Tag: Tropical cyclones (TCs)

Wrong Media, Climate Centralโ€™s Claim of โ€˜Superchargedโ€™ Hurricane Isaias Is False

On October 9th, as Hurricane Isaias closed in on the coast, Climate Central put out a rapid attribution analysis saying human-caused warming had heated the water under the storm and added about 7 mph to its winds.

Climate Centralโ€™s claim was carried by WSMV-TV and many other media outlets.

That same day, a reader asked Chris Martz about a claim attributed to Al Roker, that Isaias was fueled by a Gulf running 5 to 6 degrees above normal. Climate Realism was unable to find the claim online. It probably occurred during a TV segment.

The story you just read is true. Only the name of the Gulf has been changed.

Infographic debunking Climate Central's claim that Hurricane Isaias was 'Supercharged', highlighting that it was a Category 1 hurricane with no unusual intensification.
AI generated by Meta

From ClimateRealism

By Anthony Watts

Screenshot of an article discussing how climate change is affecting hurricane activity, featuring the text 'BOGUS' overlaid on the image.

EDITORS NOTE:

On October 9th, as Hurricane Isaias closed in on the coast, Climate Central put out a rapid  attribution analysis saying human-caused warming had heated the water under the storm and added about 7 mph to its winds.

Climate Centralโ€™s claim was carried by WSMV-TV and many other media outlets.

That same day, a reader asked Chris Martz about a claim attributed to Al Roker, that Isaias was fueled by a Gulf running 5 to 6 degrees above normal. Climate Realism was unable to find the claim online. It probably occurred during a TV segment.

Chris, a friend of Climate Realism, answered with data. His post follows, with a few notes added by Charles Rotter from WUWT. Chris Martz says:

Al Roker is not an actual meteorologist.

But I am.

You ask a really good question. And while Roker has opinions, I have data.

Yes, it is true that tropical cyclones (TCs) operate as thermodynamic heat engines sustained by ocean-to-atmosphere enthalpy fluxes, including sensible and latent heat transfer, with latent heat released during condensation, which maintain the deep convection. The higher the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are, the higher the likelihood for TC intensification.

However, SST anomalies represent departures from climatological averages rather than absolute SSTs. That means below-average SSTs can still support an intense hurricane. In fact, the Gulf of Mexico (or Gulf of America; call it whatever you want) is warm enough during late August, September, and early October every year to support a hurricane of category four or five strength. That has always been the case and it always will be.

Thatโ€™s the whole argument in one paragraph. An anomaly is a departure from average. It isnโ€™t the temperature, and the Gulf in September is never short of fuel.

I hypothesized that Gulf SSTAs donโ€™t really affect TC strength as commonly claimed because of this fact. So, I decided to investigate this question to provide a numerical answer. All science is numbers.

For this analysis, I decided to use the NOAA National Hurricane Centerโ€™s (NHC) HURDAT2 database, which contains historical TC tracks (coordinates), maximum sustained wind speeds (Vmax), and pressures, which contains data spanning 1851 to 2025. I then employed the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSSTv5) dataset from NOAA, which contains monthly SST estimates on a 2ยฐ ร— 2ยฐ grid since January 1854. So, my analysis must be restricted from 1854 to 2025.

I identified 269 TCs that attained hurricane strength (โ‰ฅ64 kt / โ‰ฅ74 mph) within the Gulf during the study period. Of this subset, 70 originated within the Gulf itself, while the remaining 199 developed elsewhere, primarily in the Atlantic or the Caribbean Sea, before entering the Gulf. For each hurricane, I determined its highest Vmax while inside the Gulf specifically. I then compared that intensity against the mean SSTA (calculated by evaluating SST departures from the 1991โ€“2020 baseline) sampled along its Gulf track, using the monthly ERSSTv5 data.

Monthly SST data is not perfect, but it provides us a fairly good estimate because water has a high heat capacity, meaning it takes a lot of energy gain in order to warm a body of water and a lot of energy loss to cool it. In layman terms, SSTs are usually rather slow to change from week-to-week.

Both datasets are NOAAโ€™s and both are public. Available to everyone.

The results show essentially no linear relationship between Gulf SST anomalies and the maximum sustained wind speeds attained by hurricanes within the basin.

Across all 269 Gulf hurricanes, the Pearson correlation coefficient was just r = +0.036, which indicates an extremely weak positive correlation. The coefficient of determination (Rยฒ) was 0.001, meaning that variations in SST anomalies explained approximately 0.1% of the observed variation in peak hurricane intensity under a simple linear regression model. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient was similarly negligible at ฯ = +0.012. Furthermore, the Pearson correlation yielded a p-value of 0.555, well above the conventional statistical significance threshold of 0.05.

Therefore, the observed relationship is not statistically significant.

