You know the mantra: Human caused climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels and adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, causes an increase in the frequency and severity of major storms, like hurricanes. When major hurricanes come along, as they regularly do, the promoters of this mantra immediately claim an ability to “attribute” the storm and/or its intensity to the ongoing human-caused warming.
For example, last October we had Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm that struck Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. As soon as Melissa had passed, an organization calling itself World Weather Attribution promptly came out with an analysis blaming the storm and its intensity on “climate change.” From the AP, November 6, 2025:
Melissa was one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall and brought destructive weather to Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba, causing dozens of deaths across the Caribbean. . . . The rapid analysis by World Weather Attribution found that climate change increased Melissa’s maximum wind speeds by 7% and made the rainfall near the center of the storm 16% more intense. The scientists also wrote that the temperature and humidity in which the storm intensified were made six times more likely due to climate change compared to a pre-industrial world.
Perhaps that seemed plausible at the time. But this year the mantra that human-induced climate change is the main cause of destructive hurricanes has run into a small problem. Here we are on September 29, and there has not yet been a single hurricane that has formed in the North Atlantic. Nor are there any tropical disturbances or depressions that appear likely to turn into hurricanes over the next week or two. Here are the data from the National Hurricane Center through today. Key statistics: Number of hurricanes — 0 (5 fewer than the 1991-2020 normal); number of major hurricanes — 0 (2 fewer than the 1991-2020 normal); total ACE (accumulated cyclone energy) — 10.4 (89% less than the 1991-2020 normal).
The University of Colorado has a tropical meteorology project that tracks hurricane data and compares it to 30-year norms. Here is their chart up to today for this ACE thing, compared to the 1991-2020 30-year average:
As the chart shows, typically about 75% of the cyclonic energy for the season has occurred by the end of September. And yet here we are on September 29 with ACE so far this year at barely over 10% of normal. This year’s ACE to date is by far the lowest in the satellite era that began in 1966. (Prior to 1966 there are a very few years with lower known ACE, but without the satellites there could have been other undetected storms.)
And it’s not like this unexpected hurricane drought can be blamed on a sudden drop in temperatures. Depending on your data source, summer 2026 was either the warmest summer on record, or at least close to it. For example, from Berkeley Earth, September 24:
August 2026 was the warmest August on record, with a global average of 1.71 ± 0.11 °C (3.07 ± 0.20 °F) above the 1850–1900 average, ahead of August 2023. It was also the 2nd warmest month of any kind in our record.
From NASA, September 17:
[The U.S. experienced] the warmest June through August in the contiguous United States in a 132-year record, according to NOAA. The three-month period in 2026 was 0.4ºF warmer than the previous records, set in 1936 and 2021.
I have previously criticized the quality of the temperature records kept by NOAA, NASA, and Berkeley Earth. However, their records are prominent among the ones used to generate alarm about climate change and about supposedly increasing hurricane frequency and intensity. And even the UAH satellite temperature record shows that August 2026 was relatively a very warm month, although not the warmest on record.
So my question is: Can we now declare that the claim (hypothesis) that increased global temperatures cause increased hurricane frequency and intensity has been definitively falsified? And if we can’t declare that today based on the hurricane drought to date, when can we declare it?
As I have written many times on this site, the essence of any hypothesis claiming to be “science” is that it must be subject to falsification. Any scientist who is not a charlatan will state his hypothesis in a form that is subject to falsification, and will clearly state the criteria of data which, if it emerged, would be sufficient to falsify the hypothesis.
You can immediately tell that members of the climate “science” cult are not real scientists by the way that they bob and weave and shuck and jive a hundred different ways to avoid stating their claims in a way that is falsifiable. But they have gotten themselves out on a limb with the endlessly repeated mantra that global warming is causing increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Here are just a few examples.
