Doomsday Climate Models Wrong Again! Hurricanes Declining…Flooding Over Europe Not More Frequent

Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue pointed out here at Twitter that hurricane activity has not lived up to the climate model projections and that major hurricanes in the 1970s and 80s were “likely underestimated”

The hurricane expert tweeted:

Over the past 4-decades, number of global HURRICANE strength tropical cyclones (about 48/year) have actually DECREASED, while MAJOR hurricane strength tropical cyclones (about 25/year) have slightly (insignificant) trended upward.”

And:

Over the past 10-years (120-months) there have been 232 major hurricane strength tropical cyclones globally. In the 10-years prior, there were 252 majors. And the 10-years before that 258 majors. We likely underestimated majors in 1970s & early 1980s prior to Hi-Res satellites.”

No trend in flooding in Europe

And at the their Die kalte Sonne site here geologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt report in Europe that floods and storms In Europe have not been more frequent, despite all the unending claims by the media.

Over the past week the German media hyped up some local, severe thunderstorms that had hit in parts of the country, causing heavy downpours and local flooding.

The media injected their usual Biblical tones in their reports.

Lüning and Vahrenholt first cite a recent study, which was even featured in detail by German DLF public radio, which tells us that the frequency and severity of heavy rain events and flooding have not increased in Europe over the past 150 years:

Severe weather in Europe: Flooding not more than in the past
When it comes to torrential rainfall and flooding, many people agree: Such things never happened in the past. But that is not true Dominik Paprotny of the University of Technology in Delft analyzed. Historical sources show that large floods are not more frequent today.”

Read more at Deutschlandfunk.de.

And DLF Nova reported:

Danger of flooding is the same as it was 150 years ago
High water and flooding in Europe has not become more frequent at all, a team of scientists in the Netherlands show. The scientists have put together a databank that looks at storms and floods back to 1870. Most international databanks go back to only to 1970.”

Read more at DLF Nova.

The study by Paprotny et al. 2018 appeared in Nature Communications and it can be downloaded free of charge as a pdf file. In the abstract:

Trends in flood losses in Europe over the past 150 years

[…] Here we utilize a gridded reconstruction of flood exposure in 37 European countries and a new database of damaging floods since 1870. Our results indicate that, after correcting for changes in flood exposure, there has been an increase in annually inundated area and number of persons affected since 1870, contrasted by a substantial decrease in flood fatalities. For more recent decades we also found a considerable decline in financial losses per year.”

Recent flare-up in honesty in media “remarkable”!

Lüning and Vahrenholt then go on to express their surprise that the DLF would present the scientific results so “honestly and without climate alarmist undertones.” and that “it is remarkable for today’s mainstream journalism”, which over the years tended to link every summer thunderstorm to Co2 emitted by man.

Flooding was worse during Little Ice Age

Next Lüning and Vahrenholt present studies showing that flooding in Central Europe and in the Alps region was even worse during the Little Ice Age than it is today, see here, here, here, and here.

Potsdam Institute contradicted

Lüning and Vahrenholt next dismiss earlier claims by the climate alarmist Potsdam Institute, which earlier claimed “robust trends” concerning “summertime dry periods and greater occurrence of flooding” in the German state of Saxony Anhalt (pdf here).

The two German skeptic scientists examined the official data from the German DWD national weather service for Saxony Anhalt, and found the following:

Summer precipitation in Sachsen Anhalt seit 1880. Data source: DWD.

Lüning and Vahrenholt summarize with four man points:

  1. The linear trend for precipitation since 1881 is zero.
  2. Summer weather in Central Europe is controlled by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), i.e. natural ocean cycles.
  3. The weather is not getting more extreme. The year-to-year differences in summertime precipitation is in fact showing a slight downward trend.
  4. In Saxony Anhalt, despite all the alarmist claims, there is no anthropogenic signal.

69 responses to “Doomsday Climate Models Wrong Again! Hurricanes Declining…Flooding Over Europe Not More Frequent”

  1. SebastianH

    A significant global increase (95% significance level) can be found in all storms with maximum wind speeds from 175 km/h. Storms of 200 km/h and more have doubled in number, and those of 250 km/h and more have tripled. Although some of the trend may be owing to improved observation techniques, this provides some evidence that a global increase in the most intense tropical storms due to global warming is not just predicted by models but already happening.

