Climate Change causes a remarkable decline in cyclones in the Indian Ocean

By Jo Nova

43% fewer cyclones is a good thing, right?

Using the same ClimateChangeTM reasoning the UN Secretary General uses, it’s clear fossil fuel use dramatically reduces the number of dangerous cyclones in the Northern Indian Ocean. A new study revealed an astonishing 43% decline in the number of equatorial cyclones in recent decades (1981–2010) compared to earlier (1951–1980) when fossil fuel use was vastly reduced. The researchers also point out that this is especially interesting because “the Indian Ocean basin has warmed consistently and more than any other ocean basin.” Could it be that warmer oceans are not necessarily terrible?

The study looked at the Low-Latitude Cyclones (LLC) that originate near the equator in the North Western Indian ocean. These LLC’s are smaller but intensify more rapidly than other cyclones, giving people less time to prepare. In 2017 LLC Ockhi caught forecasters off guard, travelled 2,000 kilometers and caused the deaths of 884 people in Sri Lanka and India.

This is obviously a benefit for the billion poor people who live around the Bay of Bengal. The researchers however, for some reason do not call for an increase in fossil fuel emissions. Instead they looked for and found natural causes that they claim caused the shift — pointing at a link with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).  (Apparently climate change only causes bad trends).

 

Indian Ocean cyclones are reduced with Global Warming.

Click to enlarge.  Nature 

Thanks to Oldbrew at Tallbloke’s

The researchers were a little perplexed:

We conclude that the recent epoch (epoch-2, 1981–2010) has seen a remarkable decline in the post-monsoon LLC frequency over the north Indian Ocean in comparison with the earlier epoch (epoch-1, 1951–1980). This decline in LLC frequency (Fig. 1) cannot be attributed to an increasing SST and oceanic heat content and nearly unchanged mid-tropospheric humidity.

They quietly admit the climate models were wrong without actually saying as much. Esteemed experts in at least six peer reviewed papers had predicted that warmer oceans at this temperature would generate cyclones  that would get more frequent and more intense, and yet the opposite happened:

The warming SST, which is much above the SST threshold (26 °C) for cyclogenesis19, is expected to support an increase in frequency and intensity of TCs20,21,22,23,24,25, yet the number of BoB LLCs has decreased (Fig. 1).

In the press release we see great moments in science-writing in an attempt not to say the obvious:

Study shows a decrease in Indian Ocean cyclones

While the threat of tropical cyclones increases around the world, a new study published in Nature Communications shows one area experienced a significant decline in cyclone activity. But, with recent changes in climatic patterns in the Pacific, the number of cyclones is expected to increase in the coming decades.

In the presence of warming along the equator and a favorable phase of the PDO, both the intensity and frequency of such cyclones are expected to increase. The paper notes the changes in tropical cyclonic activity due to natural variability and climate change call for appropriate planning and mitigation strategies.

“There has been a decline close to the equator, but there has been an increase at the same time away from the equator, in the Indian Ocean,” Ray said. “Overall, there is a decline definitely, but the decline is not this high, because there was an increase away from the .”

Years from now scholars will uncover press releases like this and remark just how pervasive and obvious the bias in science literature was.

Where are the headlines? A Google News search today shows that in the seven days since the press release came out, exactly no mass media outlets have reported this good news.

Warmist ‘science’ will need to define,
Why carbon dioxide is malign,
Causing extreme typhoons,
Hurricanes and monsoons,
When cyclones are much in decline.

— Ruairi

REFERENCE

Roose, S., Ajayamohan, R.S., Ray, P. et al. Pacific decadal oscillation causes fewer near-equatorial cyclones in the North Indian Ocean. Nat Commun 14, 5099 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40642-x

 

9.9 out of 10 based on 75 ratings

67 comments to Climate Change causes a remarkable decline in cyclones in the Indian Ocean

  • #
    David Maddison

    Bring back devastating weather events!

    /sarc

    You could get warmists to sign a petition for that!

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  • #
    Honk R Smith

    This is obviously anthropogenic.
    A decreasing increase in forcing of intensification of a positive feedback loop, looping negatively towards declining inclusion and acceptance of post industrial narrative amplification.

    450

  • #
    David Maddison

    Tony Heller has spoken about the documented decrease in extreme weather events and deaths from them (despite more people living in inappropriate places) and also a decrease in US forest fires.