From the Environmental Defense Fund (undated, but apparently from 2025):
As our climate warms, we’re experiencing stronger winds, higher storm surges and record rainfalls during hurricane season — which is also why these storms are becoming more destructive and costly. . . . As ocean temperatures rise, evaporation increases, adding more moisture to the air. Hurricanes that travel over these warmer waters can draw in more heat and water vapor, fueling the storms. That means heavier rainfall, stronger winds and more flooding when the storms hit land.
From Earth Justice, July 28, 2025:
Human activity is causing rapid changes to our global climate that are contributing to extreme weather conditions. . . . Hurricanes are growing more powerful as global temperatures rise because these storm systems draw their energy from warm ocean water.
And even the government got into the act. From NASA Climate Change, October 23, 2024 (before the Trump administration came back into power — but the page is still up):
The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible for people alive today, and will worsen as long as humans add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. . . . Hurricanes Will Become Stronger and More Intense. Scientists project that hurricane-associated storm intensity and rainfall rates will increase as the climate continues to warm.
(Bold in original.)
All these clowns, and everyone else who has made these predictions, needs to be called to account. Has the prediction that warmer temperatures would lead to more frequent and more severe hurricanes been falsified? If not why not? If it hasn’t been falsified by the data from this year’s hurricane season to date, when will it be falsified? Is a full hurricane season without a single hurricane sufficient? Why not?
The fact is that the claim (hypothesis) that warmer temperatures lead to more frequent and more severe hurricanes has already been falsified, whether they will admit it or not. By failing to admit it, they just confirm that they are charlatans rather than scientists.
They are presenting scientific fraud as unquestionable “science”. Scientists who understand atmospheric dynamics know that a warming world produces less extreme weather because the gradient between the tropics and poles lessens.
And considering how magnificently and brilliantly quick these attribution clowns are . . . where’s their CO2 explanation for why there’s not been a single hurricane in the Atlantic this year?
I had a liberal friend claim that earthquakes were getting worse because of climate change. The attribution clowns left reality long ago.
Well there is now, a Cat 3 about to hit the Florida panhandle. Total cumulative N hemisphere ACE has passed 600, above the norm for this date of ~450.
Climate Gas homogenizes temperatures.
Therefore a dcrease in storms should be expected.
Especially on a planet with an (of course) Mann-Made Ozone Hole the gradient should lessen according to my inner Dunning -Kruger, as the increase in UV should be warming the poles ;
but this is always being ignored .
I think a bigger factor is that convection limits the upper bound of warming in the tropics reducing the gradient in a warming world. Data from NASA shows that most of modern warming was from fewer clouds which allowed more UV to reach the surface and heat the oceans to depth.
They yap a lot , but never show real data .
Can’t show what they ain’t got.
Everything good is just weather (sarc).
If you click on the other 2 Pacific basins, you’ll find ACE is running about +90% and +400% there!
I thought tropical storms in the Pacific oceans were called cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere and typhoons in the Northern Hemisphere.
?
Anyway, clearly there is no global basis for accounting for ACE.
Cyclones are cyclones, what have different synonyms got to do with the price of fish – nothing.
Of course there is global accounting for ACE data. And that’s what any analysis of storminess trends should be based on.
The article is dumb. Pointing to the weather in one partial season in one area to prove/disprove a climate trend.
It’s as stupid as the alarmists highlighting an individual heatwave in one place to prove warming.
Pointing to a single weather event to prove a climate tread is equally insane.
How can there be global climate trends when these is no global climate?
Why is there such a huge discrepancy of storms across the Isthmus of Panama?
Is it because the climate freques have no idea what it is they are talking about?
Funny how El Nino does things that CO2 can’t!
Yes indeed, chiefly the fact that as far as we know, it has been happening for thousands of years – as opposed to Anthro CO2 emmisions of 150 years.
Also it has the property of coming and going, generally over a period of 9-12 months, to be replaced by the cold LN.
I believe NOAA has been run for many years by activists, instead of scientists.
A few years back, they eliminated the Violent Tornadoes chart when it clearly showed those storms were DECLINING while CO2 was increasing.