    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/05/does-global-warming-make-tropical-cyclones-stronger/

    1. Kenneth Richard

      SebastianH cites a blog founded by Michael Mann, Al Gore, and William Connolley in attempting to provide a “rebuttal”. In contrast, we cite peer-reviewed scientific papers that disagree with what the blog says…

      Klotzbach and Landsea, 2015
      http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0188.1
      [T]he global frequency of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has shown a small, insignificant downward trend [1990-2014].

      Hsu et al., 2014
      http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00417.1
      All of the counts, lifespans, and accumulated cyclone energy of the late-season typhoons during the 1995–2011 epoch decreased significantly, compared with typhoons that occurred during the 1979–94 epoch.

      Hoarau et al., 2012
      http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.2406/abstract
      There has been no trend towards an increase in the number of categories 3–5 cyclones over the last 30 years.

      Sanchez and Cavazos, 2014
      https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tereza_Cavazos/publication/260084217_Eastern_Tropical_Pacific_hurricane_variability_and_landfalls_on_Mexican_coasts/links/5554d12808ae980ca60ad2d4.pdf
      [D]uring 1970−2010 … SST in the MDR [along Mexican coasts]showed a statistically significant increase of 0.57°C over the whole period, but the frequency of HUR4−5 [intense hurricanes, Category 4 and 5] did not show a significant trend, while the frequency of HUR1−5 [weak and intense hurricanes] significantly decreased (−0.95% yr−1).

      Yoshida et al., 2017
      http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL075058/abstract
      Projected future changes in global tropical cyclone (TC) activity are assessed using 5,000 year scale ensemble simulations for both current and 4 K surface warming climates with a 60 km global atmospheric model. The global number of TCs [tropical cyclones] decreases by 33% in the future projection. Although geographical TC occurrences decrease generally, they increase in the central and eastern parts of the extra tropical North Pacific. Meanwhile, very intense (category 4 and 5) TC occurrences increase over a broader area including the south of Japan and south of Madagascar. The global number of category 4 and 5 TCs [tropical cyclones] significantly decreases, contrary to the increase seen in several previous studies.

      Wellford et al., 2017
      https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-47594-3_2
      Since the late 1800s, in contrast to much of the Southeastern USA, the Georgia coast has experienced infrequent hurricane landfalls, particularly in recent decades. As a result, coastal storm preparedness complacency appears to be rampant along the Georgia coastline. Both local and state governments were unprepared for shadow evacuation during Hurricane Floyd in 1999. The study described here includes an examination of temporal and spatial trends in hurricane landfall along the Georgia coast from 1750 to 2012. Since 1750, 18 of the 24 recorded hurricanes that made landfall along the Georgia coast occurred between 1801 and 1900, yet the hurricane intensities have declined since 1851.

      Truchelut and Staeling, 2018
      http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL076071/abstract
      The extremely active 2017 Atlantic hurricane season concluded an extended period of quiescent continental United States tropical cyclone landfall activity that began in 2006, commonly referred to as the landfall drought. We introduce an extended climatology of U.S. tropical cyclone activity based on accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) and use this data set to investigate variability and trends in landfall activity. The [hurricane landfall] drought years between 2006 and 2016 recorded an average value of total annual ACE over the U.S. that was less than 60% of the 1900–2017 average. Scaling this landfall activity metric by basin-wide activity reveals a statistically significant downward trend since 1950, with the percentage of total Atlantic ACE expended over the continental U.S. at a series minimum during the recent drought period.

      Klotzbach et al., 2018
      https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-17-0184.1
      Continental United States (CONUS) hurricane-related inflation-adjusted damage has increased significantly since 1900. However, since 1900 neither observed CONUS [Continental United States] landfalling hurricane frequency nor intensity show significant trends, including the devastating 2017 season.

