JoNova

A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).

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Do Tropical Storms correlate with CO2? In a word — No

Catastrophic killer storms are coming!

‘The Australian Greens say Tropical Cyclone Yasi is a “tragedy of climate change”.’

“DESTRUCTIVE hurricanes such as Katrina and Rita are likely to be more common … Tim Flannery warns.” “These hurricanes have been a catastrophe just waiting to happen.”

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The IPCC concludes:

“Studies showed … future tropical cyclones would likely become more severe with greater wind speeds and more intense precipitation.” AR4 10.3.6.3 Tropical Cyclones (Hurricanes) pp786

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Wow, that’s scary! Let’s look at the studies:

“These studies fall into two categories: those with model grid resolutions that only roughly represent some aspects of individual tropical cyclones, and those with model grids of sufficient resolution to reasonably simulate individual tropical cyclones.”

Oh? That’s models, or er… other models?

But where are the observations?

CO2 levels have risen to the highest level in a million years, presumably Hurricanes, Tornadoes and Cyclones are at all time highs, stronger and nastier than [...]

September 6th, 2011 | Tags: , , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | Email This Post Email This Post | Comments (25)

Questions real journalists ought to be asking about Yasi

When “experts” say that cyclones and extreme storms will be more common in a warmer world, and are “linked”, “connected”, “expected”, or “definitely” due to man-made CO2 emissions, journalists could try asking some real questions.

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1. If storms are getting worse thanks to man-made CO2 emissions, why has there been no increase globally as man-made CO2 emissions rose over the last 40 years?

Last 4-decades of Global Tropical Storm and Hurricane frequency — 12-month running sums. The top time series is the number of TCs that reach at least tropical storm strength (maximum lifetime wind speed exceeds 34-knots). The bottom time series is the number of hurricane strength (64-knots+) TCs..

Source: Global Tropical Cyclone Activity Dr. Ryan N. Maue

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2. So if you admit the global trend doesn’t change, but suggest that the local or regional trends will change, which parts of the world will get fewer cyclones?

If global averages are still “average”, things have to get better somewhere else right?

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3. So if climate simulations project that Queensland will experience more cyclones, and be [...]

February 9th, 2011 | Tags: , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | Email This Post Email This Post | Comments (94)

Yasi was a monster — but not an unusual one

UPDATE:

As far as this super-cylone research goes below, if the storm surge didn’t rise to the 4m category, then Yasi wasn’t the super cyclone of the Nott studies, and the next big one is still coming.

Great news — so far — no lives lost.

I watched the coverage on the ABC last night. Significantly none of reported wind speeds I saw even came close to the forecast 300km/hr. The largest one was 138 km/hr. Presumably things must have slowed down more than expected. (Otherwise the ABC TV coverage was an endless repetition of Anna Bligh, Premier of QLD, being a newsreader and weathergirl, interspersed with “webcam” shots of the same three square meters of haggard palm fronds in Townsville).

*Max recorded wind gusts so far don’t seem to be over 185km/hr.

The Australian compares Yasi to Katrina. (Remember this story was written yesterday, and printed last night).

–Jo

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Yasi — the super cyclone that isn’t so unusual

Random shot of some coral bits on a beach.

For all the other Christine Milne’s out there, who think coal mining causes cyclones, the empirical evidence inconveniently declares that super-cyclones have been hitting Queensland regularly [...]

February 3rd, 2011 | Tags: , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | Email This Post Email This Post | Comments (102)

Hurricanes, storms take holiday too

Will a hotter world lead to more intense storms?

2010 might be on track to be the warmest ever (according to GISS), but right now, we may be about to set a new record of tropical storms — in inactivity. Ryan Maue tracks the global accumulated activity and reports that by the end of July we might break the record low we set last year.

Ryan N. Maue’s 2010 Global Tropical Cyclone Activity Update

July 15: If no additional ACE occurred in July, the 24-month global ACE total would be 1095 compared to last month at 1173. The previous 30-year low was 1091 set recently in September 2009. No lower values exist during the past 30-years.

Global and Northern Hemsiphere Tropical Cyclone Activity is near a record low

Looking at the National Hurricane Centre, it doesn’t seem like there is much activity on the way between now and the end of July.

Advisories issued for the North Atlantic, The East Pacific, The West Pacific, and the Indian Ocean are all the same:

There is no tropical storm activity for this region.

[...]

July 28th, 2010 | Tags: , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | Email This Post Email This Post | Comments (42)

Not FOUR degrees, 1.4 degrees

ADDENDUM BELOW (with answers from Christopher Monckton)

The December SPPI monthly report came out on Jan 23. As usual, it contains graphs of the latest juiciest data: sea levels, ice, sunspots, cyclones, global temperature trends and the latest papers. Here’s a few snippets that caught my eye.

Get ready for 1.4 degrees (or more… or less).

Global Temperature Trends 1981-2009

Call me a cherry picker, but going by the full satellite data record we have and drawing a simplistic straight line, we are rocketing towards 1.4 degrees of warming by 2100, (but only if that trend of the last 30 years doesn’t change, which it is, every year). For those who are new to this, there are two interpretations of the satellite data and this neatly combines both of them (UAH and RSS) and makes one wiggly line out of masses of data.  Not surprisingly, the SPPI team have chosen to ignore the surface record of airports and air-conditioners, “ground based thermometers”.

[...]

February 11th, 2010 | Tags: , , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | Email This Post Email This Post | Comments (406)