.
hdhoese ==> I have not run across the idea that water currents play much of a role in hurricanes.
Anyone else?
I haven’t either but they have been associated with upwelling along borders. Looks like it may be three in a similar route in a row.
“Out of Africa” seems to be the theme here. What role does Saharan dust play in all this?
re: “What role does Saharan dust play in all this?”
Aside from providing a source of cloud (liquid water) condensation nuclei, IDK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_condensation_nuclei
_Jim
But do we know enough about cloud condensation/nucleation to make projections?
It is one of many processes that I still lump into “All muck and mystery” in the words of a former boss.
Geoff S
Saharan dust regulates hurricane rainfall – Watts Up With That?
We will know when the dust settles. 😉
Oh no you di-ent!
The map shows originations in west Senegal….clearly it’s those pesky butterflies flapping their wings and causing low pressure areas.
Don’t mess with Senegal.
It both absorbs sunlight, warming the otherwise transparent atmosphere, and shades the sea surface, reducing warming there.
I.e. it reduces the convection in the “main development region.” There’s generally less dust later in the season which improves the chances for development there.
Jeff ==> The general consensus, based on experience, is that more Saharan dust = fewer hurricanes. I know my wife and I were always happy to see all that annoying red dust on the decks when were were in the Caribbean. To us, it meant no hurricanes anytime soon.
Well, dust in the air is evidence of dry air. Tropical storm development is totally dependent on warm moist air condensing into clouds then and falling as rain. “When the water vapor from the warm ocean condenses to form clouds, it releases its heat to the air. The warmed air rises and is pulled into the column of clouds. Evaporation and condensation continue, building the cloud columns higher and larger. A pattern develops, with the wind circulating around a center.
Pretty much as expected. Favourable conditions. No primary causes. Makes sense looking at the system. So, comments about x making wrong predictions are also useless as are calling them wrong halfway through the season like Heartland did in their video. It is not the point. The point is: we can’t find a predictive element over time, just a local one in a short timeframe..
re: “Favourable conditions. No primary causes.”
LIKE any good (actually bad) accident involving multiple factors or systems (both human and technical systems); The holes in the Swiss Cheese model align to permit the formation, maybe not so much as directly ‘cause‘ the formation?
Undisturbed perhaps a hurricane would form every time conditions came together, BUT, mis-align or disturb any particular (critically necessary) parameter and zip, zero, nada – no hurricane formation. This is a lot like, and akin to, tornado formation. Not every thunderstorm storm produces anything like a textbook tornado, even though the majority of any given T-storm ‘cell’ exhibits the same characteristics overall as a tornadic T-storm.
Just thinking out loud here.
The high Atlantic temperatures certainly favor the development of hurricanes, but despite the high average temperatures there is an unusual cold region in the equatorial Atlantic. This region has been described as a possible ‘Atlantic La Nina’, This abnormal development has been proposed as a plausible reason for the lack of development of weather patterns off the African coast that could lead to hurricanes.
Jim ==> and that’s what I hoped readers would do…discuss the ideas and concepts.
ballynally ==> The primary complaint from Heartland and others is that the predictions of an above average season, far above average actually, were amplified by the press into a terrifying scenario of Climate crisis magnitude.
The actuality, like for most Climate Crisis claims, is far different. we are not, so far, even having a normal season.
“… were predicting the calendar flip from August to September …”
I usually “flip” my calendar about the 27th of each month, ’cause I know what I need to do the next three days. 10 days out gets a little fuzzy.
I’ve never noticed the weather taking note of my premature flipping.
From one of the above article’s many quoted excerpts in red text:
“Hurricane forecasters, including Klotzbach, were predicting the calendar flip from August to September would revive the season. Many widely used forecast models signaled the same thing. It didn’t pan out.”
Perhaps because hurricanes don’t have the wherewithal to consult a calendar like people and models do?
ToldYa ==> The statement from Klotzbach is based on the Hurricane Season Chart, showing the most active parts of the season. 20th of august compared to the 10th September usually shows a huge jump in activity.
Hmmmm . . . interesting . . . putting the word “usually” in the context of making forecasts seems to imply (IMHO) that there’s not so much science in the predictions as there is glorified statistical analysis pretending that the future is discoverable in the past.
Hah!
ToldYa ==> The Hurricane Season chart is basically a probability distribution of past hurricane seasons. So, yes , it is a statistical thing, and not pretending to be anything other than that.