They have now performed a new trick.
I have had the National Hurricane Center in my favorites for at least 20 years. I check it periodically, because it is nice to observe the hurricane situation before it hits the MSM.
I went yesterday, and saw two named storms in the Atlantic Basin – which has been at the top of the page as long as I can remember.
I then scrolled down to check the forecasts and advisories on the storms, but the names seemed wrong. Scrolled back to the top, to check the names in the Atlantic. Scrolled back down, names not matching.
So I switched to “reading” instead of “scanning”. Turns out they have moved the data for specific Atlantic storms to the bottom of the page, and the Pacific storms are now shown under the map of the Atlantic Basin.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
My conspiracy theory: The lack of Atlantic hurricanes was starting to get covered in the popular press and on social media.
Curious people coming to the NHC page might then see that there are still no hurricanes (in the Atlantic), and might actually start doubting the “More CO2 causes more killer storms” narrative.
If you put the active Pacific season at the top, then you can still fool the rubes.
REAL scientists do NOT try to manipulate people’s perceptions. They just report the data as they find it. IMO, NHC has failed that little test.
When a man’s salary depends on not
understandingreporting . . .The names in the Pacific were goofy this season — a week ago there was “Polo” heading into Baja Cali, and “Nolo” bearing down on the Big Island Hawai’i at the same time. When I first saw “Nolo” in a forecast I thought it was a typo, but it was real.
Polo and Nolo in the same year. Someone should have caught that before the list was published.
Especially with N and P being only one letter apart. It’s almost a guarantee that both storms would be active at the same time.
At least it wasn’t named Marco…
But we are punished if we do not trust “The Science.”
“You can immediately tell that members of the climate “science” cult are not real scientists by the way that they bob and weave and shuck and jive a hundred different ways to avoid stating their claims in a way that is falsifiable.”
Very funny. Makes me want to have Hal, by AI, image that.
Amen. And then they proclaim the statistics they have previously cited do not accurately describe the situation. Same bob and weave.
So, I did make an image of those climate nut jobs.
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipNjeS5q4Xz048L-fRS3iZNJn4cKTsJXskXsjKgd
Instead of posting it directly here, thanks a local nut job warning me to not add images, to only use links, to avoid such a terrible sin, I’m now using only links.
The link is broken.
Try this: https://photos.app.goo.gl/V3FbCHuGJ8eg5tvZ8
Just started using this method to store images to show others after someone here told me it was sinful to upload images he doesn’t approve of. 🙂
I assume, your Immatureness, that you’re referring to me. Please quote where I, or anyone else told you that. Or maybe you’re calling Anthony a nut job.
You’re so web smart, that you can’t even figure out how to link images properly. FYI, Google Photos only lets you link to the album, not to the raw image.
Er, no. Straw man.
That is not the claim being made by the scientists. The total number of tropical storms is expected to remain roughly the same or even to decrease slightly, but the proportion of storms reaching major intensity (Cat 4 or 5) is projected to increase.
So, a proportionate nothing-burger?
To bad that isn’t happening either.
Very true and it is a stupid projection anyway since there seems to be an upper limit for hurricanes too as shows by hundreds of major hurricanes that struggles to reach beyond the 185mph level then that is about it……
The point is that the total lack of Atlantic hurricanes in the “warmest year ever” is being totally ignored by those making the climate catastrophic claims.
My understanding is that long wave radiation redirected to Earth by greenhouse gases can’t raise ocean temperature. Why wouldn’t that fact alone eliminate added CO2 to the atmosphere as being responsible for more severe weather or stronger severe weather?
Yes IR radiation can raise water temperature, but 4 watts per square meter for 2X CO2 of ocean surface that is 3700 meters deep is likely to just cause a wee bit more evaporation from that top sq.M., maybe a wee bit warmer right at the top layer until evaporation takes over…A degree warmer water is 7% more H2O molecules evaporating…so a “wee bit” is much less than a degree….