    It’s hard to find such information in a Goolag search because you get extremely biased anti-science search results and pages attacking Tony Heller, who has been shadow banned by YouTube/Goolag, although they will throw in the occasional pro-science result to hide what they’re doing.

    Such information doesn’t conform with the Official Narrative™.

    The Left does Science-by-Censorship™ and Consensus™.

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  • #
    Honk R Smith

    This research is based on ocean picked data.

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    • #
      ivan

      are you sure of that? To me it looks more like the ‘so called scientists’ have been playing computer games again.

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  • #
    Greg in NZ

    New study: Experts believe equator warming twice as fast as all other regions warming twice as fast as everywhere else because carbon.

    Our Valentine’s Day Storm is still being referred to as ‘Cyclone Gabrielle’ even though it was downgraded to a low 48 hours (2 days) before arriving on these shores, while both Fiji & Samoa had ZERO cyclones this year… Hush, not a word, Mary.

    Climate Science = Cult Religion.

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  • #
    Steve

    The models are correct, until they’re not.

    100

  • #

    Yes Jo, good news but in our Leftist dominated world the “black arm band” view of everything is now the default.

    Some years back I had to agree with Paul Keating (not one of my favourite people) when he questioned why there was a continual atmosphere of crisis being generated. He was referring to politics, but with virtually all journalists, bureaucrats, pollies and most public figures now espousing Leftist madness it has crept into everything.

    This is mass insanity as it is simply not true at all. In fact the huge danger comes not from climate change, racism, covid etc etc but from these leftists with their emotional, irrational and deeply pessimistic world view.

    We have always had the village idiots with us, but when the lunatics take over the asylum then we can only expect disasterous results as the Leftist “solutions” to non existent or small issues cause catastrophic and far worse impacts…

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    • #
      Gerry

      In the absence of being excited, kind and content with life, most of us require feeling fear and disgust so we can feel alive.

      80

    • #
      Muzza

      It is exactly as the Marxists planned. Sowing dissension amongst the Plebs justifies more Totalitarian controls to be introduced, more censorship etc.

      40

  • #
    Neville

    We live in the greatest and longest period of Human FLOURISHING in the last 200,000 years and yet we only hear crickets from the MSM, so called scientists, pollies and all of the other mad Malthusians like, Gore, Biden, Ehrlich, Obama , Holdren etc.
    And never forget that in the Aussie region there has been a lower trend for SEVERE and NON SEVERE cyclones since 1970. See the BOM data I’ve linked to many times.

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  • #
    Robber

    Please send more money so we can do even more modelling.
    Look at this map of Indian Ocean temperatures – it’s nearly on fire 🙂

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  • #
    Neville

    AGAIN here’s the BOM Aussie region cyclone trend at the link.
    See the graph since 1970.

    http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml

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  • #
    RickWill

    The Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea have been reaching the maximum sustainable temperature of 30C well before Jesus was in short pants. There may be a slight increase in the overall area reaching 30+C before the monsoon sets in. But no where over this region can sustain more than 30C.

    The new action is in the Mediterranean, which is only now nudging the 30C limit and building enough atmospheric moisture to reach sufficient convective potential to spin up a cyclone.

    Greece was hit by rain from a self-perpetuating convective storm this week (so called Medicane). It is now dissipating and unlikely to drop much water on Africa but it covers the entire latitudinal extent of the Med south of Italy’s foot:
    https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-334.90,32.83,598/loc=19.761,35.984

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    • #
      Peter C

      Thanks Rick,
      The Mediterranean storm is still very gradually dissipating. The nullschool graphic is fascinating. It is most interesting to see that wind speeds are much higher over water than over land.
      The winds feed in from the Black Sea via the Sea of Marmara, the Aegean Sea and the Ionian Sea. Also from the eastern Med and the Tyrrhenian Sea.

      10

  • #
    Neville

    AGAIN Willis Eschenbach studied all of the DATA for all of their so called Climate Emergencies and found SFA to worry about.
    He updates this SOURCE and proves that we live in the SAFEST PERIOD in Human history and yet the MAD Malthusians still BELIEVE in mental midgets like Biden, Gore and Kerry?
    See Willis’ data links on extreme weather events like cyclones, tornadoes, droughts, floods etc and understand that DEATHS from these events have fallen off a cliff over the last 100 years.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/

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  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Great science, bad extrapolation, leading to unsupported assertions.

    The Bay of Bengal is not the world, the climate is not uniform, asserting that historical (the research does not include the last ten years, why is that do you think) measurements in one relatively small region are significant to what is occurring globally.

