6 ms·

I'm curious what people on this forum think.

codefreeordie 4y ago
- Bud 4y ago
  This isn't really about any supposedly "required" narrative; that's just noise on your part. The fact is that this article is deeply flawed from the very beginning. The media reports he cites are about more frequent and stronger hurricanes. He then pulls a Lucy-yanks-football-away, and pretends that the issue is about how expensive hurricanes are, and that they are more expensive because more property has been built in their path. But this was not the original claim. This is just bullshit from someone desperate to discredit climate science. It gets worse from there. Further down, he characterizes looking at post-1980 data as "cherry-picking", which is laughable. This guy moves the goalposts so often that I'm surprised he can even find new locations to move them to.
conz 4y ago
Contrast with this analysis published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27364-8.epdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27364-8.epdf "Historical records of Atlantic hurricane activity, extending back to 1851, show increasing activity over time, but much or all of this trend has been attributed to lack of observations in the early portion of the record. Here we use a tropical cyclone downscaling model driven by three global climate analyses that are based mostly on sea surface temperature and surface pressure data. The results support earlier statistically-based inferences that storms were undercounted in the 19th century, but in contrast to earlier work, show increasing tropical cyclone activity through the period, interrupted by a prominent hurricane drought in the 1970s and 80 s that we attribute to anthropogenic aerosols. In agreement with earlier work, we show that most of the variability of North Atlantic tropical cyclone activity over the last century was directly related to regional rather than global climate change. Most metrics of tropical cyclones downscaled over all the tropics show weak and/or insigniﬁcant trends over the last century, illustrating the special nature of North Atlantic tropical cyclone climatology." Ditto: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24268-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24268-5 "Atlantic hurricanes are a major hazard to life and property, and a topic of intense scientific interest. Historical changes in observing practices limit the utility of century-scale records of Atlantic major hurricane frequency. To evaluate past changes in frequency, we have here developed a homogenization method for Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency over 1851–2019. We find that recorded century-scale increases in Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency, and associated decrease in USA hurricanes strike fraction, are consistent with changes in observing practices and not likely a true climate trend. After homogenization, increases in basin-wide hurricane and major hurricane activity since the 1970s are not part of a century-scale increase, but a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s–1980s. We suggest internal (e.g., Atlantic multidecadal) climate variability and aerosol-induced mid-to-late-20th century major hurricane frequency reductions have probably masked century-scale greenhouse-gas warming contributions to North Atlantic major hurricane frequency." EDIT: Additional citation.
- jvalencia 4y ago
  So the original article states that the evidence is not there for a change in the hurricane activity, but Nature says that we undercounted before, but think there's an increase that was hidden due to a lull in activity from aerosols in the 70s and 80s?
  - conz 4y ago
    In part, yes. Have updated my earlier comment with additional research. In short, it's complicated. And because of that complication, anyone with a vested interest or political slant can skew representation any-which-way. However, climate disruption is driving a trend-change in mid-Atlantic hurricanes, wrong-footing the attempt by Michael Shellenberger to hint otherwise by sleight-of-hand.
PaulHoule 4y ago
The strongest hurricane known to hit Florida hit in the 1930s. The evidence is that climate change should worsen many kinds of disasters but not hurricanes in Florida. When I was a kid I remember there being a lot of news coverage of increasing danger from hurricanes in Florida circa 1980 but that’s because people were moving in great numbers to Florida and construction standards were much lower than today. However people have a general bias towards believing anything bad is getting worse, the primary bias of the media is ‘if it bleeds it leads’ and the state of polarization is such that if you say that something is not getting worse because of climate change you’re a climate denier, even if the models and the observations indicate that that thing is not getting worse. That blog, for instance, seems to be generally contemptuous of climate science and seems to be pointing out the gap between climate science and media coverage on this one to stir trouble. Because of it’s own contradictions it is able to make much less of the story than it otherwise could.
ergonaught 4y ago
“People on this forum” are not free from the ubiquitous human cognitive failings. You display one or two of them with a single remark. Soooo.
- jvalencia 4y ago
  No, but I find a surprising amount of expertise compared to other places where I can ask questions. Googling the topic, will get me clickbait.

