Does winter cold disprove global warming? 29 January 04

According to the US National Center of Hurricanes, the frequency and average wind speed have been decreasing steadily since the 1950s. It is a fact. Check their statistics. Too bad.

OK, lets see the evidence Eduardo, give us a link or a ref :). Else I’ll just state you’re wrong :)

Hi Peter,

If you click Euardo’s name, you will see what organization Euardo belongs to. I already checked it out. You can read what is there and comment on it if you like. The link is below. Have at it.

http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/ENGLISH.html

I read many one-sided and distorted biased articles with many flaws in how the science is interpreted. Hopefully, these people are not serious.

Maybe Euardo may like to engage us on this site and become exposed like Norbertzangox did and prove how biased their group really is.

I think that by not providing this link directly, Euardo is afraid of getting overwhelmed by just the knowledgeable people on Mark’s site.

As for Mark, I am sure if Euardo would read his High Tide book, then Euardo would be totally familiar with Mark’s qualifications in how he documented climate change as it is happening already world-wide.

Euardo, please share your views openly. It is getting boring here again since we chased Norbertzangox away.

We need another skeptic to embarrass. So come on in here and say anything you wish to say. You are welcome here. Bring it on!

Dear Peter:

I am sorry my response was posted in a different place of the site. Now it is where it should have been from the beginning.

Before saying I am wrong, you must provide enough sound data showing hurricanes are on the rise because of global warming, as stated on some of the articles in the website and in Mark’s book. Otherwise, we will think you and Mark are the ones who are wrong, a very likely outcome.

It’s not for me to make your homework, so if you want to get the data – that will show the frequency and average wind speed has been decreasing since the 1950s (while CO2 levels were rising slowly but steadily, until now that have reached a plateau where it looks will stabilize) – please go to the US Hurricane Center and check the data for yourself. Sorry, but you will must make your own search. I am not going to facilitate your homework: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

But, you asked for references, and I will give you a hint about storminess and climate conditions before and during the “anthropogenic warming”. There are many more studies, but these seem to be quite adequate – as starters:

1. Barring, L., y H. von Storch, 2004. “Scandinavian storminess since about 1800,” Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 31, L20202, doi:10.1029/2004GL020441, 2004.

2. Frauenfeld, O.W., and R.E. Davis, 2003. Northern Hemisphere circumpolar vortex trends and climate change implications. Journal of Geophysical Research, 108, doi:10.1029/2002JD002958.

3. Bove, M.C., Zierden, D.F. and O’Brien, J.J., 1998. Are gulf landfalling hurricanes getting stronger? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 79: 1327-1328.

4. Changnon, S.A. and Changnon, D., 2000. Long-term fluctuations in hail incidences in the United States Journal of Climate 13: 658-664.

5. Easterling, D.R., Evans, J.L., Groisman, P.Ya., Karl, T.R., Kunkel, K.E. and Ambenje, P. 2000. Observed variability and trends in extreme climate events: A brief review. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 81: 417-425.

6. Gulev, S.K., Zolina, O. and Grigoriev, S. 2001. Extratropical cyclone variability in the Northern Hemisphere winter from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. Climate Dynamics 17: 795-809.

7. Schwartz, R.M. and Schmidlin, T.W., 2002. Climatology of blizzards in the conterminous United States, 1959-2000. Journal of Climate 15: 1765-1772.

8. Zhang, K., Douglas, B.C. and Leatherman, S.P., 2000. Twentieth-Century storm activity along the U.S. East Coast. Journal of Climate 13: 1748-1761.

Parting thoughts: if the “sound scientific” evidence you will provide in behalf of your “science” is derived from GCM or other kind of climatic models, be warned that in this discussion no computer video games are allowed, as assumptions, hypothesis and theories are not evidences or proof of anything. Neither will do red herrings, strawman, ad hominems, hoc post facto, and other kind of fallacies. Just simple observational facts.

Dan Kellogg, please forgive me if I don’t accept your challenge for a debate about global warming, or any other pseudo scientific frauds and myths. I have more important things to do than to try to convert believers into sceptics. Once I participated in a debate in a site full of crazy believers (those who believe in “chemtrails” – a spraying program by world governments to stop global warming and/or to wipe mankind from the Earth’s surface) and after 16 long pages of showing scientific facts (with lots of graphs and charts) I was banned by the moderator because I was “becoming too dangerous for their beliefs.”

I have learned the lesson: never fight (debate) on enemy grounds. But, if you like to see me debating on a neutral battlefield, then I invite you to go to Sciforums.com, (Earth Sciences,) at the moment in this particular link: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=29085&goto=newpost where we’ll be glad to debate whatever you like.

Perhaps we are not as important and dangerous for your Green religion as other notorious “non believers”, however we are constantly receiving invitations from schools, and universities in Argentina for lecturing there about “myths and frauds in science and ecology”, places where my book in Spanish (Ecology: Myths and Frauds – available for FREE in our website – not for hard cash as Mark Lyna’s) is used as obligatory reading. That’s our reward: spreading the scientific facts, and debunking your green misinformation.

