The Honolulu Civil Beat claims in the article “How Is Climate Change Shaping Tropical Storm Lala?” that (then) Tropical Storm Lala demonstrates how climate change is making hurricanes stronger and that Hawaii should expect more powerful tropical cyclones as the planet warms. This is highly misleading, if not outright false. The best available evidence suggests that hurricanes remain highly variable from year to year, long-term observations do not show that climate change is causing stronger hurricanes overall, and the article repeatedly conflates a single weather event with long-term climate trends, despite no trend of increasing hurricanes in evidence.
Perhaps the biggest weakness in Civil Beat’s reporting is that it starts with a storm and works backward to climate change. That is not how science works.
A single hurricane, no matter how unusual, cannot demonstrate a long-term climate trend. Meteorologists have always distinguished between weather, which describes individual events, and climate, which describes long-term statistical patterns. Civil Beat repeatedly blurs that distinction, suggesting Tropical Storm Lala is evidence that climate change is reshaping Hawaiian hurricanes without showing that long-term hurricane activity has actually changed.
The historical record simply does not support that conclusion.
Data and research cited in Climate at a Glance show that neither global tropical cyclone data nor U.S. hurricane records demonstrate a long-term increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes attributable to human-caused climate change, as seen in the Figure below.
Hurricanes have always varied considerably from year to year and decade to decade, driven largely by natural ocean-atmosphere cycles rather than steadily increasing greenhouse gases.
Ironically, Civil Beat includes evidence that undercuts its own narrative. The article acknowledges that this year’s developing storm is occurring during a strong El Niño and notes that El Niño naturally warms portions of the Pacific Ocean. It also quotes University of Hawaii professor Steven Businger acknowledging that “the relationship between El Niño and climate change is not well-documented or understood” and that Hawaii sits in “a special pocket of very little” long-term sea surface temperature change.
Those are remarkable admissions.
If one of the article’s own experts says the relationship between El Niño and climate change remains uncertain, and that Hawaiian waters have experienced relatively little long-term warming, then attributing Lala’s strength to climate change becomes untenable, indicating the headline’s suggestion of a connection is wrong.
Instead of emphasizing that uncertainty, Civil Beat quickly pivots back to climate change being a causal factor in Lala. The article repeatedly argues that warmer ocean temperatures provide additional energy for hurricanes. That statement, by itself, is true. Hurricanes require warm water to form. But water warmth is only a necessary, not a sufficient, condition for hurricanes to form.
Warm tropical oceans have fueled powerful hurricanes for millennia. The Pacific Ocean routinely exceeds the temperature threshold required for tropical cyclone development during summer. The existence of warm water is hardly a new phenomenon.
More importantly, hurricane intensity depends on far more than sea surface temperature.
Wind shear, atmospheric moisture, upper-level winds, ocean heat content, storm structure, dry air intrusion, and numerous other atmospheric factors determine whether a tropical storm strengthens or weakens. Civil Beat largely reduces this complex science to a single variable, warmer oceans, while giving readers the impression that stronger storms naturally follow.
The observational evidence says otherwise.
Climate at a Glance’s reviews of both global tropical cyclones and Atlantic hurricanes show no clear long-term increase in hurricane frequency or accumulated cyclone energy that can be attributed to climate change. Likewise, the proportion of major hurricanes has varied substantially over time without exhibiting the steady upward trend frequently claimed in media coverage. Nor did the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cite any evidence that climate change had altered hurricane behavior, formation, or strength in either its 2018 interim report, which stated, there is “only low confidence for the attribution of any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic influences,” or its most recent AR6 WG1 report.
This is why Climate Realism has repeatedly challenged similar reporting. Time after time, media outlets seize upon an individual hurricane and immediately invoke climate change, even when long-term hurricane records fail to support the narrative. Numerous examples documenting this pattern can be found in Climate Realism’s extensive coverage of hurricane reporting:
Another weakness in Civil Beat’s reporting is its reliance on climate model projections. The article cites modeling from 2016 projecting more hurricanes near Hawaii in coming decades.
Climate models are not observations. Models are useful tools for exploring hypothetical futures under particular assumptions. They are not evidence that those futures will actually occur. Yet throughout the article, projected changes are presented alongside an ongoing tropical storm, encouraging readers to blur the line between forecasts and observed reality.
Perhaps the most telling sentence appears near the end of the article.
Civil Beat notes that if Lala causes significant damage, scientists may perform a rapid attribution study to determine whether climate change altered the storm’s likelihood or intensity.
