Dr. Gray's NHC Presentation

[wxman57]

Hi all. Thought you might like to see a few shots I took during Dr. Gray's presentation at the end of the NHC meeting in New Orleans last Friday. He's always fun to listen to. You can download the presentations here:

http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/In ... ns2007.ppt

Here's a shot of Dr. Gray talking with Phil Klotzbach seated. Phil will be taking over the predictions for Dr. Gray. Phil graduated college at the age of 19 and is just about done with his PhD. Quite a bright young man:

http://myweb.cableone.net/nolasue/nhc1.JPG

A slide showing a timeline of the past 2-3 years of activity and paper writing.

http://myweb.cableone.net/nolasue/nhc2.JPG

The "Gang of Five" mention. Dr. Gray mentioned a "Gang of Five" researchers who he says have a purely political agenda aimed at getting research funding. He didn't mention any names, but it's pretty clear who he was talking about in the slide below. Let's see, there's Greg Holland, Peter Webster, Judith Curry, Kerry Emanuel, and one more that slips my mind:

http://myweb.cableone.net/nolasue/nhc3.JPG

A slide demonstrating an inverse relationship between a warm Atlantic and cooling globe and vice-versa. Dr. Gray believes we'll see a global cooling trend starting in the next 5-10 years:

http://myweb.cableone.net/nolasue/nhc4.JPG

Using the "Gang of Five's" logic but looking back past 1970, Dr. Gray concludes that by the year 2050 there will be no landfalling major hurricanes as C02 increases. Pretty funny.

http://myweb.cableone.net/nolasue/nhc5.JPG

Dr. Grays predictions for the future:

http://myweb.cableone.net/nolasue/nhc6.JPG

[x-y-no]

"Gang of Five" - a reference to communist China's "Gang of Four?"

Impugning motives in an ad hominem attack like this seems really unprofessional to me. What evidence did he supply that they "have a purely political agenda aimed at getting research funding?"

[Aquawind]

Wow.. I was at the conference last year and Dr Grey was really challenging GW as seen by many. Looks like this year he didn't back off a bit and in fact has tried even harder to plead his case. I hope their hurricane forecast does a little better this year. That 2050 prediction of zero major landfalls is halarious..

[tgenius]

No Hurricane landfalls in 2050? That's pretty ridiculous to be theorizing something thats 40+ yrs away isn't it?

[wxman57]

No Hurricane landfalls in 2050? That's pretty ridiculous to be theorizing something thats 40+ yrs away isn't it?

He was demonstrating the ridiculous claims of the AGW group (anthropogenic global warming) by only going back to 1970 during the last low point in activity in forecasting future activity based upon the recent upsurge. If you go back to the previous active cycle, landfalls are decreasing, not increasing. It all depends on how you manipulate the data.

[wxman57]

"Gang of Five" - a reference to communist China's "Gang of Four?"

Impugning motives in an ad hominem attack like this seems really unprofessional to me. What evidence did he supply that they "have a purely political agenda aimed at getting research funding?"

You'd have to ask Dr. Gray about that part, I'm just reporting what I observed. But I have seen the research and back-and-forth emails from this group and it does appear as though they've made up their minds about human-induced increases in hurricane activity and they don't want to hear any evidence otherwise.

[wjs3]

Wxman57:

First, thanks for the post. Your participation here is just incredible, and I can;t say thank you often enough.

I am curious...what was the tone at the meeting during this? Silence? Boos? Laughter?

A little bit of each?

I have no idea what the tone at a meeting like this is upposed to be like (is jeering allowed?), let alone what it can become with such an interesting speaker who is intentionally being provocative, so would appreciate any insight you can provide!

Best--

WJS3

[tgenius]

No Hurricane landfalls in 2050? That's pretty ridiculous to be theorizing something thats 40+ yrs away isn't it?

He was demonstrating the ridiculous claims of the AGW group (anthropogenic global warming) by only going back to 1970 during the last low point in activity in forecasting future activity based upon the recent upsurge. If you go back to the previous active cycle, landfalls are decreasing, not increasing. It all depends on how you manipulate the data.

Ah.. that makes sense now.. I know that Dr. Gray falls in the anti-Global Warming camp, but I just saw the shot out of context (which is an understandable mistake!)

[x-y-no]

No Hurricane landfalls in 2050? That's pretty ridiculous to be theorizing something thats 40+ yrs away isn't it?

He was demonstrating the ridiculous claims of the AGW group (anthropogenic global warming) by only going back to 1970 during the last low point in activity in forecasting future activity based upon the recent upsurge. If you go back to the previous active cycle, landfalls are decreasing, not increasing. It all depends on how you manipulate the data.

I'm not aware of any climate researcher, "gang of five" member or otherwise, who claims validity for a simple linear extrapolation of the frequency of a regional phenomenon. So I fail to see the relevance of this graphic to anything.

[hurricanetrack]

The good thing about all of this, I mean ALL of it, is that we will absolutely know for sure who was right in about 40 years or so. Those of us who are still around though.....

Save these posts! They could be really interesting to read in, say, 40 years!

[wxman57]

I'm not aware of any climate researcher, "gang of five" member or otherwise, who claims validity for a simple linear extrapolation of the frequency of a regional phenomenon. So I fail to see the relevance of this graphic to anything.

Have you seen any of their presentations or read their papers? A linear extrapolation is not far from what they're predicting. Data start at 1970 and go through the present time then use that trend to extrapolate to 2050.

[x-y-no]

I'm not aware of any climate researcher, "gang of five" member or otherwise, who claims validity for a simple linear extrapolation of the frequency of a regional phenomenon. So I fail to see the relevance of this graphic to anything.