I have received yesterday a new invitation to lecture in a symposium – this time in Spain, by the month of May but, as I don’t accept money or goods for what I write or lecture, it will be impossible for me to travel to Europe (I live in Argentina, as you must have figured out). The reason for my poverty is that I am retired, unemployed, have no sponsors, and accept no sponsorships. Or perhaps I should change my moral principles?

Besides, I don’t know if we are going to be alive by then, as all those scientists in Great Britain recently said the sky will fall over our heads “faster than previously thought”, (rings a familiar tone?) and the world will be full of tsunamis caused by global warming… (sigh)

Eduardo

I asked for the evidence you based your claim on - that is all. You quoted: 'the frequency and average wind speed [of hurricanes] have been decreasing steadily since the 1950s'. I'm not sure that's what they are saying - http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/G4.html, eg, 'However, for the Atlantic basin we have seen an increase in the number of strong hurricanes since 1995'. I do accept, though, that the data over time is inconclusive, <strong>either way</strong>. I can't see good evidence of a decrease in strength or number of hurricanes though.

Btw, I’ve read your other posts. I didn’t accuse you of having views based on a anti green religion, and I not aware ANYONE thinks tsunami are related to agw and that agw will mean more tsunami. That, my friend, is a myth you are trying to perpetuate.

Chemtrails? Of course you are right :). I’m not aware of any of my ilk who think the spraying theories anything other than bunk.

Peter, I assumed you were being honest in this petite debate. I still think you are going to behave in such a way. Of course, you know that when someone tells part of the truth – while not mentioning the rest that does not fit into his argument, then he is lying. That is, half truths are whole lies.

Well, quoted the hurricane website (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/G4.html) saying “I’m not sure that’s what they are saying – “ … Let then the people judge what are they saying when answering the question, “Subject: G4) Are we getting stronger and more frequent hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones in the last several years?” –

You quoted them correctly saying that – “However, for the Atlantic basin we have seen an increase in the number of strong hurricanes since 1995.” – but leaving out the opening remark in the answer: “GLOBALLY, NO”. Then, you forgot to mention some parts in the rest of the article that said something like this:

“As discussed in the previous section, it is highly unlikely that global warming has (or will) contribute to a drastic change in the number or intensity of hurricanes. We have not observed a long-term increase in the intensity or frequency of Atlantic hurricanes. Actually, 1991-1994 marked the four quietest years on record (back to the mid-1940s) with just less than 4 hurricanes per year. Instead of seeing a long-term trend up or down, we do see a quasi-cyclic multi-decade regime that alternates between active and quiet phases for major Atlantic hurricanes on the scale of 25-40 years each (Gray 1990; Landsea 1993; Landsea et al. 1996).”

“The quiet decades of the 1970s to the early 1990s for major Atlantic hurricanes were likely due to changes in the Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperature structure with cooler than usual waters in the North Atlantic. The reverse situation of a warm North Atlantic was present during the active late-1920s through the 1960s (Gray et al. 1997).”

“It is quite possible that the extreme activity since 1995 marks the start of another active period that may last a total of 25-40 years. More research is needed to better understand these hurricane “cycles”.

“For the region near Australia (105-160E, south of the equator), Nicholls (1992) identified a downward trend in the numbers of tropical cyclones, primarily from the mid-1980s onward. However, a portion of this trend is likely artificial as the forecasters in the region no longer classify weak systems as “cyclones” if the systems do not possess the traditional tropical cyclone inner-core structure, but have the band of maximum winds well-removed from the center (Nicholls et al. 1998). “

Then, the site provides some useful links, among them, the following, http://stormcarib.com/climatology/ATLN_5year.htm , where you can see a graph showing the number and intensity of hurricanes since 1851, with a caption at the bottom:

Most active 5 year period since 1851:

Most storms: 1995-1999 (66) Most hurricanes: 1995-1999 (41) Most severe hurricanes: 1950-1954 (22)

Where we see that hurricanes have not shown an increasing trend other than the cyclical ones observed by climatologists. And as they said: “As discussed in the previous section, it is highly unlikely that global warming has (or will) contributed to the drastic changes in hurricane number or intensity. We have not observed a long trend increase in number or strength in hurricanes.”

And finally the website gives us an good link to a NOAA study by: John A. Knaff Christopher W. Landsea, Steven V. Finley, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado, in here: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/bias/

May I remind you that Dr. Christopher Landsea is the one climatologist you were making fun of and criticizing in your website for his resignation from his work in the IPCC chapter on Observations, accusing his boss Ternberth of being biased? At last, a scientist with integrity.

I hope you’ll find this new information interesting, information I want to think you obviously ignored – because if you knew about these facts, then you have been misguiding the public with plain misinformation. Nothing new, on the other hand, as is most of the material found in “Hide Tide” – just another not very original expression of Green Litany’s anecdotal fairy tale stories.

(About the tsunami myth, my answer will come tomorrow… if you care).

Hurricane expert Chris Landsea withdrew from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, after IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth misrepresented his work on hurricanes which bore no relation to actual data provided by Landsea.   At a press conference Trenberth claimed that recent Atlantic hurricane activity has been due to global warming, yet no such evidence exists. The IPCC dismissed Landsea’s concerns about misrepresentation of climate science leaving him with no choice but to quit.   Chris Landsea works for the Hurricane Research Division, Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory, NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration).

Statement by Chris Landsea