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    • #
      MP

      Tropical cyclones are occurring less frequently around the world due to climate change, Australian scientists have found.
      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-28/cyclone-frequency-decline-worldwide-climate-change/101189558

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    • #
      Neville

      PF wake up to yourself and follow the accurate GLOBAL OWI Data and evidence.
      AGAIN just 2.5 billion at risk in 1950, but 5.5 billion more people at risk today. THINK for yourself.

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    • #
      crakar24

      And despite all that randomness you mention you still claim to be able to predict climate 100 years out with utmost accuracy, time to wake up Peter.

      120

    • #
      Gary S

      You can bet London to a brick that had there been GREATER cyclonic activity in the Bay of Bengal, THAT would have been claimed as evidence of global warming, though. It’s not a two way street as we all know.

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    • #
      Maptram

      Exactly. A few weeks ago there was news about record high temperatures in the Southern European and North African region, as if that was the whole world. No mention of any increase to the dreaded world average temperature, which would have also been news if it happened. No mention either of the record low temperatures in the Antarctic.

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    • #
      el+gordo

      ‘Great science, bad extrapolation …’

      its quite clear from the data that the Northern Hemisphere cooled from the end of WW2 until the great climate shift of 1976, which then produced a warming trend.

      There must be some kind of teleconnection.

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    • #
      el+gordo

      Roose et al say there is decreased frequency of cyclones due to weakened low level vorticity modulated by the PDO. Vertical wind shear is also increasing.

      I’ll take a punt, when the PDO is fairly negative we should expect an increase in Indian Ocean cyclones.

      20

  • #
    Neville

    Just look at the OWI Data for DEATHS since 1900 from all NATURAL DISASTERS and note the huge drop in numbers since 1950.
    And just 2.5 billion in 1950 and 8 + billion at risk today and the latest data is more accurate than 70 or 100 years ago.
    AGAIN we live in the SAFEST period for Humans in the last 200,000 years.

    https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/natural-disasters?facet=none&country=~OWID_WRL&hideControls=true&Disaster+Type=All+disasters&Impact=Deaths&Timespan=Annual&Per+capita=false

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  • #
    Neville

    Here OWI Data show DECADAL deaths from all NATURAL DISASTERS since 1900 and again note the huge decadal decline in the last 60 years.
    Of course deaths from floods and droughts were the big risks from 1900 to 1960.
    AGAIN deaths from EXTREME events have dropped by at least 95% over the last 100 years.
    So why do so many of our STUPID elites + MSM IGNORE the accurate DATA?

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/decadal-deaths-disasters-type

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  • #
    crakar24

    We have moved on from “more cyclones” we are now up to “climate boiling” and “lethal humidity” do try and keep up

    180

  • #
    Neville

    AGAIN here’s the death rates from fires and burns from selected WEALTHY countries from 1990 to 2019.
    Note also that deaths are declining around the world for all countries and Australia has the LOWEST death rates compared to other wealthy and COLDER countries since 1990.

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fire-death-rates?tab=chart&country=LBY~OWID_WRL~BRA~CHN~NZL~USA~AUS~CAN~CUB~DNK~FRA~DEU~NLD~NOR~SWE~GBR

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  • #
    Neville

    AGAIN standardised deaths since 1990 from ALL CAUSES are falling all around the world.
    Italy just beats Australia and the WORLD has dropped from 1113 deaths per 100,000 in 1990 to just 735 deaths today. AGAIN just unbelievable but true. Just check the active graphs for yourselves.
    So where is this EXISTENTIAL Human THREAT the liars and con merchants keep warning us about?

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/age-standardized-deaths-from-all-causes?tab=chart&country=BRN~ITA~USA~COD~DEU~AUT~CHN~EGY~AUS~GBR~OWID_WRL~NZL

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  • #
    Ross

    There’s an Australian link to the whole cyclone climate change scare campaign. David Karoly was the Australian meteorologist co- author of “Natural disasters” chapter of the 2007 IPCC Climate report. Even though hurricane (cyclone) experts (eg. Roger Pielke jr) said there was no evidence that global warming would make cyclones worse, IPCC personnel (Karoly) nevertheless predicted this to be the case. Why? Because climate models said so. Karoly is a bit of demi-god amongst the Australian climate alarmist fraternity and so I suspect the BOM will forever be claiming an increase in cyclone activity. Even though Australian cyclone activity also shows a decline over the decades. If the IPCC said it was wrong about cyclones, then quite rightly people would ask “If you’re wrong about cyclones, then what else are you wrong about?”