An Rยฒ of 0.001. Departures from normal account for about a tenth of one percent of how strong Gulf hurricanes get.

The scatterplot below illustrates this quite clearly. Hurricanes attaining relatively modest maximum intensities of 65โ€“85 kt occurred across a broad range of SSTAs, as did much stronger hurricanes exceeding 100โ€“120 kt. Some of the most intense hurricanes in the dataset occurred during periods when SSTs along their Gulf tracks were below the 1991โ€“2020 average. Conversely, some hurricanes traversing anomalously warm waters never intensified beyond minimal hurricane strength.

In layman terms? An anomalously warm Gulf has no meaningful correlation to Gulf hurricane intensity.

Scatter plot showing the relationship between sea surface temperature anomaly and the highest sustained wind speed of Gulf of Mexico hurricanes from 1854 to 2025. The plot includes points for Gulf-origin and outside-origin storms, with a linear best fit line indicated.
https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/2108781894368137294?s=20

The story you just read is true. Only the name of the Gulf has been changed.

The Guardian is Wrong, Tropical Cyclones are NOT Getting Worse

A recent article atย The Guardianย claims that โ€œclimate denialโ€ is increasing in Australia, shown by skeptical reactions to the claim that climate change is responsible for recentย tropical cyclone Alfred. This is nonsense. โ€œClimate denierโ€ is a false label, and those skeptics are actually correct in their critiques over common media narratives about climate change and tropical cyclones, which are not becoming worse.

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

A recent article at The Guardian claims that โ€œclimate denialโ€ is increasing in Australia, shown by skeptical reactions to the claim that climate change is responsible for recent tropical cyclone Alfred. This is nonsense. โ€œClimate denierโ€ is a false label, and those skeptics are actually correct in their critiques over common media narratives about climate change and tropical cyclones, which are not becoming worse.

In the post, โ€œAs Trump attacks US science agencies, ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred ushers in a fresh wave of climate denial in Australia,โ€  Guardian Australia climate and environment editor Adam Morton writes:

What they [skeptical commentators] mostly havenโ€™t said is that the ocean and atmosphere are demonstrably warmer than even just a few years ago. Or that this means the most intense storms formed in warmer conditions carry more energy and more water. Or that the conditions under which tropical cyclones can form are moving south as the planet heats up.

The evidence is that this is making tropical cyclones less frequent but more intense. There is data suggesting they also tend to last longer. Greater intensity plus time equals heightened risk of damage and casualties. It doesnโ€™t mean that every cyclone or extreme storm will be more damaging than in the past. It does mean that when one comes, the potential for it to carry enough energy to wreak significant havoc is rising, not falling.

The problem is that Mortonโ€™s claims are not backed by observational data, but his โ€œevidenceโ€ appears to be just climate modelling, which is not capable of matching, predicting, or explaining tropical cyclones.

Eric Worrall posted a great essay also covering the Guardianโ€™s claims to climate website WattsUpWithThat.com, where he points out that real world data show that tropical cyclones in Australia are not only decreasing in frequency, but also in intensity. He provides the graphic below:

Figure 1: Australia total cyclones per year, as prepared by Eric Worrall. Data source is theย Australian BOM.

Both severity and frequency of tropical cyclones in Australia are declining as those water temperatures have supposedly modestly risen over the past few decades, though sea surface temperature readings are not very widespread and the oceans do not change temperature consistently. Worrall suggests an explanation for how climate modelers have gotten it so wrong:

Are climate modelers putting the effect before the cause when it comes to long term cyclone frequency and intensity vs surface temperature? Because there is a very simple possible explanation for why atmospheric and ocean surface temperature is rising but cyclone frequency and intensity are decreasing โ€“ cyclone frequency and intensity likely have an inverse relationship with ocean surface and atmospheric heat content. Cyclones are powerful dissipaters of surface heat, an uptick in cyclones would cause an immediate and sustained drop in surface temperature.

This may or may not be the correct answer. As discussed in a few other Climate Realism posts (here, here, and here, for samples) and as Morton himself admits in the Guardian post, there are other factors that contribute to hurricane formation and intensity, such as wind shear.

Notably, what is true of Australian tropical cyclones is also true for cyclones globally. Data compiled by meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue show that major hurricanes (called typhoons in the Pacific) are not becoming more frequent. Likewise, in the Southern Hemisphere, the tropical cyclone energy totals are not increasing. (See figures below)

If there is any trend at all in hurricane frequency, it may be that these tropical cyclones in general are becoming less frequent, while the number of major storms stays more or less the same, leading to a higher proportion of major storms. This doesnโ€™t mean that tropical cyclones are getting worse, it still means they are getting less frequent overall.

This simply isnโ€™t something The Guardian and their staff alarmists can win on the observational data, and every time they repeat misinformation about tropical storms they lose credibility. It was a bit of a change of pace to see them admit that cyclones are not becoming more frequent, even if they missed the mark elsewhere, incremental shifts towards the truth are better than nothing at all.