      Chen et al., 2017
      http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0155.1
      Results indicate that the midlatitude summer cyclone activity over East Asia exhibits decadal changes in the period of 1979–2013 and is significantly weakened after early 1990s. … Moreover, there is a close linkage between the weakening of cyclonic activity after the early 1990s and the nonuniform surface warming of the Eurasian continent. Significant warming to the west of Mongolia tends to weaken the north–south temperature gradient and the atmospheric baroclinicity to its south and eventually can lead to weakening of the midlatitude cyclone activity over East Asia.

      1. Yonason (from a friend's comp)
      2. SebastianH

        SebastianH cites a blog founded by Michael Mann, Al Gore, and William Connolley in attempting to provide a “rebuttal”.

        I cite science from scientists. You try to “rebuttal” it by attacking the people running the website.

        In contrast, we cite peer-reviewed scientific papers that disagree with what the blog says…

        The notion that there is no contradiction seems to elude you … apparently you haven’t read the article and what the data clearly shows.

        1. Kenneth Richard

          I cite science from scientists.

          The link is to a blog post that says “due to global warming we do not necessarily expect more tropical storms overall, but an increasing number of particularly strong storms in categories 4 and 5.” This blog-post conclusion is contradicted by global-scale observational evidence that says the opposite has occurred during the last 25-30 years:

          Klotzbach and Landsea, 2015
          http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0188.1
          “[T]he global frequency of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has shown a small, insignificant downward trend [1990-2014].”

          Hoarau et al., 2012
          http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.2406/abstract
          “There has been no trend towards an increase in the number of categories 3–5 cyclones over the last 30 years.”

          Even the IPCC (2013) admitted: “In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low

          You try to “rebuttal” it by attacking the people running the website.

          Uh, in what way is identifying the people who founded the blog an “attack”? Do you consider it an “attack” if I point out that Anthony Watts founded WUWT? Of course not.

          apparently you haven’t read the article and what the data clearly shows.

          I read the blog post in full. And then I cited a few of the many peer-reviewed scientific papers that wholly contradict the blog post’s claims.

          1. SebastianH

            This blog-post conclusion is contradicted by global-scale observational evidence that says the opposite has occurred during the last 25-30 years:

            Or it is the other way around? Why do you weight your amateur posts linking to papers more than actual scientists posting links to papers and explaining the findings?

            Even the IPCC (2013) admitted: “In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low”

            Hmm, the IPCC reports also say: “We thus expect tropical cyclone intensities to increase with warming, both on average and at the high end of the scale, so that the strongest future storms will exceed the strength of any in the past.”

            Uh, in what way is identifying the people who founded the blog an “attack”? Do you consider it an “attack” if I point out that Anthony Watts founded WUWT? Of course not.

            Come on, if me calling out that something was written by a certain “scientist” is an adhom in your eyes, then your finger pointing certainly is an adhom as well.

            I read the blog post in full. And then I cited a few of the many peer-reviewed scientific papers that wholly contradict the blog post’s claims.

            And the blog post cites scientific papers that contradict your papers. Except it that blog (post) is written by actual scientists instead of you, an amateur “skeptic”.

          2. Kenneth Richard

            SebastianH: “…the IPCC reports also say: “We thus expect tropical cyclone intensities to increase with warming, both on average and at the high end of the scale, so that the strongest future storms will exceed the strength of any in the past.”

            Apparently SebastianH has some difficulty distinguishing between observational evidence (IPCC: “…confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low”) and predictions/projections/guesses of what hurricanes will look like in the future.

            The IPCC also predicted that surface temperatures would increase by 0.3 C per decade. They’ve increased by less than half that. Most people understand that the discrepancy between predictions and observations underscore that the predictions were wrong.

            Come on, if me calling out that something was written by a certain “scientist” is an adhom in your eyes

            What are you even talking about/making up now? At what point did I write that identifying the “scientist” who wrote something is an “adhom” attack? Answer: I didn’t. You’re just making stuff up again.

            RealClimate is a blog. It was founded by Michael Mann, Al Gore, and William Connolley. Pointing this out is no more an “attack” than pointing out that Anthony Watts founded WUWT.

          3. AndyG55

            WOW, Another extraordinarily EMPTY post even from, seb

            Poor petal is totally on the back foot.

