I want to say, as a modest amendment, that it is actually obvious that we have been getting a lot of large area hurricanes in the last few years. The attribution to anthropogenic forcing is very difficult; the models show a modest effect in that direction that can’t account for the observations, and there are some mysterious aspects to hurricane climatology. However, there have definitely been sprawly storms lately.
And you can;t really stress this in a science lecture, but I’d also add that confusionist claims that hurricane activity has decreased are nonsense. We had 20 named storms in the Atlantic this year! There’s an element of bad luck regarding landfall – most hurricanes do not hit the mainland. But between Irene lat year and Sandy this year, there is no basis for claiming we are in a damage hiatus either. Of course, actual facts tend not to slow some of these people down.
Christian Shorey! When I was first seriously trying to find out more about this climate change thing a few years ago I came across his podcast series. A lot of interesting stuff in there.
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I want to say, as a modest amendment, that it is actually obvious that we have been getting a lot of large area hurricanes in the last few years. The attribution to anthropogenic forcing is very difficult; the models show a modest effect in that direction that can’t account for the observations, and there are some mysterious aspects to hurricane climatology. However, there have definitely been sprawly storms lately.
And you can;t really stress this in a science lecture, but I’d also add that confusionist claims that hurricane activity has decreased are nonsense. We had 20 named storms in the Atlantic this year! There’s an element of bad luck regarding landfall – most hurricanes do not hit the mainland. But between Irene lat year and Sandy this year, there is no basis for claiming we are in a damage hiatus either. Of course, actual facts tend not to slow some of these people down.
Christian Shorey! When I was first seriously trying to find out more about this climate change thing a few years ago I came across his podcast series. A lot of interesting stuff in there.
Very cool. Thanks!
Listening to #63 in the background, a one-hour history of science!