By Joe Bastardi
If we are going to talk about the global climate, then we must look at tropical cyclones globally. That sounds intuitive, right? Well, you haven’t heard what’s been going on in the western Pacific (except from me, because I rant about it), which should be common knowledge when the Atlantic goes wild. If you know what is going on, you can see why the pattern can produce a year like this in the Atlantic. The ACE index is one of the lowest on record. As a percentage, it’s in the bottom 10%. But in ACE units, the western Pacific is almost 90 units below the 6-year average ACE of 301.
IOW, the average over the last 6 years out there has been as feeble as our Atlantic Basin is this year in total ACE. This is because a large-scale event is reducing, not increasing, tropical activity and intensity in the Northern Hemisphere, the opposite of what you are being told. I will show those numbers later
But first, in the western Pacific.
Average ACE for 2019–2025: approximately 209.
The north Atlantic this year is about 100 ACE points below average (season may not be done yet).
But the point is, the western Pacific, the busiest basin in the world, up until this year, is averaging almost as far below normal as the Atlantic is this year.
Are you aware of this?
And the Northern Hemisphere ACE index (where most of the global ACE occurs) since 2019 is averaging 13% below normal (it’s averaged 497; normal is 571).
So, the total ACE index has been significantly below average.
The Ace/storm in that time is 7.4.
In the previous 20 years, it was 9.04.
The AI conclusion:
Recent Northern Hemisphere seasons have had both fewer/less intense systems overall and less ACE generated per named storm. The drop shows up in both the seasonal totals and the intensity-duration metric.
So, tropical cyclones are not getting worse.
Which fits with the ideas I have put forth that the nature of the warming, more in higher latitudes than lower, and more poleward than toward the equator, is leading to a more stable climate.
You can’t claim overall it’s getting worse if it’s not. Fewer storms globally and less intense, is not more storms and more intense. Although, with some of the things going on today, someone will argue that is not true. Fill in the blanks for your favorite example of that.
The media ignores this and simply pushes any big event, of which there were more before. They ignore that western Pacific and activity has been decreasing, not increasing. You only hear about it when there is some kind of major storm.
A major balancing act is occurring here. This year, for instance, is likely to end as a record-high year for ACE in the eastern Pacific. Even when they don’t hit the U.S., storms contribute to wave action that can cause major flooding in Southern California. Waves radiate outward from tropical cyclones, so Marie and Rachel got out to the southwest of California, and the wave action piles up when it reaches the coast. It’s not climate change. In fact, here is Grok’s response to the question of when I first warned of what was going to happen with Rachel:
September 30, 2026, is the earliest clear public statement by Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) specifically warning that Tropical Storm Rachel would produce significantly larger waves (and related coastal impacts).
That’s a 10-day warming
The flooding is indirectly related to the strong El Niño because it leads to more tropical cyclones. We knew that before the season and warned back in April that storms would hit Mexico this year. In the Atlantic, the El Niño plus the configuration of the Atlantic SST (sea surface temperature) has led to the down year. But the point is, someone always has a down year. What has been significant is it’s been mainly in the busiest basin on the planet, and it’s never reported on because it’s a sign of tranquility.
And in the Northern Hemisphere overall, there is more down than up as the numbers clearly show.
As I said, the Atlantic sea surface temperature configuration (something we talked about in the pre-season) has a lot to do with it.
Look at the El Niño of 2023:
Healthy El Niño, but the water is warm through the tropics in a way that encourages development.
So, most of the action was out to sea; the number of storms and the ACE index were way above normal.
- Named storms: 20
- ACE index: 148.2
Normal is 14 storms and ACE 123.
Now look at this year:
Very warm water to the north. Sure, there is a strong El Niño, but we have had only 9 storms and an ACE near 20.
The strong El Niño of 2015 had 11 storms and an ACE of 62.7.
The strong El Niño of 1997 had eight storms and an ACE of 40.
This year sticks out like a sore thumb, and it’s because of the way its warming.
So, the way the Atlantic is warm this year is helping to cut it.
Next year, we are already thinking it looks like a blend of 1998 and 2024, both high-impact years.
Bottom line: The idea that tropical cyclones are becoming more numerous and more intense is the opposite of what has been happening as the Earth warms. And it points to the fact that the way it’s warming promotes a more stable climate overall. More stable lapse rates and less zonal available potential energy are the opposite of what is needed for the anarchy that man-made global warming pushers want to brainwash people into believing (which they have in many cases, with the aid of media with a lack of integrity to actually look at the total picture). Tropical cyclones are yet another example of this.
The problem with climate data is twofold.
One, it takes 30 years, (chose another number if you like), to show a trend, so data needs to be at least twice this length to see if it cyclical. That length is so long that people die before the result comes in. Or simply adjust to the change.
Two, the rate of change is so small that people can’t see it. Sure a storm can hit a section of coast but was it really bigger than last year? You just can’t remember the detail level required and the same tree can’t fall twice. People are fickle, memory is fickle and the masses know that numbers can lie.
