Increasing cyclonic storms is one of the bogeymen most cited by global warming alarmists as a negative impact of warming. The problem is, despite a world that is several tenths of a degree warmer than it was 30-40 years ago, no one can find any increasing trend in such storms:
We have written so much about the link between climate change and hurricanes (a.k.a., tropical cyclones, TCs) that we sometimes wonder if there could be anything new to report. No sooner than we have such a thought, yet another article on the subject appears in some leading scientific journal. A sentence in the abstract from this new article really caught our eye as we read “For the 1981/82 to 2005/06 TC seasons, there are no apparent trends in the total numbers and cyclone days of TCs, nor in numbers and cyclone days of severe TCs with minimum central pressure of 970 hPa or lower.”
This latest research gem appears in a recent issue of Geophysical Research Letters, and the work was conducted by a team of climatologists employed in Melbourne at the National Climate Centre of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Kuleshov et al. note that “Concern about the enhanced greenhouse effect affecting TC frequency and intensity has grown over recent decades. Recently, trends in global TC activity for the period 1970 to 2004 have been examined by Webster et al. [2005]. They concluded that no global trend has yet emerged in the total number of tropical storms and hurricanes.”…
Had these scientists found an increase in the total number of tropical cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere, they would need to hire press agents to handle the global coverage. Their work would be front page news all over the world, Time and Newsweek would be all over the story, and thousands of web pages would trumpet the results. However, they found no trends, or even downward trends, in total tropical cyclone frequency over a huge area of the planet – coverage at World Climate Report is about all they can expect.
There is one problem with this in my mind that makes the findings less powerful. The problem is that the southern hemisphere really has not experienced much warming in the last 30 years, and the tropics have experienced no warming. So perhaps this study does not say much for the link between warming and cyclonic activity. But of course, if there has been no warming, who cares?
Placing greater trust in random bloggers than in actual science will always leave you misinformed. Increasing cyclonic storms is a vague and meaningless phrase, and perhaps you intended that. It is well known that there is little correlation between sea surface temperatures and the number of tropical cyclones, but there is a clear link between sea surface temperatures and power dissipation by hurricanes.
The problem is that…the tropics have experienced no warming. The very data you quote show that the tropics have warmed by 0.07°C/decade.
“For the 1981/82 to 2005/06 TC seasons, there are no apparent trends in the total numbers and cyclone days of TCs, nor in numbers and cyclone days of severe TCs with minimum central pressure of 970 hPa or lower.””
yup, sound pretty vague. do you even read posts before you disagree with them?
As another data point, this year is one of the coldest in a long time. It is also going to be a record year for North American tornados – and the reason is *not* reporting bias but actual unusual synoptic patterns.
If this were a warm year and a record tornado year, do you think you would have heard maybe a bit about global warming causing all that destruction? Like, perhaps, above the fold New York Times?
You bet.
morganovich – what are the first three words of the post?
John Moore – we are less than half way through the year. From where are you getting your prophecies?
Morganovich,
I think you may be being slightly ungenerous. For the first time I can recall, “Scientist” has actually substantially agreed with the article in question!! The “random bloggers” being referred to are clearly the global warming alarmist random bloggers (words 12-14 of the article) and so his criticism of them as being contradicted by science is identical to our criticism of them.
If you pay attention to claims like this one giving the impression that GW increases hurricanes, it will result in you being misinformed. I can’t imagine where they get this sort of unscientific stuff from.
Listen to the scientists:
“The last 25 years’ increase may have little to do with global warming, or the models may have missed something about how nature responds to the increase in carbon dioxide.”
“The models are telling us something quite different from what nature seems to be telling us. There are various interpretations possible, e.g. a) The big increase in hurricane power over the past 30 years or so may not have much to do with global warming, or b) The models are simply not faithfully reproducing what nature is doing. Hard to know which to believe yet.”
I’m sure we can all agree on that!
Placing greater trust in random bloggers than in actual science will always leave you misinformed.
Posted by: Scientist
Such as people posing as scientists, you ignoramus?
Amen to that……
Stevo, how about you try not to be a dickhead. Now, did you make up that quote, or will you provide a source for it? I note that you seem to suffer from the same vagueness as the original post with your GW increases hurricanes. Let’s try one more time, shall we? Now concentrate hard. Increasing surface sea temperatures does not seem to lead to an increase in the number of tropical cyclones, but it does lead to an increase in their intensity. See the difference between the two things? See why ‘increasing tropical cyclones’ is a meaningless phrase?
Mesa econoguy – you’re a fucking idiot. You don’t have to believe anything I say myself, because I provide links to the science. Start with the page I linked to above. It’s got a nice little video that even a simpleton like you might understand, and also links to papers for people rather cleverer than you are.
Is anyone else here providing links to journal articles? Hm. Wonder why that could be.
Mesa econoguy – you’re a fucking idiot.
Posted by: Scientist
What a brilliant fucking refutation, jerkoff! I’m sure that took you years in science skool to come up with that. Where’s your “link” for that?