Excellent . . . but then begs the question, why spend untold hundreds of millions USD on trying to model hurricane behavior when we yearly accumulate (plus already have on hand) all the statistical data anyone could possibly use?
Might it possibly be that statistical analysis (i.e., deriving a probability distribution) for a data set such as that indicated by the above article’s lead-in graphic is nothing more than a fool’s errand?
“nothing more than a fool’s errand”
Ask a farmer trying to decide what variety of corn to plant next spring if he cares what the weather was ten years ago.
So, what might he reply if told:
“There’s a 48.726% probability that this year will be drier than last year, and a 51.274% probability that it will be wetter than last year.” ?
. . . that is, other than “Go eff yourself!”
ToldYa ==> They don’t use hurricane models to make seasonal activity predictions. These predictions are based on expert opinions and whatever the weather/climate models have to say about conditions in the hurricane regions.
The statistical data just informs us of probabilites for the timing of hurricane activity.
“ToldYa ==> They don’t use hurricane models to make seasonal activity predictions.”
Quite frankly, I’m very surprised by that statement.
There is this, from https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/hurricane/2024/08/22/hurricane-forecast-with-no-storms-in-sight-lets-rank-the-models/74900402007/ :
“The statistician George Box once said, ‘All models are wrong, but some models are useful’ . . .It is, however, even more applicable to weather models in 2024, which are an imperfect but essential part of the hurricane forecast process . . . Meteorologists can make predictions like that with relative confidence thanks to computers’ incredible facility with repetitive math problems . . . The UKMET ranks second-best in overall global weather pattern forecast errors. For tropical weather, it is an independent opinion worth considering . . . The main American global forecast model, the GFS underwent an upgrade several years ago that improved its reliability for hurricane forecasts.”
It is true that hurricane modeling is used particularly for tracking the development (directional movement and intensity rating) of active hurricanes . . . bit it is also true that computer models are used in forecasting the development of hurricanes and other tropical storms in any given season from inputs of weather parameters as they develop in the Atlantic ocean.
It’s assigning meaning to the swirls in a cloudy crystal ball after it has been shaken.
The US hurricane season is June 1 through November 30
It makes sense to wait another 11 weeks until the season ends before discussing it.
So far, there have been five named storms in the 2024 season, with three hurricanes. No storms in the past three weeks,
In May 2024, I predicted the 2024 hurricane season would be below average, unless it is above average
With only one official tropical cyclone, the 1914 season was the least active tropical cyclone season on record. It is one of only two Atlantic seasons without a storm of hurricane intensity (winds of 75 mph (121 km/h) or stronger), the other being the 1907. Without the use of weather satellites, some storms that did not make landfall were likely to be missed.
The highest number of major hurricanes ever recorded in an Atlantic hurricane season is seven, which occurred in both 2005 and 2020
2020 was a REAL Atlantic Ocean hurricane season from hell:
Of the 30 named storms, 14 developed into hurricanes, and a record-tying seven further intensified into major hurricanes.
In the Atlantic basin, a typical season will yield 14 named storms, of which seven become hurricanes and three become major hurricanes.
May 7, 2020
“The latest (2020) forecast is for 80% of normal” Joe Baloney, Weatherbell
2020 actually had roughly double the normal average annual count, not 80% of normal as Weatherbell predicted in May of that year!
Hurricane predictions are baloney
“It makes sense to wait another 11 weeks until the season ends before discussing it.” R. Greene
Good advice for the National Football League. That would free-up lots of electrons needlessly zipping around the USA. 🤠
re: “2020 actually had roughly double the normal average annual count, not 80% of normal as Weatherbell predicted in May of that year!”
From an RF engineering perspective (RF or Radio Frequency Engineering perspective) that is 3 dB (three Decibel) over, whereas he had predicted 1 dB under (one Decibel undershoot) of normal.
So 4 dB off for a one-of-kind season. Not a terribly bad figure actually on a logarithmic scale.Let’s see how bad NOAA et al end up this season.
As an audiophile since 1965. I declare your lame joke to be off by 3dBs
3dBs = 3 dumbbells
The human ear being just barely able to detect a 3 dB change (3 dB indicating a doubling or halving of a quantity), you have hardly then awarded anything noticeable at that rate …you know what I’m talking about IF you are an actual audiophile.
Human hearing has very little to do with weather or what we sense from it. In my EE courses we did not discuss weather very much, though did focus on satellite communication – more ionosphere than troposphere.
Can we stick to tropical weather, the difficulty in making seasonal forecasts, and what Klotzbach et al will say in their postmortem on Nov 26th please?
