How did that Hurricane Season go?

Question

NOAA set out in August saying that there was a 85% chance of higher than average number of Hurricanes this year, raising the probably up from 75% in May. They called for 13-16 named storms, 7-9 Hurricanes, with 3-5 being major.

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/hurricane.shtml

Reality is there were 9 named storms, 4 hurricanes, 2 major.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2007atlan.shtml

Or between 40%-60% error rate.

How could this be? There was an 85% chance that these numbers were right! The numbers were even raised because the scientists were so sure.

It make you wonder how accurate these same scientist are about the probably of global warming. I think you could get better results about what the climate will be like in 5 years just by flipping a coin.

No person can tell you with any certainty what the climate will be like in 5 years. It's all nothing more than a guess.

The IPCC states that there is a 90% chance that man is causing global warming. That's very close to NOAA's 85% chance of a wicked hurricane season.

In the end, the results will be the same. Both guesses will be just one big bust.

Answer 1

That is a great point and that is one of the reasons that I do not believe it. Science has been wrong before many times. I know the believers will say that they have only been wrong 865 times or some made up figure like that. You bring up a great point though. I personally think that we have to many factors to consider before we can determine that a climate change will for sure happen becasue of man kind. Based on some charts I have seen though I think it is a natural cycle.

Answer 2

If there had been more hurricanes than predicted, would you have then accepted that as evidence the climate change was occurring? Just checking for future reference.

Anyway, here is something to keep in mind, this year, there were a couple of things that happened that should make you pause and take notice. One was Humberto, which spun up rapidly (and that is putting it mildly) from nothing. Admittedly it didn't have time to grow into a major storm before landfall, but the speed at which it formed suggests the temperature of the water was above average and that the shear was very low. The second, and maybe more significant, was that two cat 5 storms (Dean, Felix) formed on essentially the same track within a few weeks of each other in the Caribbean. This suggests that the warm pool of water was deep and not easily disrupted by the passage of a major storm.

Hurricane formation depends a lot on the vertical shear, which is not easily predicted. But there were some unusual occurrences in the 2007 season. I wouldn't claim the oddities were related to global warming, but one of the hallmarks of a changing climate is a breakdown of standard weather prediction methods. Weather prediction, which is what hurricane number/intensity is, relies on assuming that what will happen will be like what is known to have happened in the past. If climate has changed, reliance on the historical record doesn't work, and you have blown predictions, just like this year.

You are probably correct that nobody knows what climate will do for sure, but you can be assured that if you are posting here in 5-10 years, you will have to explain why global mean temperature has risen over that time period.


Coocachoopoo:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2007/al09/al092007.discus.006.shtml?

'nuff said k? Unless you want to take on the NHC. I gotta go with the experts and not you.

Answer 3

I've made the same comments myself. The reason the hurricane season was not a high threat as thought is b/c of El Nino. Which nobody can predict El Nino. The amazing 2005 hurricane season we were in a La Nina pattern. So they can't forecast hurricanes, we already knew that.

To gncp58: All hurricanes spin up in a hurry when they reach the gulf waters. There is no extreme circulation there. So the waters are always warmer than out in the Atlantic. I realize these hurricanes were a little further south but still.. You don't get the circulation in the Gulf like you do in the Atlantic therefore warmer waters in the gulf.

So can global warming cause more hurricanes. In theory yes. Warmer waters would mean more energy for these beasts to feed on. But their are other factors at play. If the water continues to warm and we are in a La Nina pattern. yea we'll have a season similar to the 2005 season. So only time will tell to see if the waters will continue to warm.

Here's some things that go unnoticed to you pro global warming people out there. Ok first off the earth is warming. No doubt. Secondly it may be by man and if it is by man it won't be as devastating as you think. Yes the sea level will rise and yes you'll have to evacuate people. Well you shouldn't have built by the freakn ocean in the first place. The areas where agriculture is grown will shift. No biggie!! It will cost more lives and harm more people to cut carbon than it would to just let the environment do its thing. I don't know why you think you can control the earth's climate like a thermostat.

Fact: 35,000 deaths in Europe' August 2003 heat wave was blamed on Global Warming. Cold, however, has caused 25,000 deaths a year recently in England and Wales-- 47,000 in each winter from 1998 to 2000. In Europe, cold kills more than seven times as many as heat does. World wide, moderate warming will, on balance, save more lives than it will cost--by-9-to-1 ratio in China and India. So cutting carbon dioxide reverses warming, that will mean a large net loss of life globally. I just thought that was an intersting fact. But you will never hear about a harsh cold spell that kills people only GLOBAL WARMING!!!! OMG!!! RUN!!!