            How do you manage to say basically nothing of any scientific merit or with any even slightly rational content, in such a regurgitation of verbal nonsense, seb?

          4. SebastianH

            How do you manage to say basically nothing of any scientific merit or with any even slightly rational content, in such a regurgitation of verbal nonsense, seb?

            You should ask yourself that question …

          5. tom0mason

            Surely Kenneth the UN-IPCC said it all in their only truly worthy statement of —

            The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.

            However this has never stopped them and their acolytes from making all sorts of stupid predictions and calling them projections (as if that makes any difference).

          6. AndyG55

            “You should ask yourself that question”

            When you actually produce something resembling REAL science, some actual content within your posts.. it will amaze everybody

            YOU are the one trying to convince people that your anti-science AGW-cultism is anything but a load of bollocks.

            To do that , you produce EMPTY post after EMPTY post of mindless AGW BS

            How about you try starting at the very basics , seb

            Shows us the empirical evidence that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming of the atmosphere or the oceans.

            Here is you chance to convince us all.

            Or just continue you empty, faceplanting comic routine.

    2. AndyG55

      Sorry seb

      No warming from human or other CO2.

      Not physically possible, not measured

      DOES NOT EXIST except in AGW FANTASY.

      You are welcome, as always, to provide empirical evidence that I am wrong. MASSIVE FAILURE on that front, hey seb. !!

      Only REAL anthropogenic signal is through urban warming, which does NOT affect climate except at a very local scale.

    3. tom0mason

      Seb, that’s up to your usual low standard.

      Stop commenting so much and actually read and understand what the ever patient Kenneth tells you.

      1. SebastianH

        Or: you guys read and understand what actual scientists write about the science instead of believing in that alternative reality that Kenneth and other pseudoskeptics are trying to construct.

        1. AndyG55

          Produce some of this so-called “science” seb

          You have been mind-numbingly EMPTY of any rational arguments or any real actual science for a very long time.

          Maybe start with some empirical SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE of CO2 warming anything, anywhere, anytime.

          Or just keep up your little FANTASY based rants, and do even more damage to the AGW cult/agenda.

          It really is hard to take someone like you seriously when its all a person can do NOT TO LAUGH at your low-level fairy-tales and your anti-science comedic farce.

          1. SebastianH

            It really is hard to take someone like you seriously

            It is downright impossible to take you seriously. It’s not even laughable anymore, it’s kind of sad what you “produce” (e.g. nothing). I get that “skeptics” like what you do for them, but if you are concerned about me doing damage, you should know that you aren’t helping your cause by playing the clown.

            But it’s fun to see you becoming even more deranged with every reply … so keep going, it’s good troll entertainment.

          2. Josh

            SebH has no evidence, just rhetoric and blind faith.

          3. AndyG55

            Poor empty seb

            Given chance after chance to actually PROVIDE SOME EVIDENCE..

            … but chooses to continue his clown-like, puerile, mindless, zero-science rhetoric.

            so EMPTY

            so sad

            so seb

        2. tom0mason

          No seb, the boot is on the other foot.
          You are the ignorant acolyte of the settled science brotherhood of the UN-IPCC, the egotistical promoter of nonsense, the anti-science propagandist.
          You have nothing but a useless theory, that is all.

          1. SebastianH

            You could not be more wrong …

            I believe deep down you know that you are wrong and thus whenever an opponent writes something that threatens your worldview you lash out and try to insult the hell out of him/her.

            Useless is a good word for people ignoring science and trying to call disinforming people “being a skeptic”.

          2. Kenneth Richard

            I believe deep down you know that you are wrong

            I have no idea why you keep writing this. At no time would I ever imagine that someone like tomOmason is just being dishonest with himself because he really knows that humans are responsible for melting Arctic sea ice and raising sea levels, but it is just playing games and pretending here.

            whenever an opponent writes something that threatens your worldview you lash out and try to insult the hell out of him/her.

            Has it ever occurred to you that this is exactly what you are doing, SebastianH? Name-calling, insults (“disinformers” “conspiracy theorists” “ignoring science” “pseudoscience” “junk science”), and concocting straw-man arguments is about as “substantive” as it gets.

