8 ms·

I am skeptical of this paper. If you go to Wikipedia's list of most intense tropical cyclones[1] and sort by barometric pressure, there doesn't seem to be much

by ggreer 3y ago

I am skeptical of this paper. If you go to Wikipedia's list of most intense tropical cyclones[1] and sort by barometric pressure, there doesn't seem to be much correlation with time. The biggest and most intense tropical cyclone is still Typhoon Tip in 1979.[2] If you read the actual study[3], it looks like they do a lot of data manipulation and simulation to come to their conclusion. They subtract 15 meters/sec from wind speeds measured before 1973, claiming a bias in measurements from that time. This causes a huge step up in lifetime maximum intensity in the 1970s. Their estimates of future category 6 probabilities are from simulations that they admit don't simulate current conditions correctly. I think it's more likely than not that tropical cyclones are getting more intense, and that they're hitting places that didn't typically get hit in the past, but I don't find this paper convincing. It really feels like they cajoled the data to fit their conclusion. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_intense_tropical_cyclones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_intense_tropi... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Tip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Tip 3. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121

PM_me_your_math 3y ago
[flagged]
- Grokker 3y ago
  [flagged]
BeefWellington 3y ago
In fairness though, they didn't just make up their bias assertion; it's in other published works[1] and there is real evidence that old measurements were incorrect (biased towards the high side) when compared to other available contemporary measurements. [1]: Landsea, C. W. Mon. Weath. Rev. 121, 1703–1714 (1993) - https://journals.ametsoc.org/configurable/content/journals$002fmwre$002f121$002f6$002f1520-0493_1993_121_1703_acoima_2_0_co_2.xml?t%3Aac=journals%24002fmwre%24002f121%24002f6%24002f1520-0493_1993_121_1703_acoima_2_0_co_2.xml&tab_body=pdf https://journals.ametsoc.org/configurable/content/journals$0...
- laverya 3y ago
  Their corrections may be correct, but it's still always nicer when the magnitude of the signal is larger than that of the corrections to the data.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    What is nice is vetting and correcting data for reliability and consistency. Part of aiming for objectivity, and better understanding, isn't worrying about which direction a correction takes. At all. Only that it is a good correction. Our brains constantly make up distracting narratives, if we let them. If the correction had been the other way, some people would say scientists have been downplaying data and probably still are.
    - foofie 3y ago
      > Part of aiming for objectivity, and better understanding, isn't worrying about which direction a correction takes. At all. Only that it is a good correction. I don't think you fully grasp the implications of arbitrarily correcting old measures. In the end, and accepting at face value these corrections, you're still manipulating old data to use the result of said manipulation as the whole basis of your hypothesis. This approach automatically leads to questions on whether you draw your conclusions from the data, or you change the data to fit your conclusions. Do you understand the risk that this poses in any discussion on a politically sensitive topic? Think of the hit to the credibility of any claim supported by this data manipulation if later your method is deemed untrustworthy because it needs further updates, and how it would look if you had to correct it to move the dial either way (i.e., "they were lying from the start and are now covering their ass" vs "they felt their lie wasn't fooling anyone and decided to double down.")
      - lolc 3y ago
        > arbitrarily correcting old measures. Why do you say the correction is arbitrary? Are there papers arguing for corrections in the other direction?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
soperj 3y ago
They do the same thing with temperature readings.
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  Don’t say that. You will get called a climate denier.
- dgellow 3y ago
  Precision of temperature readings improved over time
  - MightyBuzzard 3y ago
    [dead]
photochemsyn 3y ago
From the paper: > "...of the 197 TCs [tropical cyclones] that were classified as category 5 during the 42-y period 1980 to 2021, which comprises the period of highest quality and most consistent data, half of them occurred in the last 17 y of the period (12). Five of those storms exceeded our hypothetical category 6 and all of these occurred in the last 9 y of the record. The most intense of these hypothetical category 6 storms, Patricia, occurred in the Eastern Pacific making landfall in Jalisco, Mexico, as a category 4 storm. The remaining category 6 storms all occurred in the Western Pacific... Fig. 1A shows these 5 storms on the existing Hurricane Wind Scale and our proposed extension." https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121 Theoretically, increased wind speeds are linked to increased sea surface temperatures, a warmer deeper ocean mixed layer, and more moistore in the atmosphere. However, increased vertical wind shear tends to break up the hurricane's chimney structure, and that might also increase with warming. Hence, a complicated prediction - but if conditions are right, it seems reasonable to conclude that unusually strong hurricanes will become more likely, even if overall frequency is unchanged.
- autokad 3y ago
  > Hence, a complicated prediction - but if conditions are right, it seems reasonable to conclude that unusually strong hurricanes will become more likely, even if overall frequency is unchanged. Not really, its not caused by warm water, its caused by DIFFERENCES in the temperature from the water and air, which is why we have actually seen fewer hurricanes over the last 20 years (ignoring post 2020 because this decade doesnt have a lot of data in) source: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml Its hard to decide when picking a particular category, so what I did was charted category 1s + 2* category 2 + 3 * category 3 ...
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Warmer water will put more water vapor into the air, which will provide more energy, even if the difference in temperature between water and (upper atmosphere) stays the same.
sieabahlpark 3y ago
[dead]
esalman 3y ago
> I think it's more likely than not that tropical cyclones are getting more intense, and that they're hitting places that didn't typically get hit in the past I think so too. One measure is the amount of insured losses from hurricanes. There's been an uptick in number of hurricanes and other weather events causing more then a billion dollars in insured losses- that's simply correlated with the increase in the value of insured assets. Even if we assume that storms are not getting more intense, or climate is not changing, we cannot deny that we have more valuable assets to protect now. Which requires climate actions.
- a_gnostic 3y ago
  Was this adjusted for inflation?
- vdaea 3y ago
  "Even if this study is a lie, and storms are not getting more intense, we will still need to take your right to drive a car"
  - deprecative 3y ago
    There's no need to strawman. Even if storms weren't getting stronger we'd still have to contend with rising sea levels and the loss of arable land just for starters. While it would be ideal to live in a state of progress such that most folks didn't own nor operate a vehicle there is no credible threat at this point toward not being able to own and operate a vehicle.
    - vdaea 3y ago
      >While it would be ideal to live in a state of progress such that most folks didn't own nor operate a vehicle No it wouldn't. It is ideal to live in a state of progress where most "folks" can afford to own and operate a vehicle that allows them to go wherever they want whenever they want and take people with them.
      - 3y ago
wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
Why have categories at all. Just use stats.
- gonational 3y ago
  Stats, like wind in miles-per-hour? That seems arbitrary. Why not just use wind speed in plank-lengths per zeptosecond, then? It's almost as if expressive abstractions are helpful for human understanding of large sets of numerical statistics, no?
  - wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
    nobody knows the difference between four and five and three and two. Its always on the news as a "warzone". so a real energy number would be nice.
    - gonational 3y ago
      A total energy level could help with total damage predictions, but, for the individual, wind speed and storm surge are key.
GartzenDeHaes 3y ago
> they're hitting places that didn't typically get hit in the past The human population is four times larger than it was in the 1970's, so there's more things to hit are they are often built in more marginal locations.
- zaccusl 3y ago
  Can you clarify? Are you saying that locations of the hurricanes have not changed, it's merely that there are now people/structures there so it's now noticeable? Or that humans are altering storm paths based on structural changes to the environment?
  - GartzenDeHaes 3y ago
    Just making the observation that there are more humans and a larger built environment. When there is a natural disaster, there's likely to be more human impacts now than 50 years ago, regardless of the location or cause.
  - ryathal 3y ago
    Mostly the former. with more developed coastline and more people living there, more damage is going to happen. Could storms be altered by human activity? Sure, but it's very difficult to reconcile how much is human action vs a hurricane making landfall in an area that wasn't urban 50 years ago.

