WHA-WHA-WHAT???? B-B-But Brett!! I thought it was inevitable!!! I thought that we need more laws and authoritarian rules to stop the big bad Hurricanes??? Now, the Global Warming farce has nothing to do with their increased activity??...PREPOSTEROUS!!!!...Must be another one of those vast right wing conspiracys! I thought the weather had nothing to do with the climate??? I thought it was all George Bush's fault???? I thought Al Gore was going to come to the rescue and make us use swirly light bulbs and less toilet paper! Now he can't! Oh, my!

hee hee hee, ain't I the Denying Stinker???...;-D.....

During the most recent 50-year period, 1957 to 2006, 83 hurricanes hit the United States, 34 of them major. In contrast, during the 50-year period from 1900 to 1949, 101 hurricanes (22% more) made U.S. landfall, including 39 (or 15% more) major hurricanes.

Pretty solid evidence that CO2 and AGW has nothing to do with hurricanes. The facts won't stop Al Gore from yelling fire in a crowded theater though.

Ice mass steadily increasing in Antarctica. Hurricanes decreasing. Record cold in the southern hemisphere. Does it sound like the earth "has a fever?"

The entire AGW religion is based on misinformation and FUD.

But, but, but the increase in the THC must be due to anthropogenic global warming. It just has to be. The Goracle said so. Besides, what does this guy know? He's just an atmospheric scientist who has been studying hurricanes for the past 24 years.

I also find it interesting that the rise and fall of the number of hurricanes seems to be out of synch with the rise and fall of temperature.

Gray is of course, absolutely correct.

He nails the crucial issue:

One reason may be that the advocates of warming tend to be climate modelers with little

observational experience. Many of the modelers are not fully aware of how the real atmosphere and ocean

function. They rely more on theory than on observation.

However, he is too kind. He should have said: They rely more on "unsupported speculation" than on observation.

Still Gray's comment is more like saying "a doctor doesn't care about proper medical procedure", since he is

saying that the so called scientists do not follow the scientific method.

NOAA's 2007 Atlantic hurricane season outlook indicates a very high 75% chance of an above-normal hurricane season, a 20% chance of a near-normal season, and only a 5% chance of a below-normal season. The outlook calls for a very high likelihood of an above-normal hurricane season, with 13-17 named storms, 7-10 hurricanes, and 3-5 major hurricanes. The likely range of the ACE index is 125% to 210% of the median. This prediction signifies an expected sharp increase in activity from the near-normal season observed in 2006.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/hurricane.shtml

From the same GIGO mill which is proclaiming 2007 to be the warmest year ever, despite the fact that half the country is below normal.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/YearTDeptUS.png

Ahh, good ol' crazy Dr. Gray, who I might add was called out by fellow skeptic Dr. Lindzen as being clueless on climatology, should focus on getting his hurricane predictions correct. He missed big time last year and isn't off to a good start this year, either.

It has to be AGW the Goracle has spoken.
Please don't try to confuse the AGW mob with the facts. Their mind (Singular) has already been made up.
"Damn rational thought or science, we know it's AGW...it just has to be. We wear green,went to the concert, and feel guilty. It must be so.. really!"

Because of the high variability of hurricane cycles, it would be very difficult to detect a signal form global warming whether or not it is happening. But if we can't yet prove a correlation, we do still have logic to fall back on: As the atmosphere warms (which even most professional deniers now concede), the water temperatures must also rise (simple conduction). Higher water temperatures will mean more severe hurricanes (a very basic, non-controversial relationship). Therefore, hurricanes will become more severe, on average, as global warming progresses. It is likely happening already, but proving that point is irrelevant.

By the way, Patrick Henry, there is no evidence that "ice mass is steadily increasing in Antarctica." There are some contradictory results that indicate ice might be accumulating on top, as would be expected from increased precipitation due to rising temperatures, but it is also melting rapidly around the edges. So what is the net result? Those data do not exist. In Greenland, however, where the same forces are working, the rapid melting is almost certainly overwhelming any accumulation on top.

I'm trying to understand the physics here. I can see seawater getting warmer at higher salinity due to decreased evaporation. I can see THC speeding up because colder more concentrated seawater drops to the bottom in the northern latitudes. But what causes the higher initial evaporation that's needed to get the seawater more concentrated in the first place? Thx in advance.

Jock,

I usually provide links to my references. Can you do the same? Antarctic sea ice is steadily increasing over the last 20 years and is above the 30 year mean now.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg

How do you reconcile this with your unsubstantiated comment?
is also melting rapidly around the edges

How could sea ice be increasing (around the edges) of Antarctica, and the adjacent land ice be decreasing? Remember that sea ice freezes at a lower temperature then fresh water.

Jock,

Higher water temperatures will mean more severe hurricanes (a very basic, non-controversial relationship).

Then, why between 1940 and 1960, when temperatures were declining world wide (despite increasing CO2 concentrations) was there an increase in hurricane activity? There was also a decrease in hurricane activity between 1970 and 1994 when there was unprecedented warming (according to the AGW cheerleaders). Please explain this "correlation" and how it applies to your very basic non-controversial relationship?

Thank you for participating.

Yes, Patrick, the Antarctic sea ice has shown a net increase over the last 20-30 years (your first graph shows the high variability in this trend; your second graph is irrelevant, of course, since it only shows a short-term increase over the last few months due to WINTER). However, if you go back 40 years or more, and include the dramatic decreases in the 70s there may be a net decrease:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2003/2003111016173.html

Curran, etal. (2003) Ice Core Evidence for Antarctic Sea Ice Decline Since the 1950s. Science 302:1203-1206.