            When was the last time you actually responded to the substance of an article posted here…or cited something other than a blog like RealClimate?

          3. tom0mason

            “Useless is a good word for people ignoring science and trying to call disinforming people “being a skeptic”.”

            No seb I enjoy recycling, and freely recycle your insults and [none snipped [snip] of prefossilized coprolite

            It’s yet another way I try to wind you up (and it works), as it is my amusement, for you have nothing else to offer. You are just a climate clown (just recycling your old epithet) 😉 .

  2. Steve

    For SebH…there is no anthropogenic signal. None Zip

    1. tom0mason

      @Steve 5. June 2018 at 10:30 PM

      Nice try however as seb has proved so many times, he’s beyond convincing, for he is a true believer. It matter not how irrational or anti-science his words.
      He probably feels he is blessed duty to crusade this skeptical portal, and ‘correct’ our ideas, to redeem us, and show us the path to real scientific stupidity. Either that or he’s paid to be here!

      He believes! Which is could be seen as admirable for a religious, or political, zealots but lost in matters of science.

      1. SebastianH

        Just wow … now you guys are just babbling stuff and project your own shortcomings onto an opponent.

        There is indeed no convincing with you guys.

        1. AndyG55

          “There is indeed no convincing with you guys.”

          Poor EMPTY seb

          Maybe you should try some actual SCIENCE for a change, instead of your mindless blathering.

          We are all STILL waiting for you to produce any empirical evidence that enhance atmospheric CO2 does anything except enhance plant growth.

          SCIENCE, seb.. not mindless AGW propaganda pap.

          Try it, just once.. if you can.

          1. SebastianH

            Science, AndyG55? Like all your claims? 😉

            You are just a troll trying to annoy opponents instead of adding anything to a conversation. It’s working.

          2. AndyG55

            So, as predicted, seb continues the mindless bluster he has been reduced to

            Chooses to continue to PRODUCE ZERO SCIENCE, in his FAILED efforts to convince nobody but himself..

            so EMPTY

            so sad

            but that is seb .

            We are all STILL waiting for you to produce any empirical evidence that enhance atmospheric CO2 does anything except enhance plant growth.

            WHERE IS IT , seb. !!!

        2. Josh

          SebH we are unconvinced by the pseudoscientific garbage that is peddled by those in the alarmist camp. Contributors to this site and commentary have been very patient with you.

        3. tom0mason

          Seb,
          Convince us of your anti-science nonsense — no!
          You are just an empty vessel promoting and propagandizing for the ‘settle science’ brethren, and their laughable idea that in essence attempts to say that changes in climate are caused by humans.
          You have nothing but blather, incredible theory and distortions of evidence.
          You are the disinformer here.

          1. tom0mason

            Seb,

            You are correct, most people here are not convinced by your anti-science blather.

            That said, how long will it take to convince you, or for you to realize, that you offer nothing to the scientific discourse here, you are just the freaky sideshow amusement and not taken seriously.

            The more you blather-on the less convincing you sound.

    2. AndyG55

      Still waiting for seb to show us where this mythical anthropogenic warming signal is.

      None in the satellite data.

      (just El Ninos from SOLAR forced ocean warming.. DWLWR CANNOT warm water from above.. slight cooling effect from evaporation.. measured, proven)

      None in hurricane data, as shown above

      None in sea levels, they are actually decelerating.

      https://s19.postimg.cc/4wrz7pcmb/Sea_leve_slowsPuls_2.jpg

      Yes, there is an anthropogenic signal in GISS and its bed-fellows.. but that is not real temperatures but a remnant of fabrication, infilling and spread UHI effects.

      So..

      Where is this proven anthropogenic global warming effect??

      1. Josh

        I’ve lost count of how many times you have asked supertroll SebH to provide proof and data to support his ideas. He of course has none.

    3. Yonason (from a friend's comp)

      No sign of intelligent life, anyway…
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfWD1voJS_w

    4. Yonason (from a friend's comp)

      AGW in the ER.

      Rumors of it’s survival are based on wishful thinking.