You haven’t provided links to shit, scumbag, because you’re a liar, which we’re proven on several occasions, prick.
Go fuck yourself, you pseudointellectual whore.
Here is a clearer link.
Frankly, your “science” is crap….
Good link, yeah. It takes a special calibre of fuckwit to confuse the US with the world. There seem to be plenty of them around here. Go look at an atlas and learn the difference, you fucking cunt.
Awww, hosemonkey doesn’t like the chart.
Listen up shitbag: if you expect people like me to foot the bill for fuckwads like you who lack nearly all critical thinking ability, including and especially the “obligation” for us to prevent this nonexistent problem because you got your knickers in a twist because you’re out on a limb (because you’re quite simply dumb), and the data don’t support your little whiny little tirades, don’t be surprised to get your ass kicked early and often.
Go back to your lead paint chips, you tit.
“scientist”,
A real scientist would not write the way you do.
Meanwhile you asked about those 3 words?
“Increasing cyclonic storms”
The answer is here:
“no one can find any increasing trend in such storms:”
LOL
Your chart shows fuck all. It certainly doesn’t show what you seem to think it does. Are you really too retarded to realise that? Fucking idiot.
Come on you guys.The cussing is way too much.Even for me since it is detracting from the topic.
How getting back to a more gentile conversational setting?
I win.
Have a nice day.
“Your chart shows fuck all. It certainly doesn’t show what you seem to think it does. Are you really too retarded to realise that? Fucking idiot.”
This is not even a minimal rebuttal.Since you never showed why you think it does not support a certain conclusion.
I hope you know how to make a counterpoint.Do you?
“Now, did you make up that quote, or will you provide a source for it?”
Having kept up with the literature on hurricane climatology, you should already be perfectly familiar with it. You have read the literature, haven’t you?
What’s that? You haven’t? You didn’t immediately recognise who I was quoting there? I’m absolutely sure you’ve heard of him. Go on. Why not have a guess?
“Increasing surface sea temperatures […] does lead to an increase in their intensity.”
Correlation does not imply causation. How many times must we say so? What matters is not the sea surface temperature, you dolt, but the difference in temperature between the sea surface and the upper troposphere. It’s a heat engine, and basic thermodynamics should tell a real scientist that it’s the temperature difference that matters.
The question, then, is whether the air warms faster or slower than the surface. (Assuming either warms at all.) The AGW theorists and their models say the upper troposphere warms faster, due to lapse rate feedback from all the extra water vapour they claim should be going into the atmosphere. Therefore, standard peer-reviewed AGW climatologist theory says that general warming ought to lead to a reduction in hurricane intensity. Where you have a noisy system with the two varying independently, the greatest differences will occur when the surface happens to be warmer, but an overall warming of the average will lead to no change, and a warming of the atmosphere faster than the sea will lead to less. Either the AGW claims about strong water vapour feedback are totally wrong, or warming will reduce hurricane strength. Which point would you prefer to concede?
It’s akin to someone saying that sea level rise will cause bigger waves in the level of sheer stupidity and ignorance.
It’s made worse by coming from a smug dickhead who thinks his Appeal to Authority is actually an argument rather than a grossly unscientific fallacy, who evidently thinks no further than whether an “authority’s” claim matches his own preconceptions, and yet is so delusional and disconnected from reality as to think he’s actually a scientist! Presumably, the guy in the padded cell next door thinks he’s Napoleon Buonaparte.
Anyway, keep taking the medication, and I sincerely hope that one day you get better. My very best wishes.
“sunsettommy” – you have comprehension problems. “increasing trend in such storms” is not a meaningful statement. Do you understand that? I’ve explained why. Read what I said to Stevo.
“sunsettommy” – you have comprehension problems. “increasing trend in such storms” is not a meaningful statement. Do you understand that? I’ve explained why. Read what I said to Stevo.”
It was originally 3 words:
“Increasing cyclonic storms”
Now it is 5 words:
“increasing trend in such storms”
And you complain about my reading comprehension.
ROFLMAO!
Anyway your infatuation over 3 or is it 5 words is silly because the rest of the words makes it clear there are and I quote: ” no one can find any increasing trend in such storms:” Meaning no increasing trend in such storms.
What is your problem dude?
sunsettommy – man, you’re stupid. Are you too dense to get that ‘increasing trend’ is not meaningful unless you specify what quantity is increasing. Hint: ‘storm’ is not a measurable quantity that can be said to increase. Learn the basics or get out of here, will you?
Stevo – standard peer-reviewed AGW climatologist theory says that general warming ought to lead to a reduction in hurricane intensity – only a moron who hasn’t read the literature would think that was the case. You are a moron and you haven’t read the literature. Follow the link I gave earlier, click on ‘Nature paper, 2005’, read the first sentence and tell me what it says.
Let’s get back to substance. I can see numerous problems with this paper
ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/NATURE03906.pdf
Regression analysis of the raw data (differences), not “scaled” or “smoothed” values, would provide the most accurate picture of what is actually going on here.