Wally: Anybody can state that a hurricane season is going to be devastating over and over again and eventually get it right. I could say it's going to rain today everyday that it is today and eventually it will rain today. So yes I will remember when their wrong b/c if you predict a High hurricane season every season eventually there will be one!!

Answer 4

Yes, all the hurricane experts were wrong this year... Come to think about it they were wrong last year too.

But there's always next year. Next year there ought to be all the hurricanes made possible by global warming and all the hurricanes that the law of averages says should have come over the past couple years. So sooner or later they all have to converge and then you'll be sorry that you ever questioned the experts. Then everyone will forget the times the experts overstated the hurricanes and they will only remember that the experts knew when it was going to be an extraordinary season.

Answer 5

Yes, there seems very little evidence that hurricane activity is worsening as a result of global warming. Certainly a look at the number of Cat-5 Atlantic hurricanes doesn’t appear to bear much correlation with the warming trend…

1950s – 4
1960s – 6
1970s – 3
1980s – 3
1990s – 2
2000s – 8 (so far)

Yes, we’ve had 8 so far this decade, but we only had 2 in the 90s and we had 6 in the 60s when it was more than half a degree C colder.

A paper in Geophysical Research Letters recently stated: “using a homogeneous record, we were not able to corroborate the presence of upward trends in hurricane intensity over the past two decades in any basin other than the Atlantic” and said that “since the Atlantic basin accounts for less than 15% of global hurricane activity, this result poses a challenge to hypotheses that directly relate globally increasing tropical sea surface temperatures to increases in long-term mean global hurricane intensity.”

John Sol says in this question…

“here in the UK we had flooding this summer, exaserbated [sic] by GW”

Really? Prove it. Most experts are saying that the floods were actually exacerbated by the government’s policy of building 2 million homes on flood plains. Oh and they’re planning to build more. If you really want to do something to prevent future flooding, perhaps you should forget GW and work on stopping those houses getting built?

Dana says…

“If a scientist says he's 99% sure that if I jump up in the air I'll land back on the ground, it's just a guess!”

But, let’s be fair dana, I suspect a little observation will demonstrate the scientist’s prediction will be fairly accurate. The point Jello’s making is that observation is showing GW predictions tend to be wrong.

And let’s not forget that the forecasting experts over at www.forecastingprinciples.com say that the predictions made by the IPCC were so flawed as to be useless. They stated that “Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.” (See… http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf )

As ever with global warming - don't believe the hype.

Answer 6

Vlad scientists don't make up thier mind, that's not involved in science. Didn't you pay attention in high school?

The poloticians beat the scientists down to 90%, I'm sure you are aware of that. Besides one set of figures from The NOAA does not effect the validity of The IPCC figures in any way.
That's only slightly less riciculous than envoking the 70s media 'Ice age' prediction, but the same principle.

If you are glad that there were no major storms to provide further lay evidence of climate change, then don't forget lives and economies are at stake. also remeber the gulf coast is not the only place going to be effected by GW, here in the UK we had flooding this summer, exaserbated by GW, which caused deaths.

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvVdj.esVYlFWZkT.nt9SndtCAx.;_ylv=3?qid=20071019085320AAV3V7Z

Answer 7

These forecasters are basically throwing darts and pretending they know whats going on...when in reality they don't have a clue. There was virtually no hurricane season at all in the Americas, and especially not in the USA. Your guess is as good as theirs.

Ever wonder why the weather forecast EVERY DAY in the summer is "Partly cloudy with a 30% chance of rain"?!

Answer 8

Here in the UK we had a wet cold summer said to be due to the jet stream not moving north as it usually does, the underlying cause being a phenomenon in the Pacific similar to El Nino. The truth of the matter is that weather will never be fully predictable as it is chaotic and chaos theory applies. This is a different matter from climate change which is based on longer term averaged figures of temperature, rainfall etc over many parts of the globe.

Answer 9

It should not surprise you learn that the IPCC is being alarmist and political. Here are some quotes from a member of the IPCC and considered one of the worlds experts on hurricanes.

After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.

I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin.

Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small

It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming. Given Dr. Trenberth’s role as the IPCC’s Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity.

Differing conclusions and robust debates are certainly crucial to progress in climate science. However, this case is not an honest scientific discussion conducted at a meeting of climate researchers. Instead, a scientist with an important role in the IPCC represented himself as a Lead Author for the IPCC has used that position to promulgate to the media and general public his own opinion that the busy 2004 hurricane season was caused by global warming, which is in direct opposition to research written in the field and is counter to conclusions in the TAR.

Answer 10

I was just thinking about that this morning when I realized that hurricane season was almost over here in FL. They had us all geared up for a very active season, and so far it's been quiet. So much for weather forecasting. It sometimes seems so hit and miss.