      1. tom0mason

        🤣 LOL! 🙂

  3. Robert Folkerts
    1. AndyG55

      chuckle, we must have posted about the same time , Robert. 🙂

      Going to happen with everything going through the mods. 🙂

    2. Yonason

      Very nice article Robert (and Andy)!!!

      No wonder the troll activists are in such intense denial.

      Then, after their grieving, how will they can console themselves, while annoying others? No doubt with the next activist fad du jour, whatever that will be.

  4. AndyG55

    A brilliant article

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-05/berkeley-scholar-admits-climate-change-has-run-its-course

    He is talking about how ultra-leftists have co-opted and destroy the AGW meme.

    He is referring to people like our resident SJW trollette.

    The descent of climate change into the abyss of social-justice identity politics represents the last gasp of a cause that has lost its vitality. Climate alarm is like a car alarm – a blaring noise people are tuning out.

  5. Bitter&twisted

    DNFTT

    1. Josh

      Good advice but sometimes we just can’t help it lol

  6. AndyG55

    WOW, a few days earlier than I expected

    DMI Arctic sea ice volume, 2018 has just leapfrogged over 2006 and 2007.

    Now more sea ice than ALL year back to and including 2006.

    1. SebastianH

      Where do you get your data from? The DMI graph for today shows the volume at below the average of 2004-2013. http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/images/FullSize_CICE_combine_thick_SM_EN_20180605.png

      What is your prediction for the lowest volume this year? 9 million km³ as in 2006? Or something below 5 million km³ like in more recent years? Or will it bei more like 15 million km³ like in the 80s?

      1. AndyG55

        Poor seb

        IGNORANT of where to get basic data from.

        I thought you were the “KNOW IT ALL” of AGW. !!

        Get over yourself seb

        You are a NON-ENTITY

        Are you STILL DENYING that current Arctic sea ice levels are in the TOP 10% of the last 10,000 years?

        Still DENYING that the LIA was the coldest anomaly I 10,000 years , and that the current temps are but a molehill above that, and well below most of the last 10,000 years except that LIA anomaly ?

        Go and FIND the actual DMI data, then get back to us once you have done the data check, sad little seb.

      2. AndyG55

        Poor seb

        LACKING in data .. AS ALWAYS!

        roflmao !!

        Minimum extent will probably be in the 5-8 Mkm² range, depending on the weather between now and then.

        A FAR HIGHER minimum than for most of the last 10,000 years

    2. AndyG55

      Apart from the FACT that DMI Arctic ice data shows 2018 ABOVE all years back to and including 2006..

      What is also of great interest is the steep downward trend of the “yearly melt”

      Take the early in the year maximum for each year and subtract the minimum yearly volume later in the year.

      You get this graph

      https://s19.postimg.cc/qgyx9pj03/DMI_yearly_melt.png

      There is LESS and LESS melt each year

  7. Mary Brown

    SebastianH quotes a blog post from Stefan Rahmstorf, Kerry Emanuel, Mike Mann and Jim Kossin saying that strong hurricane winds have significantly increased. The journals and actual data I see only show little or no increase in strong storms and a decline in overall ACE.

    Who to believe?

  8. Hurrikan-Saison 2018: Experten erwarten Durchschnitt – Nordatlantik kalt – wobleibtdieglobaleerwaermung

    […] Quelle: Doomsday Climate Models Wrong Again! Hurricanes Declining…Flooding Over Europe Not More Frequent […]

  9. fah

    I recommend folks talking about this get the best track data used in the blog article themselves and look at it. It is available from the best track site. I tried posting the link but for some reason the comment did not show.

    The full data set used by the blog article in question is available. It is a bit large, but can be manipulated fairly easily on a small computer. It takes a little trouble to extract the greatest wind speed reported for each unique storm but once you do, it is easy enough to look at the data. I did it with Matlab easily.

    The blog article does not specify exactly what wind speed bins were used, but it doesn’t matter that much. The article also does not say precisely how they defined “frequency” but it seems fair enough to use number per year within a given wind speed bin. They don’t say that they used any moving averages. They also don’t say exactly what they mean by “trend” but it is a good guess they mean a simple linear regression over time of the bin counts.