But even that isn’t necessary:
My results suggest that future warming maylead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential, and—taking into account an increasing coastal population—
a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the twenty first century.
…
The above discussion suggests that only part of the observed increase in tropical cyclone power dissipation is directly due to increased SSTs; the rest can only be explained by changes in other factors known to influence hurricane intensity, such as vertical wind shear.
[my emphases]
This is a fairly ridiculous statement:
The actual monetary loss in wind storms rises roughly as the cube of the wind speed…
That’s a very broad average, and one that statistically should lead to a lot of false conclusions.
And this is probably false:
This trend is due to both longer storm lifetimes and greater storm intensities.
Hurricane detection, even since the 1970s, has improved dramatically along with storm tracking, so duration has most likely increased as well.
So there are a lot of questionable premises in this Nature article.
Now I know you are no scientist because you are being an ass over word meanings.All the while you ignore the content of the article.That make it clear.
Here is the whole quote and not just your 3 words you are wetting your pants over:
“Increasing cyclonic storms is one of the bogeymen most cited by global warming alarmists as a negative impact of warming. The problem is, despite a world that is several tenths of a degree warmer than it was 30-40 years ago, no one can find any increasing trend in such storms:”
You need to stop making a fool of yourself.
“Follow the link I gave earlier, click on ‘Nature paper, 2005’, read the first sentence and tell me what it says.”
No need. I read it several years ago. I’ve also read the follow-up paper and public statements by the same guy issued three years later, which you quite obviously haven’t, since you thought I was making the quote up. Moron.
And like I just said, Appeal to Authority is an anti-scientific fallacy. Nullius in verba, moron.
Yes, you dick, the whole of that paragraph is meaningless because it doesn’t state what is increasing. It’s like saying there’s a rising trend in the high jump, without specifying whether you mean the average height jumped, the record height, the number of contestants or what. If you can’t grasp this simple point, you have nothing to contribute.
Mesa Econoguy – yeah, I’m sure your reviewing skills are better than the jokers Nature get to look at these things. So how about you re-do the analysis in the way you think appropriate and see if the conclusions change. If they do, submit to Nature.
Stevo – no, I don’t think you have read either of the Emanuel papers. Or at least, you haven’t really understood them. Do you understand the difference between the words number and intensity?
“Do you understand the difference between the words number and intensity?”
Yes.
Mesa Econoguy – yeah, I’m sure your reviewing skills are better than the jokers Nature get to look at these things.
Posted by: Scientist
Yeah, Nature is never wrong…
Please do your community service and commit suicide. I implore you. We implore you.
so, you read the first 3 words (which are only summarizing a viewpoint he disagrees with) and then either skip or fail to comprehend the rest of the posting where the point is made in clear detail?
and somehow this demonstrates that others are idiots?
you really do take the cake.
A warm reply from our resident hack scientist:
“Yes, you dick, the whole of that paragraph is meaningless because it doesn’t state what is increasing. It’s like saying there’s a rising trend in the high jump, without specifying whether you mean the average height jumped, the record height, the number of contestants or what. If you can’t grasp this simple point, you have nothing to contribute.”
And everyone else wonder why you are continuing to make a fool of yourself.I wonder too since the words CYCLONIC storms are not hard for most people to understand.Then I had the gall to point to the rest of the paragraph that showed why.
Once again for the reading impaired.
From the LINK this time to show why you are running on empty.
“We have written so much about the link between climate change and hurricanes (a.k.a., tropical cyclones, TCs) that we sometimes wonder if there could be anything new to report. No sooner than we have such a thought, yet another article on the subject appears in some leading scientific journal. A sentence in the abstract from this new article really caught our eye as we read “For the 1981/82 to 2005/06 TC seasons, there are no apparent trends in the total numbers and cyclone days of TCs, nor in numbers and cyclone days of severe TCs with minimum central pressure of 970 hPa or lower.”
This latest research gem appears in a recent issue of Geophysical Research Letters, and the work was conducted by a team of climatologists employed in Melbourne at the National Climate Centre of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Kuleshov et al. note that “Concern about the enhanced greenhouse effect affecting TC frequency and intensity has grown over recent decades. Recently, trends in global TC activity for the period 1970 to 2004 have been examined by Webster et al. [2005]. They concluded that no global trend has yet emerged in the total number of tropical storms and hurricanes.”
Maybe you should stop frothing at the mouth over 3 words when several paragraphs comes afterwards.To show what those CYCLONIC storms are.That he was writing about.
Such as …………… Tropical Storms and Hurricanes.
You are really bad today.
The words CYCLONIC STORMS as explained from Earthsciences website.Here is an excerpt.
“Tropical cyclonic storms
EXCERPT:
Hurricanes
Hurricanes are massive tropical cyclonic storm systems with winds exceeding 119 km/hr (74 miles/hour). The same phenomena is given different names in different parts of the world. In the western Pacific they are called typhoons, and in the southern hemisphere they are called cyclones.”
http://earthsci.org/Flooding/unit1/u1-05-00.html
Did you read the very last line in the above quote?