The absorbed IR energy is rapidly loose, in effect, by the latent heat of evaporation. The same is true in the Arctic where, as summer peak, insolation is only 3rds a % of full input, due too the law and;le and atmospheric absorption.
For that matter, CO2 only has three major absorption bands, equivalent to blackbody radiation IR emissions of -80, 400, and 800 deg C. The upper tropical troposphere where CO2 is supposed to be sending IR downward is about -17 deg C and the ocean about 15 deg C. Nothing is as hot as the last two, but the first is too cold to be absorbed, as the equivalent energy levels in the water are much warmer and already full. This IR is reflected back upward and lost to space.
CO2 serves to cool the planet 24/7 as it emits -80 deg C that everything on the planet rejects. After failing to make CO2 warm anything, physicists have found that it is the world’s best refrigerant, being stable, nontoxic, nonflammable, abundant, recyclable, and cheap. It is now the primary refrigerant in Mercedes A/C units and new skating rinks.
Obviously, the Atlantic Basin has been dead this season, but to truly falsify, let’s look at the longer range global picture. A source for data : https://climatlas.com/tropical/
Here are. a couple key plots:
(I am not sure these are attaching … hope so) … but both global ACE & global frequency of major hurricanes (cat 3 & greater) thane been on a general downward trend since the mid 90s … 30 years … as global temps have moved up. Seems not only has the hypothesis of global warming causing worse & more frequent hurricanes not only has been disproved but the exact opposite is largely supported (I hesitate to use the word “proven”; being a skeptic I can only say it is supportive of the antithesis )
Here’s the other plot
Perhaps TFN and Mr Grim McNasty would care to withdraw their assertions.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025AMS…10557976H/abstract
“Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) is a metric widely used to quantify tropical cyclone (TC) activity. However, it overlooks TC structure (i.e., size and asymmetry) because of its exclusive dependence on maximum wind speed, resulting in an inaccurate assessment of TC accumulated energy. “
IOW: Relying on wind speed alone does not give us the extent that those winds have – the areal coverage, and therefore cannot be said to be a true metric of “Accumulated” energy.
“Limitations and Problems with ACE
• Ignores Storm Size and Structure: ACE only factors in the maximum sustained winds at specific points and completely overlooks the physical diameter or spatial extent of a storm’s wind field. A compact, intense hurricane can have a similar ACE to a massive, sprawling tropical storm that impacts a much larger geographic area.
• Not a Measure of Total Kinetic Energy: Despite its name, ACE calculates squared maximum winds rather than true integrated kinetic energy across the entire vortex, making it an index of pointwise intensity rather than actual physical energy.”
Do you have data showing that the areal coverage of tropical cyclones has been increasing over time? If not, your reply is speculative disinformation by climate alarmists and therefore worthless.
“How HURSAT Handles Storm Dimensions
• Fixed Grid Dimensions: HURSAT creates a standardized grid that is centered directly on the storm’s eye or center of circulation at 3-hourly intervals.
• Spatial Resolution: Each grid covers a fixed area of 301 × 301 pixels with an approximate 8 km spatial resolution (lat/lon grid spacing of 0.07 degrees), providing a consistent window around the storm.”
https://www-cdn.eumetsat.int/files/2020-04/pdf_conf_p50_s7_05_knapp_v.pdf
I can see no data showing that the areal coverage of tropical storms has been increasing over time.
Data files are available.
The links are there.
But of course they are lying (sarc)
Either the links don’t work or they show no data showing that the areal coverage of tropical storms has been increasing over time.
Your link contains no actual data on TC’s whatever. The supposed increase in storm area or track length over time appears to exist exclusively in your imagination.
The links are available.
Look harder.
But of course it’s all a world gov scam FFS (sarc)
And yet, numpties are “averaging” these constructs to arrive at some sort of “global metric” for how big & nasty storms are supposed to be getting of late.
The bullshit – it just keeps flowing.