    In any event, once you get the data you can look at the time behavior of number of storms per year in each wind speed bin. I recommend you look at it yourself and then talk about it. What you will see is that the higher wind speed bins seem to show a couple of years in the 2000 to 2005 time frame that had one or two more storms than other years. Otherwise the behavior is fairly flat. The “trend” slope one gets is entirely dependent on the beginning and end year chosen because the trends are dominated by the one or two outlier years. If one chooses 1979 as a start, one gets an upward trend, solely due to the one or two storms in the middle. If one starts at 2000, one gets a downward trend. If one drops the outlier, one gets a flat behavior. If one tests whether the time behavior is a random walk, one gets that it cant be ruled out. The “statistical significance” of the trends is an illusory artifact of the leverage of the outliers.

    But don’t believe me or anyone else. By all means look at this data and make up your own mind.

    1. tom0mason

      @ fah 6. June 2018 at 8:16 PM,

      Well said, you show more sense than most.

      1. fah

        Feynman said it well: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

  10. Jacob Frank

    Hey Seb I don’t agree with you but I do have to respect you, you obviously aren’t a bot and you hang in there with determination and take your licks. All of us here are CO2 lovers like William Happer and you give us plenty of ammunition.

    I do wish you the best as a person and besides our disagreement about CO2 I’d imagine your a pretty cool dude to hang out with.

    Now back to the war!!

  11. Yonason

    What did NOAA know, and when did they NOAA it???

    https://climatechangedispatch.com/noaa-nhc-scientist-dont-link-hurricanes-global-warming/amp/

    “There’s no statistical change over a 130-year period. Since 1970, the number of hurricanes globally is flat.”

  12. RAH

    And is sure looks like at least the first half of the Atlantic hurricane season will be a bust this year. Near record low SSTs and heavy dust off the African coast in the MDR.

    But the Typhoon season looks like will be active in the NW Pacific. So things this year are looking like they will be pretty much the opposite of last year in the NH.

    Global ACE ended up only 78% of the average in 2017.

  13. Alan Siddons

    The Utter Stupidity Of Climate Scientists
    http://tech-know-group.com/essays/Stupidity.pdf

  14. M E

    Rather than act as an outlet for pent-up frustration, researchers found that trolling actually ended in negative psychological outcomes for the troll, even though they were the perpetrator.
    …….
    http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/who-are-internet-trolls-psychologists-build-a-profile

    I often look at this blog but find the comments spoiled by Sebastian. Since he doesn’t persuade anyone by his comments he must be activated by something else.
    There are others of the same ilk of course . http://babylonbee.com/news/new-animal-planet-show-to-feature-atheist-trolls-in-native-habitat/
    What to do?
    Maybe set up a blog where trolls can troll each other. “Atheists against Global Warmers” is a good theme.
    Lets just discuss the post on this blog. It could be of interest.

    1. Yonason

      TROLL DISPOSAL

      Some years ago I recall a blogger (can’t remember which) who wouldn’t delete the trolls, but redirected them to a bargain basement side-show section of his blog. Anyone who wanted could read them there. It kept the main traffic area clear of their nonsense, while still giving them a voice.

      Possible names: Troll Tank, The Dungeon, Cess Pool, Septic Tank, etc., …

      I don’t know how practical it would be in this case to have a troll mud wrestlers den. If it is, that might keep the noise down to a manageable level.

      NOTE – not saying that should be for everyone who disagrees, just those whose fact free ranting exceeds some predetermined nuisance level.

    2. AndyG55

      Seb certainly has some other deviant, mentally distorted reason for being here.

      I doubt even he has any real clue why he keeps up with his weird zero-science rantings.

      He has certainly been a total FAILURE at any sort of convincing anyone of his fairy-tales.

      And he KNOWS that.. .. he doesn’t even try any more.

      A lonely sad little non-existence, wasted on base-level trolling.

      I suspect its just his ONLY method of getting any attention from anyone, at all.