by ggreer 3y ago

PM_me_your_math 3y ago

[flagged]

Grokker 3y ago
[flagged]

BeefWellington 3y ago

In fairness though, they didn't just make up their bias assertion; it's in other published works[1] and there is real evidence that old measurements were incorrect (biased towards the high side) when compared to other available contemporary measurements. [1]: Landsea, C. W. Mon. Weath. Rev. 121, 1703–1714 (1993) - https://journals.ametsoc.org/configurable/content/journals$002fmwre$002f121$002f6$002f1520-0493_1993_121_1703_acoima_2_0_co_2.xml?t%3Aac=journals%24002fmwre%24002f121%24002f6%24002f1520-0493_1993_121_1703_acoima_2_0_co_2.xml&tab_body=pdf https://journals.ametsoc.org/configurable/content/journals$0...

laverya 3y ago
Their corrections may be correct, but it's still always nicer when the magnitude of the signal is larger than that of the corrections to the data.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  What is nice is vetting and correcting data for reliability and consistency. Part of aiming for objectivity, and better understanding, isn't worrying about which direction a correction takes. At all. Only that it is a good correction. Our brains constantly make up distracting narratives, if we let them. If the correction had been the other way, some people would say scientists have been downplaying data and probably still are.
  - foofie 3y ago
    > Part of aiming for objectivity, and better understanding, isn't worrying about which direction a correction takes. At all. Only that it is a good correction. I don't think you fully grasp the implications of arbitrarily correcting old measures. In the end, and accepting at face value these corrections, you're still manipulating old data to use the result of said manipulation as the whole basis of your hypothesis. This approach automatically leads to questions on whether you draw your conclusions from the data, or you change the data to fit your conclusions. Do you understand the risk that this poses in any discussion on a politically sensitive topic? Think of the hit to the credibility of any claim supported by this data manipulation if later your method is deemed untrustworthy because it needs further updates, and how it would look if you had to correct it to move the dial either way (i.e., "they were lying from the start and are now covering their ass" vs "they felt their lie wasn't fooling anyone and decided to double down.")
    - lolc 3y ago
      > arbitrarily correcting old measures. Why do you say the correction is arbitrary? Are there papers arguing for corrections in the other direction?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

soperj 3y ago

They do the same thing with temperature readings.