Ric ==> There is often a lot of noise here in the comments section…..
Ummmm, we studied weather in my Microwave Communications class since things like fog and rain affect path loss, sometimes severely. When engineering a new microwave link we had to consider past weather records to develop a margin sufficient to maintain the link, I just don’t remember any more what the margin was, 95% maybe?
Richard ==> We cannot compare tropical cyclone counts before the satellite era with counts now that satellites are available. Those early 1900s counts are not accurate – missing a lot of stuff that didn’t hit land and storms that no one was there to measure wind speeds, etc.
Christopher Landsea published papers on these years ago worth reading.
LINK
Yes, and they should also wait until November 30th to put out the seasonal forecast.
Including the graphic – good choice.
Pick a number (path) between 0 and 733 and put your money down.
[Note that these storms bring rain to the eastern USA: The 100th Meridian, Where the Great Plains Begin.]
John H ==> Yes, doesn’t that September Cyclones graphic just really bring home a slightly different message?
The one bogey here is Saharan dust
. . . that’s it? You mean there is only that single parameter that remains as a possible control variable for predicting the formation of hurricanes in the Atlantic?
That sounds an awful lot like proclaiming “the science of predicting Atlantic hurricanes is nearly settled“.
/sarc
All I’m saying is that’s one significant variable. There are others no doubt.
That is akin to being nearly pregnant.
“The one bogey”? “There are others no doubt.”?
Please think before you post.
In the recent post Klotbach et al said:
These reasons include: 1) a northward-shifted monsoon trough resulting in African easterly waves emerging at too far north of a latitude, 2) extremely warm upper level temperatures resulting in stabilization of the atmosphere, 3) too much easterly shear in the eastern Atlantic, and more recently 4) unfavorable subseasonal variability associated with the Madden-Julian oscillation. We believe that it is likely a combination of these factors (and perhaps others) that have led to this recent quiet period. We still do anticipate an above-normal season overall, however, given that large-scale conditions appear to become more favorable around the middle of September.
Ric ==> Quite right — reasons or excuses? But the Saharan Dust issue is valid as well.
“We still do anticipate an above-normal season overall, however, given that large-scale conditions appear to become more favorable around the middle of September.” That was early August, I believe.
He’s not saying that now….we pass peak season Tuesday coming, with nothing particular on the 7 Day Outlook.
Shifting monsoon paths are a known source of switching weather patterns.
One of those things oscillates every few centuries over Easter Eurasia, toggling Manchuria between agricultural cornucopia and big swamp, while also toggling Eastern-Central Asian steppes between semi-desert (great droughts of II-III, Х and XVI centuries) and fountain of meat.
But when the North Iranian cyclones “acted up” a bit around 2300s BC… That was a worse mess than everything warm-mongers (not counting Hollywood) ever promised. Catastrophic floods from Mesopotamia to Eastern China. Ice melts in Alps and in Arctic. Peat marches dry up from Siberia to England. Half the continent runs from either floods or droughts, and they run into each other.
Mike ==> Saharan Dust == fewer hurricanes (usually) .
Two unexpected things have happened this summer. Both suppress tropical storm formation.
“Inexplicably”.
“Hinders”
Rud ==> I looked for but did not find a graphic/image of that Atlantic cooling. I though that was a bit further south?
No, it right where tropical waves form off Africa.
That’s worse than we thought, as World top gurus of settled climate science tell us :
Climate change makes hurricanes preparing their most destructive entrance ever hiding under water and behind clouds.
Not only does global warming inhibit tropical activity (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/08/global-warming-inhibits-hurricane-activity-as-indicated-by-decreasing-tropical-cape-values/), but the additional warming caused by Tonga’s unprecedented water-vapor (greenhouse gas) is further inhibiting tropical activity as we can see in the 2024 season.
The top-most graph in the sequence of three that you presented is very misleading due to the units given for its y-axis (terragrams of H2O) and the fact that it is anomaly variation as opposed to absolute variation (such as shown in the bottom-most plot of atmospheric CO2 levels).
If one does the calculation properly, the reported “150 million (metric) tons of water injected into the stratosphere” amounts to at most a 10% by mass step-change in the total water vapor content previously existing in the stratosphere . . . at that’s presuming that NONE of that injected water vapor rapidly settled out (as ice crystals) into the underlying tropopause or troposphere, nor has any been disassociated by solar radiation, nor has any been consumed by chemical reactions occurring in the stratosphere.