Yes indeed, the standard reply here to a post of science that goes against the prevailing paradym of WUWT is very often the oh so pithy, and evidential ejection of the word “Bullshit”.
Means nothing, of course, but to the cognitive bias here.
At least I can spell “paradigm”.
So there’s that . . . 🙂
Yes – the fact that I mispelled a word (that I hardly ever use), is definitive proof that you are superior to me.
And you can rest vindicated FFS
Until I read this, I was planning to agree with your Harvard post content.
Cannot do that now.
You’re welcome.
Glad to know your standards.
To call out someone for simply mispelling a word in a post is just sad.
I was replying to:
“Means nothing, of course, but to the cognitive bias here.”
Guess that’s reflective of his own Cognitive bias.
Your inability to spell “paradigm” correctly is probably indicative of your general intellectual level. Really not a good look.
I would remind you that Harvard has not distinguished itself as a bastion of truth as of late.
The real problem is that this does not deal with what ACE is about. ACE is a proxy. Not dissimilar to temperature proxies. It is more of a pointer going up or going down. ACE really can’t tell the size and severity of INDIVIDUAL storms.
Consequently, your quotation does not address the real issue, are number and severity of hurricanes in the Atlantic or elsewhere toing up or going down?
This OP laid the question:
“More And More Severe Storms”: When Can We Declare This Hypothesis To Be Definitively Falsified?”
Firstly the “More” part is not the hypothesis of the IPCC as TFN has already said.
There are expected to be more TC reaching Cat 5 however and also to reach those higher intensities more quickly.
The HURSAT metric addresses this and as it shows an increasing intensity, whilst the number remains similar then that answers your question.
The NOAA is standing by it and it is their formula that is the official algorithm.
Why should storms be getting bigger or lasting longer over time?
Because the oceans are providing more heat for longer during the lifetime of the typical TC.
In that case they should also become more frequent.
Incidentally, such storms should diminish with warming as the thermal contrast between the poles and the tropics diminishes.
Yet still no increase in storminess in the Atlantic.
Why don’t you move out of the Twilight Zone?
The only way the climate alarmist outlets can hope to retain what little attention they still receive is to hyper-exaggerate every weather/climate occurrence that departs from the norm even if it might occur only once per decade or even century.. They promptly follow up these proclamations with their usual discordant song-and-dance with the theme of only renouncing fossil fuel use will prevent further disasters; otherwise these will become annual events. Except examination of consumers’ lifestyles plus government policies and industrial business practices show repeatedly that no one is listening.
Oh well, there’s always Nepal to yak about at the upcoming Climate Powow. Yeah, Nepal, that’s the ticket.
I expect an email or two from certain ‘claimatologists'(Sic) looking at the hurricane data and sending urgent messages, ‘Hide the decline’.
“Global increase in major tropical cyclone exceedance probability over the past four decades”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7275711/
“The global TC intensity trends identified here are consistent with expectations based on physical process understanding (1) and trends detected in numerical simulations under warming scenarios (10). As the tropics have warmed, SSTs and TC potential intensity have increased in regions where TCs track, and this provides an a priori expectation that TC intensity has increased, all other factors being equal. Detecting increases in the instrumental record has been hindered by heterogeneities in the best-track data, which we have addressed by creating a globally homogenized record of TC intensity based on homogenized satellite data. This record is limited to the geostationary satellite period, however, and is thus limited to the past four decades.”
“Evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7306794/
Very strange then that the graphs posted by Jeff L show no such thing.
It’s because ACE does not take into account the areal coverage of TCs
See my post above.
Bill Toland asked you a question above. Why haven’t you answered it?
I do have a life outside of WUWT Mr Belshaw.
And yes.
So storms are getting bigger but no more intense, are they?
There is an observed incease in intensity but there are no more TCs occuring than the historical average …. just as the IPCC says is likely.
But if they are bigger and last longer then the metric described here is recording it as an increase in accumulated energy, ie intensity
NB : “TC(s)” = “tropical cyclone(s)” throughout.