Notice what that means, the attribution has not yet been assessed. Yet the headline and much of the story already encourage readers to view the storm through the lens of climate change before any formal analysis has even taken place. That is advocacy, not objective reporting.
Good science begins with observations and tests hypotheses against long-term data. Good journalism should do the same. Instead, the Honolulu Civil Beat starts with the assumption that climate change is shaping Hawaiian hurricanes and then assembles supporting quotations while giving comparatively little attention to any confounding evidence, like the observational hurricane record, which would undermine the pre-determined thesis of the article. As a result, the Honolulu Civil Beat is living in la-la land.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
in the years ahead as the effects of a warming planet take hold
If as they claim, a warmer world means stronger more destructive winds and storms than when it is cooler, then does that not logically mean a colder world would be almost tranquil?
Take Jupiter. It has a surface temperature of approximately -110C And the wind speeds?
Well, here on Earth the fastest was recorded at 254 mph, but on Jupiter the Great Red Spot manages over 400 mph and has been observed for well over a century. Logic points towards the conclusion that a cold world in which the differential between the equator and the poles is greater, results in stronger more intense winds… A warming world does not have that large differential.
The historical record shows that hurricanes were more frequent and more intense during the Little Ice Age.
The historical record, for my money, shows that humans flourish greatly during warm periods and manage to survive the cold ones.
Thing is:
The more climate gas there is, the more balanced the weather.
Cloudless Desert: 50 – 0 degrees Celsius during night day cycle.
Cloudy Desert: 40 – 15 degrees.
The lower the temperature difference the weaker and less violent storms.
Hence the Washington Pest complained 10 years ago about: Hurricane Drought(and why it is a bad thing/put always a negative spin on it.)
Does Civil Beat even define what they mean by “climate change?” “Climate change” is a Humpty Dumpty phrase meaning anything the user wants it to mean. That is why it was coined in place of “global warming” which actually means a measurable phenomenon. Are they thinking it means atmospheric CO2 increases, temperature increases, nitrogen oxide increases, increased growth of green plants, higher sea levels, lower sea levels, atmospheric humidity or something or many things other than these? Have they explained how whatever the change is they are thinking of influences hurricanes?
The term “climate change” has been in use since the IPCC was initiated in 1988.
Yes, IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And you know what? Just as Denis says, “it means just what the IPCC chooses it to mean—neither more nor less.”
My point was that the “climate change” phrase wasn’t coined to replace “global warming”.
Ah, but the religious definition/meaning of the words “climate change” was altered so the words could be used to replace the words “global warming”.
But both expressions are just word…
It was used well before that.
Then your assertion that it was coined to replace “global warming” is incorrect.
Not coined but deployed.
Yes.
Around the time of Hansen and Al Gore, all they talked was “Global Warming”, “Anthropomorphic Global Warming” and, sometimes, “Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming”.
Then people noticed what was predicted (projected, if you prefer) wasn’t happening so “Climate Change” began to be used more and more when promoting it to the public.
(And, if I’m not mistaken, the IPCC was formed to investigate/promote Man-made Climate Change.)
“Does Civil Beat even define what they mean by “climate change?”
I will repeat here what Chris Martz has said on his X account at least once or twice about the term ‘climate change’…..
“Change is an outcome; it’s not a cause, not a force, and not a fuel either.”
I admit to using the term as a forcing in the past, but I won’t anymore. It has to be one of the most misused terms in the English language today.
How about “The forces that are driving or causing the climate to change“?
According to the Argos probes, the oceans have warmed about 0.02C. Just how much energy would that add to a hurricane?
And according the the IPCC AR4 Chapter 5 Page: 387
The oceans are warming. Over the period 1961 to 2003,
global ocean temperature has risen by 0.10°C from the
surface to a depth of 700 m
What were the error bars?
You need to get with the program and describe the energy in terms of Hiroshima Bombs. 😎
and Olympic swimming pools of rainwater
I use thimble-fulls. That gets REALLY astronomical numbers.
Twilight Greenaway, author, is likely a very nice person. Following mother’s advice I’ll let it go at that.
Anyway, these stories equate everything to the hammer analogy – – every thing looks like a nail.
A list of dire things attritbuatle to (“hammered by”) climate change will be a long list.
“This is why Climate Realism has repeatedly challenged similar reporting.”
Meteorological physics for dummies: global warming doesn’t increase storm intensity. Storms are caused by a sharp difference in temperature, pressure, or humidity. The greater the difference, the more powerful the storm. With global warming, the entire atmosphere is warming (very modestly, only a little over 1 ºC so far since 1850), a fundamental fact lost on the zealous acolytes of the Church of Climatology and the low-information people persuaded by their nutty claims.