Your triple graph shows nothing of the sort. What is does show is a rise in WV content “above 68 mb” (altitude) in early 2022 followed by a rise in global temperature some 12 months later. As has been well noted, “correlation does necessary imply causation”, and this is particularly true when large time lags are involved.
Your topmost graph specifically refers to “excess H2O above 68 mb”. Temperatures in the stratosphere range between about -50 °C near the tropopause to about -15 °C near the top. As the attached phase diagram for water shows, at -50 C, water will have a equilibrium saturated vapor pressure of about 4 Pascals . . . that’s about 0.02% of the 20 kPa (200 mb) ambient pressure that is typical at that level.
Similarly at -15 °C, near the top of the stratosphere, the equilibrium saturated vapor pressure of water is about 100 Pascals . . . that’s close to the ambient pressure at that level.
So, no, most of the water mass in the stratosphere is in solid (ice) phase, not vapor phase, once it equilibrates to the normal temperature-pressure profile of the stratosphere.
The plot you attached for 60 N latitude shows the water vapor content decreasing (i.e., falling out) significantly (by about 0.5 ppm) over the stratospheric pressure range of about 70 to 15 hPa for the second and third quarters of 2024. Also, that particular image shows nothing related to atmospheric temperature variation.
Which leaves no other factor that can cause the unprecedented temperature spike other than Tonga’s unprecedented water vapor injection into the stratosphere.
First, the term “unprecedented” is simply a ridiculous assertion if taken to cover millions of years of Earth climate history, as opposed to just the last 150 or so years where mankind has been scientifically monitoring climate.
Other possible factors that might cause sudden and rapid rises in GLAT without any attendant significant change in solar insolation or atmospheric CO2 concentration level:
1) a relatively-sudden change in global cloud areal extent of cloud coverage or ratio of high altitude-vs-low altitude clouds (ref. Svensmark’s hypothesis and/or a possible breakdown/reverse in the hypothesized Lindzen “iris effect”)
2) a relatively-sudden change in tropospheric average water vapor content
3) a relatively-sudden increase in tropospheric dust content (say from Earth passing through an interstellar dust cloud that does not cause a detectable increase in visible or radar-return meteors) . . . also see 2024 references to unusually high levels of dust from the Sahara desert moving over the Atlantic ocean.
4) a relatively-sudden change in the Earth’s large scale atmospheric circulation cells: the Hadley cells, Ferrel cells, and Polar cells
5) a relatively-sudden increase in release of geothermal energy, perhaps as the result of a sudden increase in tectonic plate movement but not manifested as an increase in volcanoes or earthquakes
6) a relatively sudden change in the global average sea-state of the oceans, resulting in less energy absorption at ocean surface and more energy reflected and convected back into the atmosphere.
7) a relatively-sudden change in the average manner in which cold front and warm front weather systems move and distribute heat around the planet and vertically through the atmosphere, not yet full recognized by meteorologists . . . possibly even indicated by the “surprising” low level of Atlantic hurricane activity in 2024.
There likely other possibilities yet to be revealed.
A possibly under reported, backfired experiment in “geoengineering”?
I like it . . . for how long have we been hearing about clandestine governmental attempts at “weather modification”.
And wouldn’t the Hunga-Tonga eruption give them all the cover and “plausible deniability” they need?
It’s a great add!
You are good at narratives — but no data. So far Tonga has the only “data” that fits the spike.
That solely depends on how broadly you are willing to look, and what you consider to be “fitting the spike”.
Me? . . . I have a very hard time reconciling a 12-16 month delay between asserted cause and asserted effect with the claim of “a good fit”.
And yes, I do considered measured time delays as being data. You?
“So, no, most of the water mass in the stratosphere is in solid (ice) phase, not vapor phase, once it equilibrates to the normal temperature-pressure profile of the stratosphere.”
Not true it appears you misunderstand the phase diagram.
At -50ºC the vapor pressure of water needs to be above ~4Pa for any of it to be in the form of ice, similarly at -15ºC it will need to be above 100Pa to form ice.
No, you misunderstand. The phase diagram y-axis representing pressure is in reference to total ambient pressure, not to “the vapor pressure of water”. Clearly, the stratosphere has other constituents, mainly nitrogen and oxygen, that are the primary gases producing pressure at any given altitude.
That is exactly why I stated in my reply to John Shewchuk (September 8, 2024 4:46 pm) above:
“Temperatures in the stratosphere range between about -50 °C near the tropopause to about -15 °C near the top. As the attached phase diagram for water shows, at -50 °C, water will have a equilibrium saturated vapor pressure of about 4 Pascals . . . that’s about 0.02% of the 20 kPa (200 mb) ambient pressure that is typical at that level.”