IPCC AR6 WG-I assessment report, section 11.7.1.4, “Detection and attribution, event attribution”, page 1588 :
Section 11.7.1.5, “Projections”, page 1590 :
.
When it comes to selecting which models to use in order to “explore” possible future TC evolution, we mere mortals need the “experts” of the IPCC to reach the following conclusion.
Section 11.7.1.3, “Model evaluation”, page 1588 :
“More realistic” models give results closer to “reality” ? Wow, who-da thunk it !
.
Others have noted the IPCC’s Humpty-Dumpty approach to the Popperian / Feynmanian notion of “falsifiability”, to which I will add the following generic example.
FAQ 11.1, “How do changes in climate extremes compare with changes in climate averages?”, page 1608 :
Given the possibility of the first hurricane-free season in the North Atlantic since 1914, the start of the summary for section 11.7.1.4, “Detection and attribution, event attribution”, on page 1590, should maybe be revisited with a more robust “falsifiability” attitude in mind :
If a few “recent active seasons” provide evidence (sic) for the “Oh my $DEITY we’re all gonna diiiiiiiiiiiie ! ! !” mantra then maybe, just maybe, the first zero-hurricane season in 112 years could greatly strengthen the “it’s within the range of natural variability” conjecture (/ null hypothesis) again.
Whatever you have written above – the fact remains that this metric includes spatial area and length of track of TCs.
Which is obviously a better metric for the energy released by TC’s/Hurricans/Typhoons, rather than a one time count of maximum wind.
Would you (hypothetically) be happy to have one extreme temperature only represent a large area, rather than include the averaging of temps in that area? and then have that metric incorporated in a global estimate of GMST?
Cold or warm.
I suspect not.
That is, effecively what the ACE metric is doing …. using just the metric of max wind speed as a measure of a TS’s intensity, rather than using that wind speed’s integration within an area.
Your replies are embarrassing as the NOAA’s ACE index is widely accepted that shows the 1990’s is the most active decade a reality you are ignoring every day.
It was widely accepted and now this new metric will be.
Except by folks here I suspect.
Doesn’t it make sense to you to include the area that is affected over the track of a storm be included in the metric for intensity?
It was not possible to do it before……
Abstract from …
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1920849117
“The global instrumental record of TC intensity, however, is known to be heterogeneous in both space and time and is generally unsuitable for global trend analysis. To address this, a homogenized data record based on satellite data was previously created for the period 1982–2009. The 28-y homogenized record exhibited increasing global TC intensity trends, but they were not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. Based on observed trends in the thermodynamic mean state of the tropical environment during this period, however, it was argued that the 28-y period was likely close to, but shorter than, the time required for a statistically significant positive global TC intensity trend to appear. Here the homogenized global TC intensity record is extended to the 39-y period 1979–2017, and statistically significant (at the 95% confidence level) increases are identified. Increases and trends are found in the exceedance probability and proportion of major (Saffir−Simpson categories 3 to 5) TC intensities, which is consistent with expectations based on theoretical understanding and trends identified in numerical simulations in warming scenarios. Major TCs pose, by far, the greatest threat to lives and property. Between the early and latter halves of the time period, the major TC exceedance probability increases by about 8% per decade, with a 95% CI of 2 to 15% per decade.
Yet no indication that the NOAA has accepted it.
Meanwhile it is models all the way down while actual DATA doesn’t show any increase in recent decades.
You are running along on fumes as usual.
Pathetic…
Numerical simulations are real data?
All other factors being equal?
These are phrases that are used when real data is ignored. When are all other factors equal in the atmosphere? That alone indicates a simulation experiment where all factors but one are held equal.
Like it or not, you are promoting pseudoscience and not real physical science done with measurements.
“Like it or not, you are promoting pseudoscience and not real physical science done with measurements.”
Just the reply I would expect from you Jim.
Well done, not to have disappointed me!
It will always be “pseudoscience” if it doesn’t chime with the desired answer here.