Have you seen any of their presentations or read their papers? A linear extrapolation is not far from what they're predicting. Data start at 1970 and go through the present time then use that trend to extrapolate to 2050.

Yes, I have read most of their recent publications and no, I haven't seen anything there even remotely like a simple linear extrapolation. In general, they are correlating storm intensity to SSTs (modified by issues such as wind shear and humidity) and their future projections are based on what climate GCMs say will occur with those variables.

[wxman57]

I'm not aware of any climate researcher, "gang of five" member or otherwise, who claims validity for a simple linear extrapolation of the frequency of a regional phenomenon. So I fail to see the relevance of this graphic to anything.

Have you seen any of their presentations or read their papers? A linear extrapolation is not far from what they're predicting. Data start at 1970 and go through the present time then use that trend to extrapolate to 2050.

Yes, I have read most of their recent publications and no, I haven't seen anything there even remotely like a simple linear extrapolation. In general, they are correlating storm intensity to SSTs (modified by issues such as wind shear and humidity) and their future projections are based on what climate GCMs say will occur with those variables.

But they appear to discount the AMO, counting on SSTs to continue to rise indefinitely due to AGW. Dr. Gray, Chris Landsea, Roger Pielke, and others point out that the current warm phase will last perhaps another 15-20 years or so, then the Atlantic will begin cooling. During the last warm cycle, global temperatures dropped beginning in the 1940s. Dr. Gray's main point was that the modelers are not taking many important variables into consideration (like the deep ocean) and they aren't modeling clouds/water vapor properly. Also, the "gang of five" as he calls them don't want to hear anything about the liklihood of many missed major hurricanes in the pre-satellite era, as that counters their argument of increased activity due to global warming.

I didn't want to get into a GW/AGW debate here, just reporting what Dr. Gray presented at the NHC. Feel free to send him an email.

[x-y-no]

But they appear to discount the AMO, counting on SSTs to continue to rise indefinitely due to AGW.

Ummm ... we're talking apples and oranges here ... the so-called "gang of five" are talking about global occurrence of intense tropical systems whilst Dr. Gray's hypothesis relates to the intensity of the Atlantic season only.

Dr. Gray, Chris Landsea, Roger Pielke, and others point out that the current warm phase will last perhaps another 15-20 years or so, then the Atlantic will begin cooling. During the last warm cycle, global temperatures dropped beginning in the 1940s.

I'm curious ... Why would the time lags on the tail end of the warming phases be so much longer that those on the end of cooling phases?

According to his slide #51, global cooling correlates to periods of strong THC, global warming with periods of weak THC. According to his slide #37, the last strong THC period ended around 1968 and the current strong THC phase began in 1995. But looking at slide #48, the warming began in earnest in the early 70's, at most 5 or 6 years after the end of the latest strong THC phase. We're now already over 12 years into the current strong THC phase and yet they say it'll be another 15 - 20 years on top of that before we start seeing his hypothesized global cooling? That makes the time lag at the end of this warm phase something like 5 times the lag at the end of the last cool phase. Why would that be?

(Incidentally, there's fairly good evidence for some substantial part of the 1945 - 1970 hiatus in warming being related to quantities of sulphate particulates in the stratosphere.)

Dr. Gray's main point was that the modelers are not taking many important variables into consideration (like the deep ocean) and they aren't modeling clouds/water vapor properly.

I sure would like to see some attempt on his part to quantify this heat exchange with the abyssal oceans that he thinks is happening. As far as I'm aware, there's not a lot of variability in the deep ocean temperatures. Wouldn't one expct to see such variations if there's a significant multi-decadal oscillation in heat transport in the North atlantic subsidence zones?

Also, I recall that last year's presentation prominently included a part about upwelling in the Indian Ocean cooling the tropical west Pacific during high THC phases. That seems to have disappeared without explanation. I wonder why ... (maybe he realized that his notion of where THC upwelling occurs was just flat wrong)

There's no doubt that water vapor is a positive feedback, so I presume he's talking about clouds being a substantial negative feedback? That sounds like Lindzen's "iris effect" which got a lot of serious attention but which didn't pan out. Certainly there's still a fair range of uncertainty regarding how much effect changes in cloud patterns will have in a warmer climate, but that's accounted for in the IPCC projections.

Also, the "gang of five" as he calls them don't want to hear anything about the liklihood of many missed major hurricanes in the pre-satellite era, as that counters their argument of increased activity due to global warming.

I don't think that's a fair characterization. I've certainly seen both Judith Curry and Kerry Emanuel address that issue, which they could hardly do without hearing more than a little about it.

I didn't want to get into a GW/AGW debate here, just reporting what Dr. Gray presented at the NHC. Feel free to send him an email.

Well, maybe I should try that .... I find a lot of his assertions perplexing.

[JPmia]

Speaking objectively on the idea of Dr. Gray slamming the "gang of five," it is unprofessional. They could easily do the same to him. I am not sure this helps him in advancing his position. I've heard him do it in the past on video recordings and it made me cringe to hear it. Just my thoughts.

I have a question though, is it possible that both the Atlantic is warming because of the AMO in parrellel with the occurence of Global Warming. Couldn't they both be occuring at the same time? Has this question been addressed by the researchers?

[x-y-no]

I have a question though, is it possible that both the Atlantic is warming because of the AMO in parrellel with the occurence of Global Warming. Couldn't they both be occuring at the same time? Has this question been addressed by the researchers?

Certainly that's possible, in fact very likely. And certainly that's considered in the research - disentangling natural variation from anthropoenic foring is a bgpart of te job.