He he he…..
Interpolated in hyphens are mine.This is to help certain people finally understand why everyone else is giggling:
“Increasing cyclonic storms (Low pressure storms) is one of the bogeymen (I am going to eat you!) most cited by global warming alarmists (climate cultists) as a negative impact of warming (We will surely roast to death).
The problem is, despite a world that is several tenths of a degree warmer than it was 30-40 years ago,(At that time we were going to freeze to death) no one can find any increasing trend (Not going up in frequency) in such storms: (Those dreaded low pressure storms)”
I doubt it however.
Scientist,
“Do you understand the difference between the words cyclone and anticyclone?”
(Smirk)
Do you know the difference between a hyphen and a parenthesis?
The original post says no one can find any increasing trend – it does not say what property shows an increasing trend. You assume he means Not going up in frequency. As I said before, this is well known, so what the fuck is your point? One more go for the retards, here it is: the frequency of storms doesn’t increase with increasing sea surface temperatures, but their intensity does. Are you able to comprehend this?
“the frequency of storms doesn’t increase with increasing sea surface temperatures, but their intensity does.”
You’ve said that repeatedly, we understood perfectly well what you meant the first time. What you have failed to understand is that our arguments do not involve confusing the two.
Firstly, the original phrase was describing the claims of global warming alarmists, many of who make the claim in the ambiguous and general sense you are complaining about. We’re complaining about it too. It’s not an attack on AGW the scientific theory, but on AGW the media campaign. Nobody has said that all GW alarmists do so, or that scientifically qualified ones do, but certainly it is an impression that the scientific layman gets from a lot of the coverage. So in attacking the phrase, you are only attacking the less reputable elements of your own side.
If what you’re trying to say is that just because a lot of GW alarmists in the media are wrong doesn’t mean the core scientific theory is wrong too, then we agree with the logic. But we didn’t intend to make that argument anyway.
Secondly, although it wasn’t being discussed in the original article above, the claim of greater numbers rather than intensity has been made by scientific sources. For example, the Holland and Webster paper of 2005 cited by that BBC story I mentioned, the first sentence of which (the BBC version) is “A new analysis of Atlantic hurricanes says their numbers have doubled over the last century.” Numbers, not intensity. Hard to get more explicit than that. They used to say there were more storms, but when that position got discredited by the statistics, they shifted to intensity to try to rescue the hypothesis. A lot of the papers now say “a greater number of more intense storms” or “more category 4 and 5 hurricanes” or similar phrases, thus conflating number and intensity.
Since there are weather disturbances of all sizes on a continuous range, and storms are identified and defined as they pass various intensity thresholds, it is a simple mathematical consequence of most probability distributions that increasing the intensity will increase the numbers that pass the thresholds. To claim that you can increase intensity without increasing the number is a counter-intuitive result that needs to be explained.
And then regarding the original Emanuel paper…
I recall the paper from some time ago, because ClimateAudit spent some time having a look at its claims. They were not so much interested in the first sentence as the last one. “Owing to changes in measuring and reporting practices since systematic observations of tropical cyclones began in the mid-1940s, there are systematic biases in reported tropical cyclone wind speeds that must be accounted for in analysing trends. The sources of these biases and corrections made to account for them are described in Supplementary Methods.”
You see, in the 1940s you only got to hear about a hurricane if it made landfall or some ship happened to get stuck in it and reported the wind speed. A lot of them were missed. Later, they were observed by aircraft, but the wind speed measurement was a bit iffy. Nowadays, they’re all tracked by satellite, but even now there are difficulties in measuring peak speed, and different criteria have been applied in categorising them. Part of the reason for the early apparent rise in numbers was reporting bias, and ClimateAudit spent some time considering whether Emanuel’s corrections were valid and sufficient.
So I did have a look at the Emanuel 05 paper, and while I thought it was interesting and worth reporting, I didn’t consider the evidence very strong. Firstly there were these “corrections”, and the numbers were obviously heavily smoothed and processed. Secondly it was clearly only reporting correlation, not necessarily causation. Thirdly, the physics seemed screwy. Besides the trivial issue of surface temperature versus surface-troposphere temperature difference, the magnitude and strength of the correlation seemed wrong. At the gridcell level at which storms are caused, temperature anomaly routinely varies month to month by ten degrees or more, and the temperature itself even more. A fraction of a degree change, or even a couple of degrees locally, seems to small a signal to easily detect in such a high level of noise. There are not that many hurricanes annually anyway, and they have many other influences. If there is a direct temperature effect, (and I don’t dismiss the possibility,) it seems it ought to be smaller and harder to extract. I thought it far more likely that this was a case of common cause, that both the temperature changes and the hurricane frequency were both being influenced by something else, such as the Atlantic Meridional Oscillation. The fact that the AMO flipped in the early 90s, at roughly the same time as a step change in Emanuel’s graphs, makes it plausible. (Although such a correlation doesn’t imply anything, of course.)