And I haven’t even mentioned the poor sample size of the real world data, eg southern hemisphere ocean temperatures from the 1900’s. Not to mention the constantly ‘improving’ satellite coverage which makes comparisons to the previous data set, (even if from a satellite), difficult if not impossible without two or more people having a different correlation equation.
There just isn’t enough data to make a call. And WHY is the world beating itself around the ears with air temperatures as a global measure of energy when the surface water holds around a thousand times the energy?
Totally agree Ian. Living memory is all that the MSM relies on to sell a news bulletin or a newspaper. I said years ago on WUWT that alarmists are just waiting for us to die so no-one will challenge them. My long-departed grandpa’s diaries show just how hot it was in South Australia in the late 1930s and whenever a record temperature is reported for some place in Australia the MSM never compare it to Australia’s record temperature which was recorded on Jan2, 1960 i.e. 66 years ago.
To answer your question :
You can not extract money from surface water energy nor centralize power.
Way out of my depth here. Hurricanes are often modelled as heat engines, transferring energy from the sea, at SST, to the top of the clouds. The governing equation is Carnot efficiency of a heat engine (Ts-To)/To. Now, if both Ts (SST) and To (exhaust temperature) increase by the same values as the atmosphere as a whole warms up, the efficiency of the process drops because of the denominator.
Similarly on a global scale, the Arctic is warming faster than the tropics, so the circulation is becoming less efficient because in that case the delta in the numerator is reducing, AND the denominator is increasing.
Hemsisphere? Spell-checker not working?
Nick would be proud.
It is also not an “idea” supported by the IPCC. Since AR5 (2013) at least, the frequency of tropical cyclones has been predicted to remain unchanged or even to reduce.
Re intensity; it is the proportion of storms that become ‘major’ storms (Cat. 3-5) that is considered likely to increase, not the total number of storms; not necessarily even the number of major storms.
As a simple example, if previously there were, say, 20 named storms per season on average, two of which were major (so, one in ten), then in future we may see perhaps only 10 storms per season on average, two of which are major (two in ten). The total number of storms and the total number of major storms has not increased; but the proportion of major storms to total storms has.
That is what the IPCC predict will occur. So whoever it is who spreading “the idea” that global warming will bring more frequent and more intense tropical storms, it isn’t the climate scientists.
The BBC and the Guardian along with most of the British media claim that “scientists say” that global warming will bring more frequent and powerful storms. Are you saying that the entire British media are lying about global warming? You sound more and more like a climate sceptic.
If that’s what they are doing, then yes. The scientific papers and IPCC reports are clear and available for anyone, including journalists, to check.
I have always been a climate sceptic; because, to me, a sceptic is someone who checks claims. I have found that many on this site who claim to be climate sceptics/skeptics never check anything, just so long as it confirms their prior beliefs.
This article is at least the fourth featured recently on this site that attempts to claim that tropical storms are reducing in frequency and this proves *somebody* wrong. Who that ‘somebody’ is is never stated. In this case its some disembodied “idea” that has been proved wrong.
When it is pointed out that a reduction in tropical storm activity with increased warming is actually a prediction of climate science, one is generally met with incredulity; followed by links to newspaper reports, politicians or blogs. Never to scientific reports.
If you are so frustrated with the knuckle-dragging luddites who infest this site, why don’t you just go somewhere else where you will be more warmly accepted?
As someone once said, ‘I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners‘.
Who died and made you God?
How did you get appointed to the position of the arbiter of truth?
It was a joke.
I try to keep potentially catastrophic climate change light.
(Somebody explain “joke” to him, will you?)
The author showed you his data that provoked his conclusion. Show us your data that the “proportion” of strong storms to number of storms is what has increased. Note: what HAS occurred. That is not what is forecasted to occur by you or the IPCC based upon model predictions. It is what has actually occurred and has been measured.
Certainly; and I’ll set it out for you so you can follow the steps and see if you disagree with me.
Firstly, I downloaded ‘Global Historical Tropical Cyclone Statistics’ 1980-2025 from CSU and put them on a spreadsheet.
Next, I filtered that data into two columns, ‘Hurricanes’ and ‘Cat. 3+ hurricanes’.
Then I divided the number of ‘Cat. 3+ hurricanes’ by the number of ‘hurricanes’ for each year to obtain the ratio of major hurricanes/all hurricanes. For example, there were 43 hurricanes in 1980, 19 of which were Cat. 3+, so the formula is: 19/43=0.44 in decimal form.
I then charted those values and added a linear trend line (least squares regression, as calculated by the LINEST function on Excel), as shown below. As you can see, between 1980 and 2025 the proportion of Cat. 3+hurricanes compared to all hurricanes has increased, which is consistent with the IPCC prediction of what would likely happen in a warming climate.
You appear to have corrupted your “CSU” link (been there, done that, got the T-shirt).
