Global warming should have increased the number of hurricanes. This did not happen. Is the theory wrong?

Question

Al Gore (in "An Inconvenient Truth) said that global warming would increase the strength and number of hurricanes, but this year we saw very few, weak, hurricanes.
When a scientific theory makes a prediction and the prediction fails, we say the theory is wrong. Why then are scientists not willing to state that the theory of global warming is therefore wrong?
Pride? Bias? Peer pressure? Fear?

Answer 1

Al Gore is wrong.

Look at the 1st and 3rd charts on this site:
http://www.grantchronicles.com/astro129.htm

The earth periodically goes through hot-cold-hot cycles. Hurricanes also go through 30 year (approx) cycles.

Max Mayfield, director of the Tropical Prediction Center at the National Hurricane Center, testified at a congressional hearing Sept. 20 that hurricane violence in the Atlantic ebbs and surges in cycles, each of which lasts several decades.

The 1940s through the 1960s experienced an above-average number of major hurricanes, while the 1970s into the mid-1990s averaged fewer hurricanes," Mayfield said. A new wave of hurricane activity resumed in the mid-1990s, and "the current period of heightened activity could last another 10 to 20 years."

Mayfield added that in his opinion, the increased hurricane activity since 1995 is due to natural cycles of hurricane activity and is "not enhanced substantially by global warming.

He should know a lot more than Al Gore's fictional account of the future. (Al did state in the movie that it was a fictional portrayal, remember...?)

Mack

Answer 2

Al Gore is not a scientist, and his movie simplified scientific ideas to make it easy to follow. In doing this, the movie leaves out a lot of the complex issures that a scientist would say that they haven't yet figured out.

There is no theory predicting increased hurricane frequencies with global warming, and neither an increase or decrease in hurricanes would prove or disprove anythinge related to the greenhouse effect. There are a variety of climate models that predict increased hurricanes, some that show little change, and some that show decreases, depending on assumptions used in the models. The ocean and air circulation conditions necessary for hurricanes to develop are way too complex to predict accurately. When a hurricane occurs, scientists cannot even consistently predict what what the hurricane will do over the next six hours, so scientists only talk about possibiliites at this point. Increased hurricanes are one possibility. .

Part of the problems with understanding hurricanes and global warming scenarios is that hurricanes are strongest when there is a large difference in the air pressure betwen continents and the ocean. A warmer Earth could actually reduce the pressure differences if humidity rises over continents, and this depends on changes in rainfall patterns.

Given the fact that we can't accurately predict the weather more than a few days ahead with real data, there is no way to predict the weather years from now under conditions that have never before occurred.

Answer 3

Folks - go and do some independent research and you will all realise that this has happened before Chinese naval units were able to navigate over the North Pole 1500 years ago because there was no ice Vikings lived on Greenland and had farms there - because there was no snow Romans had vinyards in England because it was warm enough. The greatest 'greenhouse gas' is WATER VAPOUR not CO2. A man expels more CO2 cycling to work then a car would produce. We NEED CO2 to keep this planet going - don't believe me? What would the plants breathe? You know, those things at the START of the food chain? Stop just listening to the Dogma. A true scientist ALWAYS looks upon things skeptically, it is the default position of all real scientists. Question what you are told, look up alternate ideas and make up your own mind. Figures produced have been manipulated to hide the inconvenient truth - the temperature has NOT risen significantly this century - this is evidenced by 'scientists' - NOT CLIMATOLOGISTS please note, now saying that the oceans are acting as a giant heat sink... except the oceans aren't actually getting any warmer. Don't believe me? Good. I am right, but go look up the evidence to try and prove me wrong - go do some research.

Answer 4

The more reasonable conclusion in this instance would not be that global warming is not happening, but that the predictions about an increased number of stronger hurricanes were wrong. Weather is a very complex phenomenom, and the connection between warmer global temperatures and hurricanes is not so precise. In addition, it must be remembered that one year does not a trend make, and that random fluctuations caused by the interaction of all the factors involved in weather can cause a weak hurricane season even if the general tendency is towards stronger hurriances.

Answer 5

Keep in mind that scientists, and in particular geologists who measure such data, typically do not measure measure time in terms of days, weeks, months, or even years. They frequently measure such data in terms of milleniums, or even longer periods of time. It is not infrequent to hear discussions of global warming put into context of "the temperature has risen X degrees over Y period of time. This is significantly faster than we have geologic evidence to suggest it has done so in the past."

The real problem is that if the theory of global warming is correct, much of the world as we know it will be uninhabitable when coastlines are moved inward several hundred miles as the result of the polar ice caps melting and the water needing some place to go. I think we can all agree that if this does happen, there would be some serious environmental and sociological changes that would occur.

Of course, if global warming is wrong, then we have nothing to fear at all. I'll be long dead by the time we know one way or the other, but future generations will have hell to pay for our actions today if global warming is correct. Should we seriously consider burdening them with our mistakes? Would that be the right rthing to do? I think not.

Answer 6

Just because one year goes by where there aren't any disastrous hurricanes doesn't mean Global warming isn't happening. How about the above average temperatures in much of the United States? How about the 41 square mile ice island that broke off in Canada? You look at one observation and automatically think there's no such thing as Global Warming? I think you are pretty ignorant.

Answer 7

No hurricanes for this year doesn't mean that the theory is wrong.
Global warming is strengthening up each day.So within the next
3 to 4 years you could expect many hurricanes maybe 1
hurricane a month.Scientists don't give up because they have
studied the melting of ice shelfs in the Arctic and Antarctiic which
is also due to global warming.

Answer 8

Global Warming huh?

Explain the Permian extinction?
Explain the Mesozoic hot house period?

The Earth goes through periodic temperature changes

"The past is the key to the present"

Answer 9

I don't know about the movie your talking about. The information from the movie could be wrong. If it was a documentary the information would probably be correct. I think the theory is wrong. I also think that the rising of temperatures is just a cycle that takes place in so many years.

Answer 10

Don't confuse weather (changes over hours, days, weeks), with climate (changes over years).

Hurricanes are definitely related to weather, and not a good measure of global warming. Gore's stuff on hurricanes is not his best, nor is it widely accepted by climate scientists.

The Arctic ice cap changes slowly, and is affected by climate, not weather. It's steadily getting smaller due to global warming.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5344208.stm

"The last few decades have seen summer ice shrink by about 0.7% per year."

Bottom line - the predictions of climate scientists about global warming are coming true. And they know all about natural cycles, and the vast majority of them say this isn't that.

I don't listen to environmentalists on this and I don't listen to reporters or fringe scientists or the fossil fuel industry. I listen to mainstream climate scientists and most all of them say this is a big problem, caused by our activities.