New paper by Chris Landsea on storms and global warming

[x-y-no]

Global warming may not be force in storms
A report raised doubts about studies that seem to show hurricanes are growing stronger because of global warming while not taking into account better tracking.
BY MARTIN MERZER
mmerzer@MiamiHerald.com

Studies that link global warming to an increase in hurricane ferocity might be full of hot air, according to a research paper that will be published today in a major scientific journal.

The paper, co-written by Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade, challenges earlier findings that hurricanes have grown more powerful in the past 30 years.

It says those studies failed to account for technological improvements that now produce more accurate -- and often higher -- estimates of a storm's power than were available in the past.

'If you say, `Hey, the number of Category 4 and 5 storms has doubled since 1970,' you have to ask where is that coming from and can we accept that as true,'' said Landsea, one of the nation's leading hurricane researchers, who now serves as science and operations officer at the hurricane center.

His answer: Probably not, because the databases used for historical studies are so skewed.

Set for publication in today's edition of the journal Science, the study extends a multifaceted scientific debate that grows more heated every few months.

more here: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/15140987.htm

I haven't had a chance to read the paper yet and probably won't for a week or so. It appears this is an extention of the work Dr. Landsea has been doing on assesing the reliability of the historical record.

His methodology to date has certainly been sound and I expect no less here. OTOH, the same can be said for Emanuel, Curry and Webster's work - the issue is that the error bars are pretty large when it comes to this historical data.

Intuitively, I find it hard to believe that the effect of surface warming is as small as Landsea thinks it is, but I certainly can't prove that.

I've read that CIMSS is doing a reanalysis of sattelite data from the 80's - to be published next year some time. Hopefully, that will shed more light on the issue.

[terstorm1012]

good link.

it'll be interesting to see how this pans out...but I don't think any definitive answer will come for several years yet (and by that time we'll probably know for certain if warming is or isn't occuring.)

[x-y-no]

good link.

it'll be interesting to see how this pans out...but I don't think any definitive answer will come for several years yet (and by that time we'll probably know for certain if warming is or isn't occuring.)

Oh, we know that AGW is occurring.

We don't know with any confidence how that is affecting tropical systems.

[Aslkahuna]

Well we disagree slightly as to the source of the warming as I don't think it's all anthropogenic though a significant portion is, but I agree with Landsea's thoughts. The problem as has been been pointed out is that the Global database needs some serious reanalysis to determing true trends and until we have that reanalysis I don't think we can make any definitive statements. Emmanuel, et al. may eventually tunr out to be correct and then again maybe not but in my opinion it's a bit early to tell.

Steve

[Javlin]

it's all anthropogenic .....You guys trying to force me to learn a new word today.Off for a search

[terstorm1012]

re above: i think that was what i was trying to say. it'll be years before anyone can definitively say the warming is making the storms worse, because now we have much more accurate means of obtaining data as opposed to the past.

if i were to pull a date out of my butt i'd say about 15 years, when the current active cycle will be winding down.

[x-y-no]

re above: i think that was what i was trying to say. it'll be years before anyone can definitively say the warming is making the storms worse, because now we have much more accurate means of obtaining data as opposed to the past.

if i were to pull a date out of my butt i'd say about 15 years, when the current active cycle will be winding down.

I'm a bit more optimistic than that.

Like I said, I'm looking forward to next year's publication of the sattelite reanalysis project at CIMSS. I think that'll be real helpful.

[gigabite]

Gravity the Evaporation Issue

Don’t under rate the global warming problem. There are more factors involved in storm generation than just sea surface temperatures. Atmospheric moisture is a factor that is missing this year. The clinical term is la Nina. Personally I believe it has to do with the latitude of the New Moon at perihelion. It is so far north this year that nighttime ocean evaporation is severely limited because of the New Moon is in aphelion and the latitude is over cold water.

The effect of gravity on the evaporation issue changes every month. The big players in the rainfall cycle are the Sun and Jupiter. Jupiter is just a 1 percent factor, but that one percent can be focused on to some very critical areas, as Jupiter gets closer to perihelion and the earth. For instance the Full Moon August 2006 Jupiter is at 5,414 au’s. The Full Moon August 2007 Jupiter will be at 5.092 au’s that is 6 percent closer. Perihelion is March 17, 2011. The rainiest portion of Jupiter’s period is from 2008 to 2014. The latitude of the New Moon at perihelion will be continually dropping through the closest approach of Jupiter to 2016.

This Season isn’t over, yet. The decade of intense storms may not start until next year. Depending on the intensity of the sun. There is the question of the “Iris Effect.” The Iris Effect is a hypothesis that says as the suns intensity grown at some point the planet will cloud up and a mini Ice Age will commence. It is hard to say. The Global Warming camp points to the melting of glaciers as the key indicator of global warming, but some glaciers are growing. The people involved in hurricane studies are skilled and determined. It is just that the set of variables is huge.