If you think that I expect any other, well no.
Ok.
Pseudo science if it is addressed to alarmist.
Denier if it is addressed to people asking questions.
I am not an alarmist.
I simply come on here to counter the misinformation and post up what the latest science says.
The “pseudoscince” was Jim’s retort regarding the paper I have linked.
If anyone asks a question ( that is sensible) I have no problem in providing an answer.
No, you are making a complete fool of yourself here as the oceans have been plenty warm all along yet no increase in numbers have occurred and a decrees in landfalling hurricanes.
You are thrall over models as usual which is why you get so much opposition.
Anthony Banton,
For the most part you are reasonable but you have a tendency to lace your posts with disparaging phraseology.
Your point, as I understand it, is there are many metrics that could and should be applied in defining the over ocean water cyclones.
This aligns well with the concept of NO “control knobs” in that it acknowledges the reality that nothing is simple and the complex nuances are rarely fully identified and understood.
My comment just identifies the polarizations plaguing any/all discussions today.
Numerical simulations are real data?
All other factors being equal?
Making “scientifc conclusions” from simulations is not science. It may enhance the making of a falsifible hypothesis but it is not science. Science is developing functional relationships that can be experimentally verified.
All other factors being equal is how the gas laws were experimentally derived. It won’t happen in the atmosphere. Again saying all things were held equal is not “science”. If anything, it is pre-science for creating a hypothesis to be developed.
For someone who says they have a life outside of WUWT, you sure spend a lot of time here.
Oh, so the National Library of Medicine is now doing “climate science?”
Is that a riddle?
Your link goes to the National Library of Medicine website.
NIH and NLM hosts some good information on study preparation and data analysis and measurement uncertainty.
Here are a couple I refer to quite often.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6999182/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2556585/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9290917/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1255808/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2959222/#
In other words, they were expecting TCs to get stronger and they didn’t, or at least they couldn’t “detect” the increases they just KNEW were occurring. So they had to make a pseudoscciency-sounding excuse and fudge the data record. Got it.
Exactly.
Had there been a real increase in cyclone frequency and internsity, Tony Bunter would be crowing in triumph today. Instead, he has to resort to handwaving and a specious metric. He can’t explain how cyclones can cover a larger area and last longer without any change in ACE or frequency.
They’re “magic” cyclones.
Meanwhile elsewhere: “cat 6” Hurricane Polo.
https://youtu.be/sPbHumuDGvE
This is a “but, hey – look over there” if ever there was one.
The IPCC does not present a single crisp hurricane hypothesis of the form
“If CO₂ rises and temperatures rise, then global ACE will increase by X and hurricane frequency will increase by Y.”
That’s not how the IPCC writes. The IPCC primarily publishes assessments of evidence and confidence levels, not Popper-style hypotheses with explicit falsification criteria. Chapter 11: Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate discusses confidence levels, likelihood statements, attribution, and projections for tropical cyclones rather than a single simple testable equation.ipcc+1
A strict skeptic often asks:
“What observation would make you conclude the theory is wrong?”
The IPCC framework tends to ask:
“Given all available evidence, how confident are we in this conclusion?”
Now, whether that’s scientifically satisfying is another matter.
A skeptic can legitimately reply:
“If global temperatures rose substantially and global ACE declined from 1995-2024, then predictions of generally increasing hurricane activity were not supported by the observations.” global-tropical-cyclones
That’s a fair empirical argument.
There is not an official IPCC hurricane hypothesis that can be cleanly falsified, because the IPCC doesn’t actually formulate its conclusions that way. It largely communicates in terms of assessed evidence and confidence levels rather than a single quantitative hurricane prediction.ipcc+1
The IPCC process: it is an assessment framework, not a system of falsifiable hurricane forecasts.ipcc+1
I asked Copilot AI to check the data about hurricanes:
Copilot AI ran a simple linear trend on the 1995-2024 annual ACE values.