    100

    • #
      John B

      BoM page with graph
      Thanks to Neville’s post above #10

      There is substantial evidence from theory and model experiments that the large-scale environment in which tropical cyclones form and evolve is changing as a result of global warming. Projected changes in the number and intensity of tropical cyclones are subject to the sources of uncertainty inherent in climate change projections. There remains uncertainty in the future change in tropical cyclone frequency (the number of tropical cyclones in a given period) projected by climate models, with a general tendency for models to project fewer tropical cyclones in the Australia region in the future climate and a greater proportion of the high intensity storms (stronger wind speeds and heavier rainfall).

      40

      • #
        Forrest Gardener

        Quote: There is substantial evidence from theory and model experiments that …

        Oh really? Evidence from theory? Evidence from model experiments?

        Seems quite a few failed to learn the first principles of science!

        100

  • #

    There is about a 30 to 50 year cycle for cyclones, in the world, including hurricanes and typhoons. At the moment there have been less cyclones, look at Australia (Pacific) there were more cyclones and destructive cyclones, in the time period 1920 to 1980, then 1980 to 2223.

    40

  • #

    Warmist ‘science’ will need to define,
    Why carbon dioxide is malign,
    Causing extreme typhoons,
    Hurricanes and monsoons,
    When cyclones are much in decline.

    120

  • #
    Neville

    Since 1990 we’ve seen the largest decline in child deaths in Human history and yet we never hear of this important data in the MSM.
    So why do they persist in their BS and FRAUD of Human EXISTENTIAL THREATS?

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-deaths-igme-data

    50

    • #

      My nephew was complaining to me that his teenage daughters curriculum is based around dystopian survival ostensibly dystopian societies post apocalyptic events.It is a constant drip feed of horror as opposed to my education which was about our ingenuity and advancement of humanity….we wonder why these kids are depressed and confused.

      150

  • #
    Stephen McDonald

    Antonio Guterres demanded that people must now realise that the globe is boiling.
    So I’m enjoying watching the world athletics championships live and an English commentator opens day 2 with the temperature is boiling, boiling.
    So I checked the temperature in Budapest and it was 30 degrees.
    I checked the average maximum for August there and it was 28 degrees.

    So a few days later I’m watching the golf in the U.S.end of year championship and Dottie an American commentator decided to say that the temperature was boiling.

    So next I’m watching the US open tennis and and another English commentator saying that this player must be so exausted because it’s boiling out there.

    None of these temperatures were unusual when certain weather conditions including wind direction were in play.

    These telecasts go to hundreds of millions.

    What inspires these commentators to slavishly repeat this hideously unscientific ridiculous propaganda.

    I wonder.

    170

    • #
      Forrest Gardener

      What inspires the commentators? Perhaps a morbid fear of dead air.

      It’s easy to pick the best commentators. They are the ones which only speak when they can add something.

      83

      • #
        KP

        “It’s easy to pick the best commentators. They are the ones which only speak when they can add something.”

        Long gone… Nothing worse than two commentators on everything from TV to radio and their endless inane chatter and giggles as they frantically fill in any empty space that decades ago would have been the couple of seconds when you digested the argument and realised what was BS.

        Now I need a second commentator to jump straight in and chatter on about digesting something completely different in long sentences with no commas until everyone has forgotten about the initial argument as that is the typical way the world works these days..

        60

      • #
        Annie

        Sorry FG, meant green, arm slipped so thumbed wrong way.

        31

  • #
    Geoff Sherrington

    This topic of causes and frequency of cyclones can show differences between two approaches, being data mining and O&M (for Observation and Measurement.) In geophysical research, these are linked to forward and inverse methods and each has limitations.
    https://www.aseg.org.au/sites/default/files/2014_Inv_Reid%20-%20An%20introduction%20to%20geophysical%20modelling.pdf