I can show you many peer-reviewed papers showing melting around the edges in Antarctica, but that isn't really the point, because regions even within Antarctica vary greatly in average temperatures. As I said, we don't know what the overall trend of the entire Antarctic system is. But it doesn't really matter to the AGW argument, which is about GLOBAL averages, which show steady temperature increases.

Contemporary climate change is extremely complex, incorporating numerous causes that are variable over time and geographically patchy. Yes, it can be very difficult to detect the AGW signal within all of this. I can see why people are often skeptical, seeing a lot of contradictory assertions (some of which are even true). But science is a process relying on the overall body of evidence, not a few "gotchas" circulating around the internet. That is why we have a couple thousand really smart scientists devoting their careers to this. I certainly don't understand it all; but I am a scientist and I understand how the process works, and I know how to weigh reliable knowledge.

Anthropogenic global warming is real, folks; I wish it wasn't, but there isn't any way around it.

Jock,

I am not going to waste any more discussing this with you, because like several others on this thread you are disinterested in the details and prefer to obfuscate with meaningless technical chatter.

The second graph is hardly irrelevant. It shows the deviation for the date from the 30 year average - which is above normal. Note the red line at the bottom of the graph.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg

There have been papers published showing ice loss in West Antarctica, but on balance given the ice gain in the rest of Antarctica - the ice mass is increasing. As a senior scientist and engineer I have seen literally tens of billions of dollars wasted on nonsense projects and have little patience for obfuscation. Save it for somebody else.

Below is a link that illustrates the SST pattern between the North Atlantic and the polar warming (#136:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1822#comments

It basically plots a logrithmic wieghted temp distribution of polar temp anamolies with thier Gaussian distribution (normal in statistical analysis). The first graph illustrates the 2005 artic peak in temps (which follows the Gaussian model). The second graph illustrates the 1880-2004 Thermalhaloline Time Series, while the third graph illustrates the NAO time series.

You can also go to #94 to get the July North America Temp anamoly (35 year average) taken from raw Satelites. A cool North American Summer indeed.

Patrick,

Perhaps you could explain the significance of your second graph in a little more detail for me. The red line appears to show that the Antarctic sea ice cover is roughly 800,000 square kilometers above the 30-year mean for the end of July. If that is true, then perhaps you could also explain the significance of the sea ice cover being 500,000 square kilometers below the 30 year mean during the month of December.

While the graph certainly provides useful data, I would like to see one that covers a much wider range of dates before concluding that any increase or decrease in Antarctic sea ice dictates a long term shift. We had torrential rains and serious flooding throughout the month of November here in the Pacific Northwest, but that doesn't mean were expecting it to be worse next year. It may very well be that the trend is toward increasing Antarctic ice cover, but if I'm reading it right, that graph just doesn't seem to show it.

If you have more substantial data on the subject, I'd be interested to see it.

"You can also go to #94 to get the July North America Temp anamoly (35 year average) taken from raw Satelites. A cool North American Summer indeed."

That map is for the week of June 26th to July 3rd. Are you, like other deniers, going to use a week of weather to disprove AGW?

BTW, we're up to 21 90-degree days this year, and with an impending heatwave starting this week, I have a feeling we're going to be well above normal this summer in regards to 90-degree days. Definitely not a 'cool' summer around these parts.

Jock - there are many factors in hurricane formation beyond water temperature.

Also, since the number of hurricanes has not increased, either you or the AGW theory is incorrect.

Which is it?

Travis,

If you look at the other graph, you can see that the amount of sea ice is generally trending upwards over the last 20 years. The exact opposite of Al Gore's claims.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

The significance is that Antarctic sea ice is not declining, as nearly every politician and journalist on the planet seems to believe. I wonder where this urban rumor came from?

The data set is constrained by the fact that satellites weren't in place before 30 years ago, so I don't think it is realistic to make sensitive comparisons prior to that time.

Jock:

You know, you might be right and AGW is a real thing. But I will tell you, what happens to the planet as a result is merely speculation and hearsay. It is borne of a crisis mentality and the desire to prove one's value by creating a need for one's service. Never a great pairing.

You know one of the most troubling things to me is the lockstep by which these oft cited several thousand "really smart" scientists seem to carry themselves. They refer to studies that are really nothing more than extrapolations of sketchy data sets as fact very often. And they often refer to the peer review for the sole purpose of generating fact from fiction. The apparent and vehement trashing of anyone who does not tow the party line is also concerning.

It seems to me that AGW is not as much about reality as it is creating a cottage industry. Of course all for the "good" of the planet. Who wouldn't want that?

Darren,

Using your flawed logic, the hundreds of studies showing how fatty foods and lack of exercise make you fat are just conjecture. They're just creating a "need" for the $30 billion diet industry.

Mark:

Well, I see we are back to the apple versus brick comparison.

Diet studies and health are documented and provable as individuals can live an entire life under scrutiny. This period of time can occur over a relative short period mesaured indecades. And, just as importantly, a post-mortem can be done to establish a likely cause of the person's demise.

In climate, last I checked, changes take hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Even the most dour of AGWers look at changes over a 100 years. Therefore, the ability to follow the changes is as affected by the process as by the actual changes. And, a post-mortem is nearly impossible as the entire thing is jsut a bit too complex.

Your right a cottage industry exists in both and the viability of each seems to be fairly comparable. Lots of great ideas with little actual bang for the buck.

"Therefore, hurricanes will become more severe, on average, as global warming progresses. It is likely happening already, but proving that point is irrelevant."

To me, this sums it all up: 'We KNOW it will happen, so why bother with the tedious science and actually PROVE it?'

Dr. Gray is most correct in his statement concerning hurricane frequency and strength. The Global Warming bunch are like people sitting around discussing the earths axis change and attributing it to the use of sharp sticks.