But anyway, it was with some interest that I saw the coverage on Emanuel’s latest paper in which he seems to change his mind, at least partly. I’m not all that convinced by the new paper either, relying as it does on their models. But the development is a significant shift in the orthodoxy and has been widely reported. I am genuinely a bit surprised that you didn’t know about it.
The new results specifically deny the connection you claim between global warming and more hurricanes. Sea surface temperature rises are not the same as global warming, and an apparent connection with one does not imply a connection to the other. This is a part of the logical chain that alarmists had earlier missed, and which you seem to continue to miss.
Because hurricanes depend on the temperature difference, and because AGW feedback theory predicts the upper tropical troposphere should warm faster than the surface, global warming ought to decrease overall hurricane intensity. As Emanuel said, either the rise of the past 30 years has nothing to do with global warming, or the models are wrong. Personally I vote for both, but you can’t have neither.
And finally, I re-iterate: Appeal to Authority is a fallacy, not an argument. Simply linking to a paper by one of your favoured climatologists does not settle the matter. As sceptics, we do not generally accept that AGW alarmists are correct, so it isn’t logical to try to persuade us by citing their absolute authority. You might find it sufficient, but we don’t. I suggest you stick to arguments based on the physics and the data.
It is obvious that “scientis” does not know what CYCLONIC STORMS are.This AFTER I showed him what they are.
He also has no reading skills because just reading beyond the first 3 words will reveal what those CYCLONIC STORMS are.
Again for the reading impaired:
“no one can find any increasing trend in such storms:”
A link that led to this:
“We have written so much about the link between climate change and hurricanes (a.k.a., tropical cyclones, TCs) that we sometimes wonder if there could be anything new to report. No sooner than we have such a thought, yet another article on the subject appears in some leading scientific journal. A sentence in the abstract from this new article really caught our eye as we read “For the 1981/82 to 2005/06 TC seasons, there are no apparent trends in the total numbers and cyclone days of TCs, nor in numbers and cyclone days of severe TCs with minimum central pressure of 970 hPa or lower.””
Gosh it IS about tropical storms and hurricanes!
It is a good idea to read more than first 3 words to understand what the writer is talking about.
Let’s face it.You are being an unreasonable meathead.
I am calling you a liar.YOU are NOT a scientist.They are not that stupid.A real climatologist would know what a CYCLONIC storm is.
Scientist… re: tornadoes and cold year.
The TORNADO SEASON ends about June 15th (yes, there are a few more later in the year).
The very high tornadic storm frequency has already happened.
Hence no crystal ball needed.
Stevo – are you trolling or are you really unable to comprehend so many simple things? And please, get over the infantile concept of ‘sides’. I do not belong to any side. Your use of the first person plural makes you sound a bit schizophrenic and does not, in fact, mean that you speak for anyone but yourself.
So, some mistakes you make:
1. confusing the north Atlantic with the whole world. This one’s pretty endemic among deniers: “1934 was hotter than 1994 in the US, therefore global warming isn’t happening”, “some lake in Colorado has been frozen for a month longer than it was last year, so global warming isn’t happening”, “it’s cold where I live, so global warming isn’t happening”. The BBC article you quote refers to north Atlantic hurricane numbers, not global numbers.
2. They used to say there were more storms, but when that position got discredited by the statistics, they shifted to intensity to try to rescue the hypothesis is just pure denialist fiction.
3. To claim that you can increase intensity without increasing the number is a counter-intuitive result that needs to be explained – not really. It’s actually really simple. Imagine that a weak storm dissipates a quantity of power x, and a strong one dissipates 2x. Now, imagine that one year there are five weak storms and five strong ones. Imagine that the next year there are two weak ones and eight strong ones. Now, what has happened to the storm frequency? What has happened to the average storm intensity.
4. the physics seemed screwy – because you don’t understand the physics.
5. seems to [sic] small a signal to easily detect in such a high level of noise…If there is a direct temperature effect…it seems it ought to be smaller and harder to extract – argument from incredulity.
6. Emanuel’s latest paper in which he seems to change his mind…the development is a significant shift in the orthodoxy – you must be illiterate to think this. I’ll quote from the conclusions: These simulations show potentially large changes in tropical cyclone activity in response to global warming, though the sign and magnitude of the changes vary a great deal from basin to basin and from model to model, reflecting large regional differences in the global model predictions as well as natural multidecadal variability in each model that cannot be averaged out over the 20-yr periods considered here. There is an overall tendency toward decreasing frequency of events in the Southern Hemisphere, consistent with direct simulations of tropical cyclones using global climate models, and power dissipation and storm intensity generally increase, as expected from theory and prior work with regional tropical cyclone models.