The “warming causes more powerful storms” fallacy is analogous to the “speed kills” fallacy. Higher speeds on freeways or race tracks don’t cause worse accidents. It’s the speed difference between a car and what it collides with that causes greater damage. The surface of Venus is relatively calm despite being drastically hotter than Earth at 475 ºC (900 ºF).
tldr;
“Tornado Alley” in the U.S. is fueled by cooler, drier air colliding with warmer, moist air from the Gulf of America. Tropical storms are fueled by warm water and “atmospheric instability” which is simply temperature decreasing with altitude in the troposphere (lower atmosphere). The more rapidly it decreases with altitude, the greater the instability. That instability allows warm bubbles of air to rise off the surface to greater heights. As it rises and cools, moisture in the air condenses into clouds, releasing energy. If the instability is strong enough for the air to continue to rise and cool to form ice crystals, even more energy is released. The “anvil clouds” at the top of massive thunderstorms are where the air has risen so far that it’s reached the lower stratosphere where the temperature gradient reverses, warming with altitude, halting further rise and spreading laterally. Clouds take on a wispy form because at that altitude water freezes into ice crystals. If you see a very tall puffy cloud (cumulus) that has a flat, wispy top (cirrus), you are witnessing an enormously powerful cumulonimbus thunderstorm, the kind that can form hail the size of baseballs and potentially spawn tornadoes.
Stinkerp,
You quote as if is correct that the atmosphere has warmed a little over 1 deg C since 1850.
You do not supply measurement uncertainty estimates. What are they?
You do not question if temperature observations made in 1850 can be directly compared with those made today.
You seem to accept that there was adequate global thermometer coverage of the globe in 1850. Evidence?
Here is a further perspective about Australia. The fundamental temperature set on which past weather depends can be downloaded from the official web site Climate Data Online. The Bureau of Meteorology describes these temperatures as raw, unadjusted and the same as was recorded by original observers. We studied those claims and found the data to have extensive adjustments. What do you think are the implications of our work?
Geoff S
https://www.geoffstuff.com/V14_fullBOM.pdf
The Little Ice Age ended in the mid to late 1800’s. Why? Because it warmed. It should be evident that the planet has warmed modestly since about 1850. How much is debatable. The paucity of temperature data back then and the statistical fiddling of measurements to derive a global average temperature anomaly doesn’t fill anyone with confidence who pays attention. But it has warmed and I like to use the measured global temperature anomaly to illustrate how benign it is (for example from the Berkeley Earth data) compared to the wild predictions of the climate models that the media and every study uses (and almost exclusively the craziest and thoroughly discredited RCP8.5 projections). I don’t know why you’re quibbling over minutiae. We’re on the same side philosophically.
“With global warming, the entire atmosphere is warming (very modestly, only a little over 1 ºC so far since 1850),”
What you miss, however, is that it’s supposedly warming faster at higher latitudes, thus reducing temperature differentials.
Natural climate change has caused the sea temperature this year to be highest in August instead of March as previously.
CO2 can’t cause this sea temperature change. Only changes in the Earth’s orbit can cause this sea temperature change.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260527023216.htm
I have questions. My understanding is that El Niño is warm water from the western pacific moving east. Is that right, I know this is over simplified. El Niño is not ocean water somehow being made warmer. I know things like volcanoes warm the oceans also. Second my understanding is that it is only short wave radiation from the sun that warms ocean waters not long wave radiation sent back to earth via greenhouse gases. If this is true I don’t see how CO2 can cause or intensify tropical storms or turn them into hurricanes.
“only short wave radiation from the sun that warms ocean waters not long wave radiation sent back to earth via greenhouse gases”
An excellent point. Maybe one of the many experts in atmospheric physics here will chime in.
“If this is true I don’t see how CO2 can cause or intensify tropical storms or turn them into hurricanes”
Ha ha! Yep. There is no physics supporting the sorcery of transmuting CO2 into more powerful tropical storms, but the climatologist “scientists” who should know don’t know themselves, or do know but hide it and count on the ignorance of the journalists who publish their fatuous claims.
The recon of the Tropical Storm Lala was performed a few times.
There was NEVER any recon performed when Lala was allegedly a Hurricane.
For years ( since 1991) storms magically became “hurricanes when approaching Hawaii.
Is this an insurance thing?
If I’m wrong Please show me the data proving so.
https://polarwx.com/tropical/#cp012026/recon