{"id":260200,"date":"2023-06-02T18:24:15","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T16:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=260200"},"modified":"2023-06-02T18:24:18","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T16:24:18","slug":"2023-edition-what-the-media-wont-tell-you-about-hurricanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=260200","title":{"rendered":"2023 Edition: What the media won’t tell you about . . . hurricanes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This satellite image taken at 9:30 a.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 23, 2015, and released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Hurricane Patricia. Hurricane Patricia headed toward southwestern Mexico Friday as a monster Category 5 storm, the strongest ever in the Western Hemisphere that forecasters said could make a “potentially catastrophic landfall” later in the day. (NOAA\/RAMMB\/CIRA via AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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From substack<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By ROGER PIELKE JR.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The\u00a02022 edition<\/a>\u00a0of this post is the 2nd-most viewed here at THB. The 2023 version, below, is completely new and with updated data and analysis. Please help get the word out by clicking share and sending to your favorite social media outlets. And if you\u2019d like you can also share it with you favorite reporter on the climate beat!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today is the official start to the 2023 hurricane season in the North Atlantic. Over the past few decades the media has increasing celebrated every hurricane as an indicator of climate change \u2014 whether juiced, intensified, linked, fueled \u2014 pick your favorite. Typically lost in the apocalyptic narrative has been actual science and data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are five important conclusions from the scientific literature that are rarely, if ever, found in coverage of hurricanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The scientific consensus on hurricanes and climate change is clear and consistent.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short \u2014trends in hurricane activity outside the range of documented variability have not been detected, nor is there high confidence in connections of hurricane behavior to greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t take it from me. Here is what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said<\/a> this month:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[F]or Atlantic hurricane activity, the attribution observed changes to increasing greenhouse gases is not yet assessed as highly confident, apart from impacts related to sea level rise. Observed hurricane data generally either do not show clear centennial-scale trends or do not cover enough years to assess century-scale trends. Pronounced multidecadal variations typically dominate over long-term (centennial-scale) trends over decadal timescales for Atlantic hurricanes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

NOAA\u2019s assessment of scientific understandings is consistent with that of the most recent assessment<\/a> of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[T]here is still no consensus on the relative magnitude of human and natural influences on past changes in Atlantic hurricane activity, and particularly on which factor has dominated the observed increase (Ting et al., 2015) and it remains uncertain whether past changes in Atlantic TC activity are outside the range of natural variability.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There are hypothesized effects \u2014 such as the rapid intensification of storms or enhanced precipitation \u2014 but NOAA concludes that \u201cconfident quantitative attribution\u201d of changes in the phenomena to greenhouse gas emissions or internal variability \u201cremains an unsettled topic of research.\u201d The media often conflates hypotheses with firmly established conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOAA further states<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n