7. As sceptics, we do not generally accept that AGW alarmists are correct – rather, as an idiot, you do not generally accept that science is correct. If you don’t think it’s a good thing, in a scientific discussion, to provide links to scientific papers, you just demonstrate yet again that science is not informing your opinions.
John Moore – according to whom does the ‘season’ end then? According to these data, 34 per cent of cyclones between 1950 and 2004 occurred from June to December.
“And please, get over the infantile concept of ‘sides’. I do not belong to any side.”
Of course you do. As your use of terms like ‘Denialist’ and your entirely one-sided approach demonstrate. And especially your infantile use of insult – people who are not emotionally invested in a ‘side’ don’t throw name-calling playground tantrums every five minutes.
“confusing the north Atlantic with the whole world.”
Done where? The original article above discussed the Southern hemisphere, so you responded with numbers for the Atlantic. Is that what you mean?
“…is just pure denialist fiction” is pure alarmist fiction. It’s a basic point of scientific method to spot when you’re altering the hypothesis in ever more complex ways to keep a preconceived conclusion whenever evidence falsifies the old one. “Adding epicycles”, they call it.
“one year there are five weak storms […] next year there are two weak ones”
And what about those events that previously would not quite have made it to the weak storm threshold, but have now been magnified? Or are you saying there’s a gap in the energy distribution, and that small disturbances leap instantaneously to large ones without passing through the intervening range? How do you think storms form?
“because you don’t understand the physics”
You were previously under the impression that work done by a heat engine is dependent on the temperature at only one end, and you accuse me of not understanding the physics?!
“argument from incredulity”
I’ll grant you that one. When you slightly change an input with a 1-in-10 signal to noise ratio, dependent noise, put it through an unknown function with half a dozen other unknown inputs like wind, water vapour, cloudiness, pressure, adjustments to ‘correct’ systematic biases, and so on, and look at an output that consists of an extremely noisy handful of events per year, then I haven’t actually proved that virtually all of the random noise doesn’t cancel out and the output can’t follow the tiny delta in the input with what looks like more than half the variance explained by it. I think it’s sufficiently unlikely, though, that I’ll wait for some evidence that such a miracle has occurred before I worry about it.
“though the sign and magnitude of the changes vary a great deal”
That sounds very much to me like no consistent relationship.
“rather, as an idiot, you do not generally accept that science is correct.”
It’s quite clear from that that you do not even understand what science is, if you think that what you’re describing is science. We publish papers so they can be independently verified, to stimulate further work, to be corrected by better work and new developments, to publicly document and share the work in progress. When we are presenting polished, stable science, we write textbooks.
Papers in journals do not become science until they have withstood the test of sceptical assault. Scepticism about what other scientists say is a fundamental part of scientific method. Scientists do it on principle.
It’s dead embarrassing for you to say something so idiotic and then call me an idiot in the middle of it. Infantile, too.
“If you don’t think it’s a good thing, in a scientific discussion, to provide links to scientific papers”
What you seem to be talking about sounds more like the Scholastic method, which would only be a good thing in a Scholastic lectio discussion.
Links to scientific papers are fine as a shortcut to presenting arguments and data, but it’s the arguments and data that the results have to be judged on, not the fact that it’s in a ‘peer reviewed paper’ or written by a member of a particular group of people. Crap published in a peer reviewed journal is still crap. Science scrawled on toilet walls is still science. It’s the content, not the container that matters. Any real scientist would know that.
No, I belong to no side. Only with your childish adherence to the notion that there must be two ‘sides’ in any debate can you perceive that I do. No, you do not understand the physics and you demonstrated this nicely by claiming that standard peer-reviewed AGW climatologist theory says that general warming ought to lead to a reduction in hurricane intensity. No, the line from Emanuel (2008) does not indicate ‘no consistent relationship’. You only have to read the rest of the sentence to see what it actually indicates. And you demonstrate again that you are basically scientifically illiterate when you said The new results specifically deny the connection you claim between global warming and more hurricanes. Read everything I’ve written again, please. Can it really be so hard to understand the difference between number and intensity?
There can be many more than two sides. But people who do not take sides do not spend any time arguing about it. You spend an unhealthy amount of time here for someone who isn’t a partisan in the debate.
Of course I understand the physics. You demonstrated that you don’t by ignoring the physical argument in favour of mere quotes and references.
Emanuel is of course committed to the AGW line and isn’t going to say anything against the ‘consensus’ that might get him into trouble, (and probably wouldn’t get published if he did,) but when he finds that even the sign of the supposed relationship changes depending on where he is, the relationship is clearly not working as originally supposed. “The models are telling us something quite different from what nature seems to be telling us.” That seems clear enough.
I should have said “more intense hurricanes”, agreed. (A simple slip of the keyboard, akin to the way you confused tornadoes and cyclones.) But if the sign of the relationship is sometimes negative, the connection claimed is thereby falsified.
What a very tribal view of science you have.
And what pathetic nonsense you spout. What touching faith you have in the mysterious forces which keep everyone in climate science reading from the same page in the book. You really are quite paranoid, aren’t you?