Result:
A simpler sanity check gives a similar answer:
So for this dataset and this exact starting point:
The trend from 1995 to 2024 is downward, not upward.
That’s not really debatable. The fitted line slopes down and the recent 5-year average is substantially below the mid-1990s average.
The more nuanced question is how strong that decline is relative to the enormous year-to-year variation. The series contains years like:
alongside much quieter years:
Confidence intervals are a joke. They tell you nothing other than, “we think our guesses are correct”. They are still guesses and not scientific measurements of anything. It’s like me looking outside and seeing rain, then saying the evidence is that it will rain every day for the next week with a confidence level of most likely! Then, when it doesn’t rain every day, I respond that I wasn’t wrong since I didn’t say 100%! Simply ignore the fact that I wasn’t right.
IPCC Summary Report (for Policy Makers) is purely political and if it is different from the science reports feeding into it, the science reports are rewritten to comply with the summary.
We will wait in vain for the lack of hurricane activity in the Atlantic to be ‘attributed’ to man-made climate change.
Here’s a prediction, Because the Atlantic has failed to deliver up the much needed hurricanes for the Climate Alarmists, they will be eager to point the finger at AGW. I can imagine the Guardian leading the charge with an article written of course by Monbiot.
Headline “New crisis in the Atlantic circulation”.
“The slowing gulf stream that keeps Europe from freezing has slowed to the point where no hurricanes have been produced this year. The burning of CO2 is slowing the flow thus creating unique non hurricane conditions in the Atlantic basin where they usually form”
The BBC will probably roll our some ‘expert’ who will opine, “we have seen this coming for a long time due to climate change, large oceanic storms are necessary to maintain the balance of climate atmospheric circulation, so no hurricanes is very bad”
I will put my crystal ball away now you get the scene.
They will ignore the fact that most of this is caused by an El Nino that is not caused by non-anthropogenic CO2.
Wrong again Jim ….
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/cwyzq4538j3o
Yet the strong 2023 Hurricane season was right in the middle of a strong El-Nino phase.
HA HA HA……
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382293639_The_2023_Atlantic_Hurricane_Season_An_Above-Normal_Season_despite_Strong_El_Nino_Conditions
“Normally, El Niño decreases Atlantic hurricane activity due to increases in vertical wind shear. In 2023, vertical wind shear was below average, likely driven by the record warm tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Sea surface temperatures which led to tropical circulation patterns that were considerably different from the atmospheric flow typically observed during El Niño events.”
HA HA HA …
You are that stupid as YOU ARE recently posted the very opposite, with the very first paragraph of YOUR article,
Strong hurricane season during a strong El-Nino and no hurricanes at all during a strong El-Nino.
You are being profoundly stupid here since I was talking El-Nino phases for two different times which you gloss over.
You apparently didn’t read the article very well. Rod Evans was discussing the Atlantic Ocean.
From your article:
Guess what I said.
Did you see anything in the article that mentioned the cause of El Nino? I bet not, which is what my comment said! I sure couldn’t find anything that said El Nino isn’t caused by CO2. Did you find something?
Given that at least three, probably four of this years named north Atlantic storms probably didn’t reach the required wind speeds to be classified as such we can be sure NOAA is desperate to keep the gravy train on the tracks.
Puzzling why they changed from naming only hurricanes to any weather event that suits them.
“And it’s not like this unexpected hurricane drought can be blamed on a sudden drop in temperatures. Depending on your data source, summer 2026 was either the warmest summer on record, or at least close to it. For example, from Berkeley Earth, September 24:
August 2026 was the warmest August on record, with a global average of 1.71 ± 0.11 °C (3.07 ± 0.20 °F) above the 1850–1900 average, ahead of August 2023. It was also the 2nd warmest month of any kind in our record.”
A rather illogical comparison since the hurricane drought is for a single region (N Atlantic) whereas the quoted temperature record was global! So far Northern hemisphere hurricanes are showing a significantly above average ACE score (~600 vs ~450).