    Typically, data mining involves trawling lots of past data to find correlations. High correlations are sometimes proposed to explain the mechanisms, despite eveyone saying that correlation is not causation. So, we have a statement from data mining that SST (Sea Surface Temperature) above 26 deg C is required before cyslones form, as Jo reports above.
    The O&M (more like forward modelling) approach starts with a hypothesis. Here’s a hypoyhetical. We investigate the SST in a place with a cyclone histyory. We measure SST to some frequency in time and space, then wait foir a cyclone to happen. We then look for causation.
    Those visiting Australian deserts will likely have seen a willy willy, which is a dust devil or maybe like a miniature cyclone. What initiates a new willy willy? Let’s imagine some possibilities. Perhaps it starts with a hot spot on the ground related to local soil/rock properties like dry, shielded from wind, noit shadowed from sunshine, non-reflective surface, that sort of thing. Maybe a tiny spot of local heat is available to trigger the spiralling willy willy. Now and then, it does, we propose.
    Take this thinking to the Indian Ocean cyclone research. Data mining says 26 deg C is needed before a cyclone forms, but over what area and for how long? If we parallel our ideas abount the willy willy, the cyclone might be triggered by events in an area less than a square metre. The chances of us finding these events from the data available for data mining must be close to zero, for recorded SST is mostly hundreds of Km from one measurement to the next. A square km of ocean to a depth of a metre with its mixing and with its extremely thin evaporating layer might show SST ranging from 20 to 30 deg C. By chance, the average might be 26 deg C at a place, but is the average meaningful for cyclone formation? We do not know unless we have found a valid mechanism, for correlation is not causation, but data mining has not clarified causation.
    Globally, climate research has a vast collection of data mining papers. It seems a trendy way to get research money for your university. But, it has severe limitations, a hypothetical example of which I have just given.
    IOW, don’t believe everything that you read about climate research. Geoff S

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    • #
      RickWill

      Geoff
      Cyclones require convective potential to spin up. They start out as regions of convective instabilty that are a few degrees off the Equator where Coriolis acceleration cause converging and diverging air to spin. Nullschool provide a reasonable representation of convective potential:
      https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=cape/orthographic=-28.27,25.90,299/loc=-24.825,18.941
      The satellite assessment for determining CAPE does not have sufficient resolution to accurately determine the CAPE in places like the Persian Gulf so high CAPE is being shown where there is none but over open ocean the CAPE shown would be similar to calculating from a sounding.

      Once cyclones spin up they no longer depend on convective potential. They become self-perpetuating convective storms as long as there is warm water and converging dryer air to power them.

      30

  • #
    Neville

    Interesting about that severe heat wave period in the USA from 1930 to 1936 or 7 years duration.
    Never forget that co2 level then was about 300 ppm and yet we’ve seen nothing like that over the last 90 + years and co2 levels have exceeded 350 ppm since Dr Hansen’s silly speech in 1988.
    And the USA in the 1930s had the most modern temp data recording system in the world. Except perhaps the UK.
    And could other countries have recorded the same 1930s heat wave extremes if they had the same facilities? This is OWI Data again.

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/heat-wave-index-usa

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  • #
    R.B.

    I found this when the fires in Lahaina we’re blamed on Climate Change®.

    Lahaina is a land of very strong winds. At times, it is a place of terribly destructive winds, but this is not a regular occurrence. This is a wind that does not blow all the time. It just blew once a year, for three or four days, and then died down; but these days, several years go by before it blows.

    It was written in 1867.

    Regions of the globe experience pretty big changes independent of fossil fuel use, Milankovich cycles or anything else “well understood” in climatology.

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  • #
  • #
    Bernie Masters

    In October 2022, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology warned that the following summer would see 5 tropical cyclones form off the WA coast, with 2 crossing the coast and potentially cause damage to people and infrastructure. What happened? The summer saw just one cyclone form off the WA coast and this single cyclone crossed the coast. So the prediction was 5 + 2 and the outcome was 1 + 1.

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  • #
    Old Goat

    There are so many variables and possibilities in the system that governs the temperature of the earths atmosphere . I would bet we have fusion reactors way before we can fully understand weather and climate . Climate models were created to make astrology look good….

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  • #
    anticlimactic

    Data from a NASA satellite shows a greening of the oceans due an increase in phytoplankton, the basic food of [almost*] all life in the ocean. A good thing? Apparently not according to the ‘scientists’ studying it :

    “These are not ultra, massive ecosystem-destroying changes, they may be subtle,” said Cael. “But this gives us an additional piece of evidence that human activity is likely affecting large parts of the global biosphere in a way that we haven’t been able to understand.”

    i.e. it MUST be a bad thing, and Man MUST be responsible. It is not just a positive effect of increased levels of CO2.

    https://sputnikglobe.com/20230725/oceans-increasing-turning-green-over-last-20-years-scientists-say-1112125531.html

    * I am always mindful of deep sea smokers where life is independant of surface phytoplankton

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