Slip of the keyboard, was it? Emanuel (2008) actually specifically supports the connection between global warming and hurricanes that I described. So the ‘slip’ made it appear that you had completely misunderstood what I was saying, but in fact you had completely misunderstood what Emanuel was saying. Fine.
How you can think you understand the science when you said standard peer-reviewed AGW climatologist theory says that general warming ought to lead to a reduction in hurricane intensity, I have no idea. I’ve told you before you’re not competent to hold an opinion on the science, so woeful are your misunderstandings. I see nothing that makes me reconsider that view.
(bogus)Scientist writes:
“Slip of the keyboard, was it? Emanuel (2008) actually specifically supports the connection between global warming and hurricanes that I described. So the ‘slip’ made it appear that you had completely misunderstood what I was saying, but in fact you had completely misunderstood what Emanuel was saying. Fine.”
Does that mean there were NO hurricanes in the 1960’s? Or for that matter during the LIA time frame?
How did Hurricane Camille be so darn powerful in 1969.When it reached 200 mph.All the while it was in the cooling 1960’s?
How come the last 2 years were below average in number of hurricanes and that even the intensity were down.All the while according to Jimmy “censored” Hansen years 2005 and 2007 were really hot hot hot years even more so than 1998.
Surely hotter years should translate to bigger and more powerful hurricanes.Sadly they do not.That alone should make YOU wonder.
Oh dear. There is so much wrong in that post it’s difficult to know where to begin.
1. Does that mean there were NO hurricanes in the 1960’s? Or for that matter during the LIA time frame? – how on earth would that possibly follow?
2. How did Hurricane Camille be so darn powerful in 1969.When it reached 200 mph.All the while it was in the cooling 1960’s? – if you really think about it, your question might just illustrate to you the difference between ‘climate’ and ‘weather’.
3. How come the last 2 years were below average in number of hurricanes and that even the intensity were down.All the while according to Jimmy “censored” Hansen years 2005 and 2007 were really hot hot hot years even more so than 1998. – did you really not get that numbers are not correlated with sea surface temperatures? Do you really think there is an exact proportional relationship between temperature and hurricane strength? Do you understand the difference between the global average temperature and the sea surface temperature in the tropics?
4. Surely hotter years should translate to bigger and more powerful hurricanes.Sadly they do not. – your ignorance is spectacular. Read Emanuel (2005). When the seas are hotter, the power dissipated in hurricanes increases. Try not to fall into the idiot’s trap of thinking you can say anything about climate based on one year of data.
“What a very tribal view of science you have.”
Tribal? What are you talking about now? Who said anything about tribes?
“And what pathetic nonsense you spout.”
Funny!
“What touching faith you have in the mysterious forces which keep everyone in climate science reading from the same page in the book.”
What mysterious force? First tribes, now mysterious forces. What on Earth are you talking about?
Everyone in climate science doesn’t read from the same page in the book – that’s the mythical “consensus” that the politicians have invented. Quite a lot of them disagree.
“You really are quite paranoid, aren’t you?”
No. Whatever gave you that idea?
“Slip of the keyboard, was it? Emanuel (2008) actually specifically supports the connection between global warming and hurricanes that I described.”
It depends which Emanuel 2008 quote you’re talking about. The one I’m talking about is “The last 25 years’ increase may have little to do with global warming, or the models may have missed something about how nature responds to the increase in carbon dioxide.” How can he last 25 years’ increase have little to do with global warming if the models show a clear link? How is a link which sometimes has the wrong sign “clear”?
Incidentally, you haven’t commented on the quote. Do you accept it as true, or do you think Emanuel is wrong about his conclusion? Which of the alternatives he proposes do you think is more likely?
“How you can think you understand the science when you said standard peer-reviewed AGW climatologist theory says that general warming ought to lead to a reduction in hurricane intensity, I have no idea.”
I already explained that. Try paying more attention. That hurricanes are heat engines between the hot sea surface and cold air is standard meteorology. That the work done by heat engines depends on the temperature difference is standard thermodynamics. That the upper tropical troposphere will warm faster than the surface due to lapse rate water vapour feedback is so standard a prediction of AGW theory that it has been proposed as a fingerprint signature of the effect. The cold heat reservoir warming faster than the hot reservoir reduces the temperature difference, reducing the work done. Thus, it is a consequence of AGW theory that tropical cyclones should decrease in energy dissipated as a consequence of anthropogenic warming.
Precisely which step do you dispute?
“I’ve told you before you’re not competent to hold an opinion on the science, so woeful are your misunderstandings.”
Yes, I know. I found it very funny last time, too! And as I told you last time, you’re not competent to judge.
According to your standards, virtually nobody should be competent to hold an opinion on the science, which means that nearly everybody should be agnostic about it. After all, if one is not competent to have an opinion doubting it, one is not competent to have an opinion believing in it either. Do you regard Al Gore or Ted Turner as competent to have an opinion? Or politicians busily proposing green taxes? Or William Gray and Richard Lindzen?