  15. garyh845
    1. Yonason

      Nope. – Hurricane Harvey was held over Houston by weather patterns around it. It has nothing to do with CO2 or alleged warming.
      https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/harvey-and-irma-cant-be-blamed-climate-change

      See here for a long term study that shows why the hype over Harvey is not warranted.
      http://www.c3headlines.com/2018/04/fiji-scientists-establish-relationship-between-modern-co2-emissions-severe-flooding-failed-prediction.html

      1. SebastianH

        Hey, of course the hurricane was slowed down by a single CO2 molecule that said something akin to “you shall not pass” towards the storm. But seriously, changing weather patterns have something to do with how the climate changes.

        P.S.: Why are you calling the warming “alleged warming”?

        1. garyh845

          Harvey moved rapidly all the way across the Atlantic – then all the way across the Caribbean and the Yucatan Peninsula and then broke apart. Reformed, made the turn north, crossed the Gulf and hit a wall.

          What made it move so rapidly for thousands of miles across the Atlantic?

          1. Yonason (from a friend's comp)

            “What made it move so rapidly for thousands of miles across the Atlantic?” – garyh845

            It had a deadline to meet

  16. fah

    Another instructive look at the data, given one has downloaded the best track data used by the blog article which is the topic of this thread, is to examine the distribution of the storm wind speeds. Like many occurrence count distributions which are bounded below at zero, and for which the energy involved increases non-linearly with increasing variable value (wind speed), the distribution of wind speeds per time interval is fairly well described by a lognormal distribution.

    A quick and easy thing to do once one has the data, is to evaluate the mean and standard deviation of the lognormal distributions of wind speeds per time interval. I did this for the decades beginning at 1986, 1996, and 2006 and ending at 2016. This comes almost up to the current record of 2017 and goes almost down to 1979. In Matlab this means doing three simple commands such as

    [parmhat1,parmci1] = lognfit(maxwind(nyrx>1986&nyrx<=1996))

    which outputs in parmhat the mean and standard deviation of the lognormal that fits the data. In parmci, it outputs the 95% confidence intervals of the parmhat estimates. There are about 1000 storms per decade bin.

    Here are the values for the best track data for the three decades, 1986-1996,1996-2006, and 2006-2016:

    parmhat1 = 4.70 0.430 (Recall these are the mean and standard deviation)
    parmci1 = 4.68 0.412 (Recall these are the 95 % confidence intervals)
    4.73 0.450

    parmhat2 = 4.70 0.450
    parmci2 = 4.68 0.431
    4.73 0.470

    parmhat3 = 4.70 0.467
    parmci3 = 4.67 0.447
    4.73 0.488

    These values are given to three significant digits, which matches the wind speed precision. The mean wind speeds for each decade are about exp(4.7) = 110 km/h, which is a tropical storm. A 2 sigma wind speed would be about exp(4.7+2*.45) ~ 270 km/h, which is a Cat 5. Some workers define an outlier as a data point above 2*sigma and it is fairly well known that the distribution of outliers should be uniform over time, for many distributions. So defined, the number of outliers in each of the three decade intervals is 3, 5, and 5. Presumably one could claim that the past 2 decades have seen the largest number of outliers "evah", but the statistics underlying that claim would be a bit weak, and one might be in danger of violating Feynman's first principle. It takes a fairly long time interval of observation to conclude anything about outlier frequency. I think this is a point one of the Pielke's have made a few times.

    Just looking at the values, it is apparent that the means for each decade are essentially the same, with virtually identical confidence intervals. The standard deviations appear to drift up with time a bit. Whether this is due to reporting statistics or some underlying phenomenon is perhaps something to talk about, but just remember Feynman's first principle.

    1. fah

      I may have a little ammunition for SebH, however unwelcome that might be here. My last post gave the value for means, but actually it was the median. The means actually do drift up slightly per decade: 121, 122, and 123 km/h for the three decades respectively, a slight trend up. Also, looking at the 95% percentile value of max wind speed for each decade, those values are 223, 231, and 238 km/h respectively for each decade. Taking a simple linear trend for the 95% values over time gives a slight trend up of 0.71 km/h per year, with little scatter about the line. These trends are slight but positive. There may be a leg to stand on arguing something about these quantities increasing, but the increase is much smaller than alleged in the blog article in question. The issue is not clearly black and white.

      As always, don’t believe me. Look at the data yourself.

  17. Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #318 | Watts Up With That?
  18. Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #318

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