I think you meant to point to the following webpage :
URL 1 : https://tropical.colostate.edu/archive.html
“Global” data under the “TC STATISTICS” button about a third of the way down the page, then click the “GLOBAL” button to bring up a downloadable (CSV) file option.
Note that that dataset only goes up to 2019.
.
Roger Pielke Jr. got together with Ryan Maue to make available to the “unwashed masses” (such as myself) a more comprehensive dataset, though anything before “the satellite era” — which starts around 1965-1970 for global weather satellite coverage — has very large error ranges.
URL 2 : https://global-tropical-cyclones.com/basin/global/
My “quick and dirty” alternative to your graph …
NB : CO2 levels have increased at a “faster than linear but less than exponential” rate since 1965.
It appears that from about 1990 on, there is little growth. Some variance, but litle growth. Meanwhile CO2 has remained in an ever-increasing trend. Little reason to suspect causation.
Thanks Mark BLR; yes, that was the data I used for the chart.
Since you only did the analysis for category 3 hurricanes, the only evidence we have is for category 3. What is happening with the other 4+ categories?
‘Cat 3+’ hurricanes, Clyde. That means Cat. 3 and above. That includes all Cat. 4 and 5 hurricanes.
You need to change the title on your graph. There has been some push recently to add a category 6. As it is, your graph isn’t sufficient to discern any differences between the changes in categories 3, 4, and 5, or 3+4 or 4+5. Also, you are using rankings and not actual ratio measurements. Actually, there appears to be a negative trend since about 2002. In other words, it is still an inadequate analysis.
Yeah, Michael Mann has never said tropical cyclones are becoming more intense, lol.
Can you link to a source where Mann says that hurricane frequency is expected to increase or that the frequency of major hurricanes (Cat. 3+) is expected to increase?
I suspect that you will find he says that the proportion of Cat. 3+ hurricanes will increase, as the IPCC forecast.
Well you’re changing things around a bit. You first said “So whoever it is who spreading “the idea” that global warming will bring more frequent and more intense tropical storms, it isn’t the climate scientists.”
My earlier response to that was satire in that of course Mann has stated many times that tropical cyclones are becoming more intense. Instead you now want me to find quotes where he said that the frequency of hurricanes or frequency of major hurricanes is expected to increase and dropping the part about intensity. That is moving the goal posts.
However, I can still play your new game. Here are some quotes from Michael Mann saying the frequency of hurricanes or the frequency of major hurricanes is increasing:
“this suggests that we are indeed likely to see not only stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic but perhaps more of them”
https://www.science.org/content/article/medieval-storms-portend-worse-hurricanes
“But the scientific evidence is clear on changes to the strongest, most destructive storms, Mann said: “these will continue to increase, as long as we continue to warm the planet through fossil fuel burning and carbon pollution.”
https://gcaptain.com/study-says-north-atlantic-hurricanes-have-become-more-frequent-amid-warming/
“Hurricanes are becoming more frequent, violent, and costly — plus they’re hitting jobs and economic growth”
https://x.com/MichaelEMann/status/1844483089617338852
Do you want quotes where Mann said tropical cyclones will become more intense?
It is easy to falsify conclusions by creatively manipulating the calculations.
That ratio does not prove anything other than someone has a calculator and a brain fart.
Not much more I can do than set out the data and calculations.
If you can’t follow them then the fault doesn’t lie with me.
When one is dealing with small numbers (i.e. less than about 20) the descriptive statistics are unreliable and annual percentage changes can be huge and relatively meaningless.
Right, but 1980 to 2025 is 46 full years, so not “less than about 20“.
Yes, the span is 46 years, but many years don’t have hurricanes, and many others only have 2 or 3. How do you compute your ratio when the denominator is zero for a particular year?
https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/
There you go again, Joe, slappin’ folks around with facts and reality. 😉
How dare he! 😉
As I pointed out his ‘facts’ are rather dubious. Total ACE so far for the N hemisphere is 650 vs the 91-20 average of 465. For W Pacific 296 vs 224
“But in ACE units, the western Pacific is almost 90 units below the 6-year average ACE of 301.”
“But the point is, the western Pacific, the busiest basin in the world, up until this year, is averaging almost as far below normal as the Atlantic is this year.
Are you aware of this?”
Not true, the Western Pacific is at 296 vs the average of 224!
“And the Northern Hemisphere ACE index (where most of the global ACE occurs) since 2019 is averaging 13% below normal (it’s averaged 497; normal is 571).
So, the total ACE index has been significantly below average.”
Again total rubbish!
Northern Hemisphere total 650 vs average 465.
Given the strongest storm of the year (a Cat 5) is closing in on Taiwan at present I’d expect the cumulative ACE index to further increase!
As indeed it has currently 704.9 vs average 492.2
And a week later it’s ~745 vs average ~512
https://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/index.php?loc=northernhemisphere
That is not surprising because winds are driven by temperature/pressure gradients. If the temperature difference between the tropics and poles is decreasing, one would expect the winds to decrease. What would be interesting to see is the minimum pressures recorded in the eye of the cyclonic systems versus time.