throwaway2990 3y ago
Don’t say that. You will get called a climate denier.
dgellow 3y ago
Precision of temperature readings improved over time
- MightyBuzzard 3y ago
  [dead]

photochemsyn 3y ago

From the paper: > "...of the 197 TCs [tropical cyclones] that were classified as category 5 during the 42-y period 1980 to 2021, which comprises the period of highest quality and most consistent data, half of them occurred in the last 17 y of the period (12). Five of those storms exceeded our hypothetical category 6 and all of these occurred in the last 9 y of the record. The most intense of these hypothetical category 6 storms, Patricia, occurred in the Eastern Pacific making landfall in Jalisco, Mexico, as a category 4 storm. The remaining category 6 storms all occurred in the Western Pacific... Fig. 1A shows these 5 storms on the existing Hurricane Wind Scale and our proposed extension." https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121 Theoretically, increased wind speeds are linked to increased sea surface temperatures, a warmer deeper ocean mixed layer, and more moistore in the atmosphere. However, increased vertical wind shear tends to break up the hurricane's chimney structure, and that might also increase with warming. Hence, a complicated prediction - but if conditions are right, it seems reasonable to conclude that unusually strong hurricanes will become more likely, even if overall frequency is unchanged.

autokad 3y ago
> Hence, a complicated prediction - but if conditions are right, it seems reasonable to conclude that unusually strong hurricanes will become more likely, even if overall frequency is unchanged. Not really, its not caused by warm water, its caused by DIFFERENCES in the temperature from the water and air, which is why we have actually seen fewer hurricanes over the last 20 years (ignoring post 2020 because this decade doesnt have a lot of data in) source: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml Its hard to decide when picking a particular category, so what I did was charted category 1s + 2* category 2 + 3 * category 3 ...
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Warmer water will put more water vapor into the air, which will provide more energy, even if the difference in temperature between water and (upper atmosphere) stays the same.

sieabahlpark 3y ago

[dead]

esalman 3y ago

> I think it's more likely than not that tropical cyclones are getting more intense, and that they're hitting places that didn't typically get hit in the past I think so too. One measure is the amount of insured losses from hurricanes. There's been an uptick in number of hurricanes and other weather events causing more then a billion dollars in insured losses- that's simply correlated with the increase in the value of insured assets. Even if we assume that storms are not getting more intense, or climate is not changing, we cannot deny that we have more valuable assets to protect now. Which requires climate actions.

a_gnostic 3y ago
Was this adjusted for inflation?
vdaea 3y ago
"Even if this study is a lie, and storms are not getting more intense, we will still need to take your right to drive a car"
- deprecative 3y ago
  There's no need to strawman. Even if storms weren't getting stronger we'd still have to contend with rising sea levels and the loss of arable land just for starters. While it would be ideal to live in a state of progress such that most folks didn't own nor operate a vehicle there is no credible threat at this point toward not being able to own and operate a vehicle.
  - vdaea 3y ago
    >While it would be ideal to live in a state of progress such that most folks didn't own nor operate a vehicle No it wouldn't. It is ideal to live in a state of progress where most "folks" can afford to own and operate a vehicle that allows them to go wherever they want whenever they want and take people with them.
    - 3y ago

wegfawefgawefg 3y ago

Why have categories at all. Just use stats.

gonational 3y ago
Stats, like wind in miles-per-hour? That seems arbitrary. Why not just use wind speed in plank-lengths per zeptosecond, then? It's almost as if expressive abstractions are helpful for human understanding of large sets of numerical statistics, no?
- wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
  nobody knows the difference between four and five and three and two. Its always on the news as a "warzone". so a real energy number would be nice.
  - gonational 3y ago
    A total energy level could help with total damage predictions, but, for the individual, wind speed and storm surge are key.

GartzenDeHaes 3y ago

> they're hitting places that didn't typically get hit in the past The human population is four times larger than it was in the 1970's, so there's more things to hit are they are often built in more marginal locations.

zaccusl 3y ago
Can you clarify? Are you saying that locations of the hurricanes have not changed, it's merely that there are now people/structures there so it's now noticeable? Or that humans are altering storm paths based on structural changes to the environment?
- GartzenDeHaes 3y ago
  Just making the observation that there are more humans and a larger built environment. When there is a natural disaster, there's likely to be more human impacts now than 50 years ago, regardless of the location or cause.
- ryathal 3y ago
  Mostly the former. with more developed coastline and more people living there, more damage is going to happen. Could storms be altered by human activity? Sure, but it's very difficult to reconcile how much is human action vs a hurricane making landfall in an area that wasn't urban 50 years ago.