Guardian Falsely Claims Climate Change is Intensifying Cyclones

It doesnโ€™t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesnโ€™t matter how smart you are. If it doesnโ€™t agree with experiment, itโ€™s wrong.ย โ€“ Richard Feynman.

Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Australia total cyclones per year. Sourceย Australian BOM.

Contradictory evidence is now โ€œuncertaintyโ€?

As Trump attacks US science agencies, ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred ushers in a fresh wave of climate denial in Australia

Adam Morton

โ€ฆ

In Australia, the past week has seen a fresh wave of climate denial as ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred approached and hit the southern Queensland coast. News Corp outlets, in particular, have run straw man arguments attacking people that have forcefully linked the storm to the climate crisis.

Some commentators have pointed out that southern Queensland has had cyclones before. Others have suggested there is uncertainty in the data about the pace and way in which they are changing, and that climate change didnโ€™t โ€œcauseโ€ Alfred. Well, yes. Thatโ€™s all correct, of course, but hardly the point.

What they mostly havenโ€™t said is that the ocean and atmosphere are demonstrably warmer than even just a few years ago. Or that this means the most intense storms formed in warmer conditions carry more energy and more water. Or that the conditions under which tropical cyclones can form are moving south as the planet heats up.

โ€ฆ

The evidence is that this is making tropical cyclones less frequent but more intense. There is data suggesting they also tend to last longer. Greater intensity plus time equals heightened risk of damage and casualties. It doesnโ€™t mean that every cyclone or extreme storm will be more damaging than in the past. It does mean that when one comes, the potential for it to carry enough energy to wreak significant havoc is rising, not falling.

โ€ฆRead more:ย 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2025/mar/11/ex-tropical-cyclone-alfred-climate-denial-australia-trump-attacks-us-science-agencies

The graph at the top of the page shows both cyclone numbers and intensity are in long term decline. There is no โ€œuncertaintyโ€, this is reality.

It doesnโ€™t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesnโ€™t matter how smart you are. If it doesnโ€™t agree with experiment, itโ€™s wrong. โ€“ Richard Feynman.

The statement โ€œthis [ocean heating] is making tropical cyclones less frequent but more intenseโ€ is not supported by the evidence that tropical cyclones are declining both in frequency and intensity.

Why would anyone believe something which is so blatantly false? I donโ€™t know why journalist Adam Morton holds this view, but the idea that models are more important than observations appears to be deep rooted in the climate community.

"People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful."

Are climate modellers putting the effect before the cause when it comes to long term cyclone frequency and intensity vs surface temperature?ย 

Because there is a very simple possible explanation for why atmospheric and ocean surface temperature is rising but cyclone frequency and intensity are decreasing โ€“ cyclone frequency and intensity likely have an inverse relationship with ocean surface and atmospheric heat content. Cyclones are powerful dissipators of surface heat, an uptick in cyclones would cause an immediate and sustained drop in surface temperature.

Bonus points for anyone who has a good theory for what causes more cyclones โ€“ I mean a theory which doesnโ€™t contradict observations.

Outstanding BBC Complaints

If the BBC have trouble answering complaints, it appears they just ignore them!

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

If the BBC have trouble answering complaints, it appears they just ignore them!

I currently have three complaints outstanding, one of which goes back to last September:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62rr5qe602o

My Complaint:

The headline states “Climate change is turbo-charging Somaliaโ€™s problems”, and the article goes on to claim that “In 2022 the country experienced its worst drought for 40 years โ€“ an event scientists estimate was made 100 times more likely by human-caused climate change.”
The claim about droughts is false and absurd. According to the official World Bank Climate Portal data, the 2022 drought was not unusually severe, and many previous droughts in the 20thC were much worse.
The data can be see here:
https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/somalia/climate-data-historical
And the annual rainfall graph is here:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/09/22/75480/
Far from droughts getting worse in Somalia, rainfall trends have been increasing since the 1980s due to global warming.
In particular the catastrophic droughts of the 1970s and 80s were part of the Great Sahel drought, which killed 100,000s in sub Saharan Africa. Scientists at the time found that the drought was the result of global cooling. For instance, NOAA published an article in 1974 “Climate: Key to the Worldโ€™s Food Supply”, which stated:
“In the Sahelian zone of Africa โ€ฆ. are enduring a drought that in some areas has been going on for more than six years now, following 40 years of abundant monsoon rainfall. And the drought is spreading into Ethiopia and Somalia. Many climatologists have associated this drought with a global cooling trend.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20171006183045/http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/journals/noaa/QC851U461974oct.pdf#page=5
A proper climate journalist would have been aware of this, unlike Rowlatt who is merely an activist with no climate qualifications whatsoever.
His claim that the drought was 100 times more likely due to climate change is based on worthless computer modelling, which clearly disproved by the actual data that Rowlatt should have reported instead