Bud 4y ago
This isn't really about any supposedly "required" narrative; that's just noise on your part. The fact is that this article is deeply flawed from the very beginning. The media reports he cites are about more frequent and stronger hurricanes. He then pulls a Lucy-yanks-football-away, and pretends that the issue is about how expensive hurricanes are, and that they are more expensive because more property has been built in their path. But this was not the original claim. This is just bullshit from someone desperate to discredit climate science. It gets worse from there. Further down, he characterizes looking at post-1980 data as "cherry-picking", which is laughable. This guy moves the goalposts so often that I'm surprised he can even find new locations to move them to.

conz 4y ago

Contrast with this analysis published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27364-8.epdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27364-8.epdf "Historical records of Atlantic hurricane activity, extending back to 1851, show increasing activity over time, but much or all of this trend has been attributed to lack of observations in the early portion of the record. Here we use a tropical cyclone downscaling model driven by three global climate analyses that are based mostly on sea surface temperature and surface pressure data. The results support earlier statistically-based inferences that storms were undercounted in the 19th century, but in contrast to earlier work, show increasing tropical cyclone activity through the period, interrupted by a prominent hurricane drought in the 1970s and 80 s that we attribute to anthropogenic aerosols. In agreement with earlier work, we show that most of the variability of North Atlantic tropical cyclone activity over the last century was directly related to regional rather than global climate change. Most metrics of tropical cyclones downscaled over all the tropics show weak and/or insigniﬁcant trends over the last century, illustrating the special nature of North Atlantic tropical cyclone climatology." Ditto: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24268-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24268-5 "Atlantic hurricanes are a major hazard to life and property, and a topic of intense scientific interest. Historical changes in observing practices limit the utility of century-scale records of Atlantic major hurricane frequency. To evaluate past changes in frequency, we have here developed a homogenization method for Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency over 1851–2019. We find that recorded century-scale increases in Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency, and associated decrease in USA hurricanes strike fraction, are consistent with changes in observing practices and not likely a true climate trend. After homogenization, increases in basin-wide hurricane and major hurricane activity since the 1970s are not part of a century-scale increase, but a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s–1980s. We suggest internal (e.g., Atlantic multidecadal) climate variability and aerosol-induced mid-to-late-20th century major hurricane frequency reductions have probably masked century-scale greenhouse-gas warming contributions to North Atlantic major hurricane frequency." EDIT: Additional citation.

jvalencia 4y ago
So the original article states that the evidence is not there for a change in the hurricane activity, but Nature says that we undercounted before, but think there's an increase that was hidden due to a lull in activity from aerosols in the 70s and 80s?
- conz 4y ago
  In part, yes. Have updated my earlier comment with additional research. In short, it's complicated. And because of that complication, anyone with a vested interest or political slant can skew representation any-which-way. However, climate disruption is driving a trend-change in mid-Atlantic hurricanes, wrong-footing the attempt by Michael Shellenberger to hint otherwise by sleight-of-hand.

PaulHoule 4y ago

The strongest hurricane known to hit Florida hit in the 1930s. The evidence is that climate change should worsen many kinds of disasters but not hurricanes in Florida. When I was a kid I remember there being a lot of news coverage of increasing danger from hurricanes in Florida circa 1980 but that’s because people were moving in great numbers to Florida and construction standards were much lower than today. However people have a general bias towards believing anything bad is getting worse, the primary bias of the media is ‘if it bleeds it leads’ and the state of polarization is such that if you say that something is not getting worse because of climate change you’re a climate denier, even if the models and the observations indicate that that thing is not getting worse. That blog, for instance, seems to be generally contemptuous of climate science and seems to be pointing out the gap between climate science and media coverage on this one to stir trouble. Because of it’s own contradictions it is able to make much less of the story than it otherwise could.

ergonaught 4y ago

“People on this forum” are not free from the ubiquitous human cognitive failings. You display one or two of them with a single remark. Soooo.

jvalencia 4y ago
No, but I find a surprising amount of expertise compared to other places where I can ask questions. Googling the topic, will get me clickbait.