Are There Really More Hurricanes?

New Scientist ^ | 6-6-2006

[blam]

Are there really more hurricanes?

06 June 2006
NewScientist.com news service

AS THE season for hurricanes cranks up, so do the arguments about what is causing them. Now a meteorologist claims that the apparent increase in recent years - blamed on global warming - is an illusion.

The supposed rise in hurricane frequency can be explained by better measurement techniques, says Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Klotzbach analysed the frequency and intensity of hurricanes over the past 20 years. The study that linked hurricanes to global warming used data going back over 35 years, but he argues that satellite records prior to 1984 are unreliable (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/ 2006GL025881). "Most of this increase is likely due to improved observational technology," he says.

Judith Curry at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta contests this, claiming that Klotzbach has "cherry-picked" his data. "It is completely incorrect to say that the data quality has been better in the last 20 years. In some cases it has degraded," she says. "Due to decadal cycles in the oceans, 20 years is way too short a time period to observe trends."

From issue 2554 of New Scientist magazine, 06 June 2006, page 19

[Mikey_1962]

From the same people who brought us Alar, killer bees, The Next Ice Age, World Wide Famine, now comes: Global Warming.

[coconutt2000]

If she's not careful, she's going to get black listed by influential liberals and Communists.



Hey, that brings up a point. How come the commies are running black lists in this country? We got in trouble for black listing them, but they're getting away with blacklisting us.

[Sacajaweau]

Kinda like.......Duh

[Gay State Conservative]

First of all,that question would have to considered for every part of the world.Hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons occur in amny parts of the world...North America,Asia,the Pacific,the Indian Ocean,etc.

[AzaleaCity5691]

It is cyclical, but it's just sucky that now this part of the cycle hits, after large sections of coast are inhabited by newcomers who came during downtime and as such had no clue what they were getting in to. Just like the initial settlers of Miami, who settled that city in what was basically a dry spell.

[abner]

"Due to decadal cycles in the oceans, 20 years is way too short a time period to observe trends."

Ok, then she blew her global warming theory out of the water too!

[Allegra]

We got in trouble for black listing them, but they're getting away with blacklisting us.

I would be honored to be on the Commies' black list.

[capt. norm]

Judith Curry at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta contests this, claiming that Klotzbach has "cherry-picked" his data. "It is completely incorrect to say that the data quality has been better in the last 20 years. In some cases it has degraded,"

She couldn't be more wrong. Doppler radar network, improved satellite imaging, computer networks (with much better processors). What she's saying is that nothing new has been developed in the last 20 years and observational abilities may have even degraded.

She is one agenda-driven liberal who somehow made it through the government school system and indoctrination by liberal profs (of which she is now one).

If you wait long enough, and it usually doesn't take long, a liberal will spout off something so preposterous that just about everybody can see through it.

[mbynack]

I was watching CNN last week and their travel guy, Rally Caparis (sp?) announced that there would be delays in flights in the Northeast due to thunderstorms caused by global warming. It could have been an unconscious slip of the tongue and he meant to say "afternoon warming".

[Sacajaweau]

You can't consider this global warming period without considering the last global warming period....and yet, they continue to do just that.

[mbynack]

I was arguing with my wife after watching the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". She was trying to convince me that man was causing a new Ice Age. I said, "If man causes Ice Ages, how come the last one occurred before man was even around?"

[thulldud]

I said, "If man causes Ice Ages, how come the last one occurred before man was even around?"

Wooly mammoths drive REALLY big SUV's.

[aomagrat]

"Most of this increase is likely due to improved observational technology," he says.

That, and NOAA slapping a name on every thunderstorm that forms over the ocean.

[Fraxinus]

It is known that the Atlantic Hurricanes have cycles, however before the solid consistant satellite coverage that began in the 60's it was quit possible for even major hurricanes to go unrecorded. How often have you seen the Weather channel say this about a storm "only of concern to shipping interests"?
I believe that Radios did not become standard equipment on ships until about the time of the first world war. Thus until the 60's it was possible for a hurricane that did not cross a major shipping lane or inhabited land to go unrecorded.

[mbynack]

Wooly mammoths drive REALLY big SUV's.

ROTFLOL

[3niner]

"Thus until the 60's it was possible for a hurricane that did not cross a major shipping lane or inhabited land to go unrecorded."

Even when a ship encountered a tropical storm, it could usually avoid getting into the worst of it, so they had no way of knowing if they were skirting a tropical storm, or a hurricane.

[Fraxinus]

Even when a ship encountered a tropical storm, it could usually avoid getting into the worst of it, so they had no way of knowing if they were skirting a tropical storm, or a hurricane.

Agreed, however for the number of systems this would be irrelevant, as log books would still record the presence of a system (of unknown streangth) as opposed to a storm winding up and down with there being no record of its existance.

[Sacajaweau]

I learned a long time ago that people will believe what they want to believe without applying any logic to their (opinion) argument. I suspect that your wife could REALLY care less about global warming...because something in her gut tells her that "if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen....but she'll never tell you that.

Like my daddy always said: Don't believe everything you read (That was before TV).

[Sacajaweau]

Wooly Mammoths were very, very big gas factories.