To emphasize the point, the equilibrium saturated vapor pressure (determined by where a temperature isotherm crosses the solid-vapor line of demarcation on the left side of the phase diagram) is the highest possible partial pressure of water vapor in a mixed gas atmosphere such as the stratosphere at that given temperature . . . there simply cannot be any more water vapor present greater than that saturated vapor pressure level under equilibrium conditions. At the typical stratosphere pressure altitude associated with -50 °C, that partial pressure of water vapor is only 0.02% of the ambient pressure level, so any water mass perturbation that might be able to temporarily produce a local vapor pressure higher than that (by effectively boiling momentarily) will be flash frozen into water ice (solid phase).
“No, you misunderstand. The phase diagram y-axis representing pressure is in reference to total ambient pressure, not to “the vapor pressure of water”.”
No you’re wrong it refers to the pressure of the substance in question (in this case water) not the total pressure of the system. We have had this discussion here before in reference to CO2 freezing in Antarctica which I and others thoroughly debunked!
You can find the link here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/09/co2-condensation-in-antarctica-at-113f/
“A gale is a strong, sustained wind with wind speeds between 39 mph and 54 mph. The word is typically used as a descriptor for maritime weather.”
From NOAA:
Walter ==> Yes, the Beaufort Scale description have not changed since I did my Able Bodied Seaman training in the early 1970s.
I trained out the the US Blue Jacket’s Manual. And used terms such as “near gale, “gale”, and “full gale”. My advice, don’t take a small boat out in any weather with the word “gale” in the description.
Every one knows what causes hurricanes.
Its a butterfly flapping its wings in a Brazilian rain forest.
Someone just stamped on the butterfly this year, is all.
to repeat:
I believe I understand the idea in chaos theory, that a small change in the initial condition of a partial differential equation’s calculation can result in large changes in final results. However, in the real world of the atmosphere (or many other parts of the Earth System), small factors like the butter fly are totally irrelevant because there are so many ongoing major factors that any small one is quickly damped out. Its energy is so far below the general uncertainty level that it can’t even count as a tiny bit of background noise.
Andy ==> I do think Leo was being sarcastic — but, you are absolutely right — lots of physicists agree that the tiny perturbations of a butterflies wings quickly gets damped or swamped, lost in viscosity, and other facts in the first few feet of the atmosphere.
However, do see Kay and Deser et al. 2015 [pdf] “THE COMMUNITY EARTH SYSTEM MODEL (CESM) LARGE ENSEMBLE PROJECT” — also know as “40 Earths”.
During my several blue water ops on different aircraft carriers we went through several gales in different bodies of water. When waves break over the bow you know you are in heavy seas.
mkelly ==> Especially with a bow that high!
how many aircraft carriers count as “small boats”?
Spin on a Dutch left wing website:
”Less hurricanes than expected, and that is not good news”
https://www.bnnvara.nl/joop/artikelen/aantal-orkanen-dit-jaar-veel-lager-dan-verwacht-en-dat-is-geen-goed-nieuws
Hans ==> Yes, that is a short quip there. Here’s the English translation:
“Number of hurricanes much lower than expected this year and that’s not good news
There are far fewer devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean and the United States this year than usual. That seems good news, but it is actually quite disturbing. The lack of hurricanes is caused by an unexpected change in weather patterns over the Sahara, explains meteorologist Eric Sorensen. Not only does this have disastrous consequences for the area in question, it is also yet another proof that the climate system is becoming seriously disrupted.”
and besides, it might effect a grant or two
It is a proven fact that the lack of hurricanes is a conspiracy by Donald Trump colluding with Russians to foil the climate crusaders who are trying to save the world.
Yesterday I saw a lawn sign in my neighborhood that said:
“I vote for climate”
I was thinking about getting my own lawn sign that says:
“I vote for MORE climate change”
Today’s warmer SE Michigan winters with much less snow since the 1970s are exactly what AGW was expected to do since the 1970s. Only a fool would call this warming climate trend a catastrophe, or want it to stop.
Down to 54 degrees F. last night. Our summers are NOT getting warmer. Less AC use in the past two summers than any time since the late 1970s.
And a lot less snow in the past two winters than any time since the late 1970s.
Actual climate change has been pleasant and completely the opposite of the climate crisis predictions since the 1970s. Bad news would be if the 48 year old warming trend stopped.