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42251921

My Complaint

You claim:
“But it is “likely” that a higher proportion of tropical cyclones across the globe are reaching category three or above, meaning they reach the highest wind speeds, according to the UNโ€™s climate body, the IPCC”
But this is what the IPCC actually say:
“There is low confidence in most reported long-term (multi-decadal to centennial)
trends in TC frequency- or intensity-based metrics”
They do go on to say “It is likely that the global proportion of Category 3โ€“5 tropical cyclone instances and the frequency of rapid intensification events have increased globally
over the past 40 years.”
However, NOAA clearly state that such short-term trends are meaningless:
“A number of measures of Atlantic hurricane activity have increased since 1980, but in the of case of metrics where much longer records are available, trends since 1980 are not representative of longer (e.g., century-scale) trends. “
NOAA also say:
“There is no strong evidence of century-scale increasing trends in U.S. landfalling hurricanes or major hurricanes. Similarly for Atlantic basin-wide hurricane frequency (after adjusting for changing observing capabilities over time), there is not strong evidence for an increase since the late 1800s in hurricanes, major hurricanes, or the proportion of hurricanes that reach major hurricane intensity.”
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
Your report also includes a grossly misleading chart, labelled “Major Atlantic hurricanes over last century”. This shows a large rise in the number in recent years. However, this increase is due to the fact that satellites can now spot these hurricanes in mid-ocean. In years prior to the 1990s, many major hurricanes occurred but were never actually spotted.
It is also a fact that until recent years hurricane hunter aircraft were unable to enter the strongest hurricanes as they were not robust or powerful enough. Again, therefore meteorologists in those days were unable to measure wind speeds.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg8dg3ke40o

My Complaint

You claim climate change has brought extreme weather from hurricanes to month-long droughts.
You then list a few random weather events but fail to provide evidence that these are anything other than natural events. Nor that such events have been getting more frequent or extreme over time.
The report highlights typhoons, stating climate change may be increasing intensity. Yet last year the number of global Tropical Cyclones and the strongest ones were both below average. Nor does the official data show them becoming more powerful over time. (Fig 1).
There is a section on heatwaves in Asia, which again fails to offer evidence they were in any way unusual. There is a reference to a heatwave in Delhi last May & June, yet the official temperature record from the Indian Met Office for those months last year shows temperatures were not unusually high there. (Fig 2)
Another section of your report addresses the drought in the Amazon, but the World Bank Climate Portal states that rainfall there has increased by 5% in the last 30 years: (Fig 3)ย https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country-profiles
Whatever the cause of last yearโ€™s drought, it is not part of any longer-term trend and therefore cannot be โ€œclimate-relatedโ€.
Finally, you highlight floods in Nigeria, Chad and Sudan. It is true the climate in these countries is now wetter than 40 years ago, but the 1970s and 80s marked the Great Sahel Drought across this swathe of Africa. Since then, rainfall has returned to levels seen before 1970. The wetter climate has nothing to do with global warming, as implied. (Fig 4)
Throughout your report, you base your claims on Weather Attribution Models. However, computer models are not evidence of anything and can be manipulated to provide whatever results are desired. That is why they are widely derided by the wider scientific community.
The Figures referenced are here:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/01/02/bbc-extreme-weather-complaint/

I have contacted the ECU to ask why these complaints have not been dealt with.

When I had the same problem last year, they apologised and said they had a backlog because some of their staff were working at home!

I suspect the real reason is that they cannot disprove my complaints.

Decreasing Trend in South Indian Ocean TC Intensity Sinceย midโ€“1990s

Tropical cyclone activity often leads to many adverse impacts and assessing their destructiveness is a crucial scientific concern.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

And hereโ€™s the study:

Abstract

Tropical cyclone activity often leads to many adverse impacts and assessing their destructiveness is a crucial scientific concern.

Here we investigated changes in the destructiveness of tropical cyclones worldwide using the power dissipation index and found that there is no clear trend in most basins, but a significant decrease in power dissipation index has been detected in the South Indian Ocean basin since 1994, which is almost entirely due to a decrease in both tropical cyclone frequency and duration in this basin.

The decrease in tropical cyclone frequency is influenced by increased atmospheric stability. The decrease in tropical cyclone duration can be attributed to the changes in tropical cyclone locations. In addition, the weakened subtropical high is only observed in the South Indian Ocean (i.e., the Mascarene High), which is also associated with the decrease in tropical cyclone destructiveness.

These findings have implications for assessing the destructive potential of future tropical cyclones.

Fig. 1: Time series of the cumulative power dissipation index (PDI) of tropical cyclones (TCs) for each basin and the global.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01683-2
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