How exactly do you judge ‘competence’, other than the obvious criterion of whether they happen to agree with you?
“I see nothing that makes me reconsider that view.”
That’s the problem. There is nothing that could get you to reconsider any of your views. Your beliefs are non-falsifiable.
If we know from the start that you’ll never accept that there might be any flaw in the climate consensus, your arguments in its favour become empty of information. Consensus position true => you speak in favour and Consensus position false => you speak in favour means that you speaking in favour conveys zero information about whether the consensus is true or not. Logically, we can dismiss your arguments without even reading them, because of your dogmatic approach. They’re only worth answering for the laughs.
The phrase you quote does not appear in the paper we’re talking about. I think you are quoting from a press release, and not the paper itself. I guess you don’t really know the difference.
Faster warming in the upper troposphere than in the lower troposphere is not a response unique to greenhouse gas forcing. Increasing solar activity would have the same effect. What made you think otherwise?
For a nice simple exposition of why your understanding of the effect of global warming on hurricane intensity is deficient, read this paper.
Time and time again, you demonstrate either an unwillingness or simply an inability to grasp basic scientific concepts. If you can’t get the basics right, why would you think you can form any kind of judgement on the scientific issues here?
And as I said before, you speak only for yourself. Drop the ‘we’. It makes you look either seriously affected or just a bit mental.
I didn’t ask whether the comment was in the paper, I asked whether you agreed with it, or you thought Emanuel was wrong in his comments on the results of his own work. Once again, you avoid the question.
“Increasing solar activity would have the same effect. What made you think otherwise?”
IPCC AR4WG1 Figure 9.1 a).
An advocate for you solar hypothesis are you now?
“For a nice simple exposition […] read this paper.”
And once again, you confuse actually holding a scientific discussion with citing papers and quoting authorities. Which step in the logic do you dispute? What’s the evidence against it?
You’re like a parrot, reciting without comprehension.
Fine. I reply with Wang, B. and Zhou, X. 2008. Climate variation and prediction of rapid intensification in tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics 99: 1-16.
The two researchers report that “over the past 40 years, the annual total of RI in the western North Pacific shows pronounced interdecadal variation but no significant trend,” noting that this fact “implies that the super typhoons had likely no upward trend in the last 40 years.” In addition, they found that “when the mean latitude, where the tropical storms form, shifted southward (either seasonally or from year to year), the proportion of super typhoon or major hurricane will increase,” noting that “this finding contrasts the current notion that higher sea surface temperature leads to more frequent occurrence of category 4 or 5 hurricanes (Emanuel, 2005; Webster et al., 2005).”
So, someone has claimed that it has no observable relationship with SST and is more likely a consequence of climate oscillations shifting weather systems around, and they’ve got away with publishing it in a peer reviewed journal!
Being published science, it is irrefutable and infallible. Right?
Some advice for you, Stevo:
1. read the journal paper, not the press release. You’ll find that the former is scientifically rather more accurate than the latter.
2. learn the difference between model simulations using estimated actual forcings, and model simulations using hypothetical forcings. The IPCC figure you quote doesn’t show what you seem to think it shows, and anyway I can’t even make sense of An advocate for you solar hypothesis are you now?
3. read up on how tropical cyclones form. The Emanuel paper from 1987 that I pointed you to describes the basic model, but if you want something even simpler, Wikipedia’s OK. The temperature profile of the atmosphere is only one factor.
4. have the wit to improve your understanding. If all the papers on hurricanes say that theoretically, global warming should lead to more intense hurricanes, then anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence would stop bizarrely claiming the opposite.
5. learn how to make HTML links. It’s really very easy.
Ummmmmmm…………
This is textbook mental:
5. learn how to make HTML links. It’s really very easy.
From the asshole above who fucked up the link above.
4. have the wit to improve your understanding.
Good God, man. Get a fucking grip. Plus, you got 4 & 5 mixed up, which is an amateur rhetorical mistake, and evidence of your scientific stupidity.
You toffee-nosed, malodorous pervert.
Mesa,
You forgot to note that I’d given him a perfectly formed html link in my first post above. (But as I expect no better from him – it seemed hardly worth mentioning.)
I prefer to avoid HTML links because the spam filter here doesn’t like them. I’ve had a couple of posts full of links to evidence vanish into the aether because of that. And anyway, I’ve no intention of doing his work for him.
I stopped the argument when I did because I thought his final post made my argument and case far better than I could. No significant new content. An obvious failure to answer the question. An obvious inability to stop appealing to authority, despite my having just made a big point of it. The continued deluded belief that science and scientists are in unanimous agreement with him, despite having just pointed out, and provided examples to show, that they’re not. It’s so weak, to any impartial observer the fight is clearly over.
As far as I was concerned, the slimy condescension seen in such close combination with the blatantly false assumption of his final point was the sweet glistening cherry perched atop a most amusing cake. What more was there to add?