HURRICANE INTENSITY SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER THAN 100 YEARS AGO?

In further reference to the "Hurricane Maybes" article I mentioned yesterday, Benny Peiser (b.j.peiser@ljmu.ac.uk) writes:

"What strikes me about the latest Science study on hurricane intensity (see here and here) is the apparent failure to assess whether similar periods of storm intensity were observed in the past. This question is, of course, relevant for anyone who wishes to associate the rise in hurricane intensity with global warming. After all, if similar periods of 'intense' cyclone and hurricane activity occured when global mean temperatures were significantly lower than today, the alleged correlation between the current warming and storm intensity would be highly questionable.

I had a look at NOAA's historical hurricane statistics and found that the late 19th century appears to be a period of higher hurricane intensity (as measured by "Accumlated Cyclone Energy") compared to the late 20th century. I have attached the empirical evidence (two 35-year sets of ACE data) below and welcome any comments on the validity and possible implications of this comparison.

Accumlated Cyclone Energy (combines the numbers of systems, how long they existed and how intense they became):

1969-2003...........1877-1911
..........ACE....................ACE

1969 158........... 1877 73
1970 34............ 1878 181
1971 97............ 1879 64
1972 28............ 1880 131
1973 43............ 1881 59
1974 61............ 1882 63
1975 73............ 1883 67
1976 81............ 1884 72
1977 25.............1885 58
1978 62............ 1886 166
1979 91............ 1887 182
1980 147.......... .1888 85
1981 93.............1889 104
1982 29............ 1890 33
1983 17............ 1891 116
1984 71............ 1892 116
1985 88............ 1893 231
1986 36............ 1894 135
1987 34............ 1895 69
1988 103........... 1896 136
1989 135.......... .1897 55
1990 91............ 1898 113
1991 34............ 1899 150
1992 75............ 1900 84
1993 39............ 1901 93
1994 32............ 1902 33
1995 227........... 1903 102
1996 166........... 1904 25
1997 40............ 1905 28
1998 182............1906 163
1999 177............1907 13
2000 116........... 1908 95
2001 106........... 1909 92
2002 66............ 1910 64
2003 175........... 1911 36

35y average
86.6 ACE........ 93.9 ACE

So on that historical data, total hurricane energy was LESS in the late 20th and early 21st centuries than in the late 19th and early 20th. centuries.




MORE ON LONG-TERM HURRICANE TRENDS

Feisty Scottish blogger Neil Craig has managed to get a letter published in his local Glasgow newspaper as follows:

"It appears from media reports & Herald letters (2nd Sept) that the New Orleans debacle & rises in US petrol prices are going to blamed on global warming. This may be a marginal improvement from the era when King James VI & I blamed storms on witches but that is about all that can be said for it.

In fact it is clear that since records began (1851) the last decade has had a smaller than average number of hurricanes & that the highest point was in the 1941-50 decade. Like so many global warming stories the evidence disappears when you look properly at it.

To blame warming for the oil price hike in America is even more ridiculous. In fact oil shortage is caused by a shortage of refining capacity. For several years US refineries have been working at nearly 100% capacity - a situation that led several oil companies to propose building new or replacement refineries for reasons which must now be all to obvious. It was the Green/Luddite lobby which prevented refineries being built & it is therefore them, not putative warming, which is responsible for this part of the crisis.

It is obvious that this is a story that is going to get an inordinate amount of coverage in the next months. Already we see more reportage in one day of New Orleans than we have seen in six years of the 6 thousand genocidal murders carried out under NATO authority in Kosovo. It is therefore important that the facts be reported correctly rather than being spun into yet another anti-technology scare story".

The most interesting bit however was the table of official statistics about hurricane frequencies that Neil dug up. I reproduce the major findings from it below. The first column gives the total number of hurricanes in each decade and the second gives the number of major hurricanes. Can you see a trend there? Maybe there is but, if so, it is exactly the opposite of what the Greenies are proclaiming. Both total hurricanes and major hurricanes are if anything becoming FEWER. You have to have a lot of faith to be a Greenie:

Decade......Total...Major

1851-1860.....19.....6
1861-1870.....15.....1
1871-1880.....20.....7
1881-1890.....22.....5
1891-1900.....21.....8
1901-1910.....18.....4
1911-1920.....21.....7
1921-1930.....13.....5
1931-1940.....19.....8
1941-1950.....24....10
1951-1960.....17.....8
1961-1970.....14.....6
1971-1980.....12.....4
1981-1990.....15.....5
1991-2000.....14.....5
2001-2004......9.....3





Linking Katrina to 'Global Warming' Called 'Shameless'

"Environmentalists seeking to form a link between Hurricane Katrina and any human-caused climate change are engaged in "shameless opportunism," according to a spokesman for the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis. "That is pure politics," the Center's Sterling Burnett told Cybercast News Service Wednesday, 16 days after the hurricane demolished Gulf Coast towns in Louisiana and Mississippi and breached levees in New Orleans, resulting in the flooding of almost the entire city. "The science is pretty consistent in saying that we are seeing some increased hurricanes right now and it has nothing to do with climate change," Burnett said. "It has to do with natural cycles that fluctuate on the order of 10 to 30 years."

Burnett held a briefing at the National Press Club on Wednesday to release a study entitled "Living with Global Warming." The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) alleges that the costs of trying to prevent global warming far exceed any potential benefits. Burnett singled out environmentalists like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who wrote the day after the hurricane hit New Orleans that "Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children" by failing to support treaties like the Kyoto Protocol.

The European Commission, the World Bank and some world leaders have also warned that U.S. failure to support the Kyoto Protocol, aimed at reducing greenhouse gases thought by many scientists to cause "global warming," will make future hurricanes worse. "They (environmentalists) should be ashamed of themselves. People living along the coast have enough to worry about," Burnett said. He added that green groups should stop "diverting attention from the real problems with hurricanes by pointing them towards chimera and ghosts -- these mythical things that they say are causing hurricanes.

"We should be directing our attention to the real problems these people face, helping people on the ground rather than squandering billions of dollars trying to prevent a marginal increase in global temperature, which will have no effect on hurricanes," he added. The Kyoto Protocol will also be prohibitively expensive for participating countries, Burnett argued, costing them an estimated $165 billion a year.

But David Tuft, campaign director for the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate Center, said Hurricane Katrina was "an indicator" of future hurricanes if nothing is done to halt climate change.....

But Burnett of the NCPA noted that there were more severe hurricanes in the 1920s, 40s and 50s than in the 1990s. "According to climate scientists, we go through peaks and lulls of hurricanes. That's a natural cycle," Burnett said. "We know that hurricanes are going to happen no matter what we do. We should deal with them smarter in the future by not putting as many [people] at risk."

Increased hurricane activity and the tragic results from those hurricanes will probably last for another decade, Burnett said, "and it will have nothing to do with climate change. "It has to do with oscillations of the ocean," he added".

More here

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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