Hurricane boost 'due to warm sea'

[SnowBear]

Hiya fellow trackers :blush:

Interesting article here on the BBC today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6921695.stm

Direct link to the UCAR news release.

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2007/hur...frequency.shtml

I find it amazing how they can make the comparison across 100 years to be honest for a number of reasons.

How do we know how many hurricanes and tropical storms went unreported in the age before satellites and aircraft capable of flying through the centre of such storms.

How many hybrid storms we have seen of late, small but intense systems, went unreported.

How many systems were deemed to be less intense than they really were due to not being able to get accurate data from the cores of them.

How many systems in the more distant past were only briefly tropical storms or hurricanes way out in the oceans, ones which today would be deemed a named system even though maybe only for a few hours, but, nether the less still record as a named system.

How many systems were missed by reporting shipping due to being in isolated areas..

How many systems were skimmed by shipping, reporting a lesser intense system than it really was. (they sure ain't gonna go through the centre to find out how intense it really was unless they had death wishes)

How can we go on what is at best 140 years worth of data much of which is sketchy the further back we go.

How do we know for sure that any hurricane is attributed to global warming. (Not saying it isn't, but with historical data so incomplete?)

Lots of questions on that article and the research it reports on here I am afraid.

What's your thoughts?

Edited July 30, 2007 by SnowBear

[kold weather]

Yeah your very right with that snowbear, its just impossible to tell. Indeed this actually goes somewhat against what Landsea and others found in their research which suggested there had been no rise in the numbers, tohugh an incrwase in strength, and I tend to believe that report rather then this tohugh I'll give it a read to see what it says.

Its not just that however, because as you say data that goes further back then the 60's, esp outside of the Atlantic is likely to have huge errors and evn in the Atlantic its estimated as many as 3-4 storms were missed a year and no doubt some seasons where few made landfall could have easily have had 6-8 storms missing. For example if Wilma 2005 occured in 1970's, satelite may well not have been at a high enough resolution to catch its tiny eye which would have led people to believe it was far weaker then what it was.

As for the increase from the 80's to now, as you say I think the improvement in technology has gone some way to finding more hurricanes, however this part does make some interesting reading and I will have a read of it to see what exactly is said.

Certainly there has been a big rise in the Atlantic numbers...indeed I wouldn't be that surprised to see that its the Atlantic hurricanes thast have skewed the results somewhat!

[Iceberg]

I don't think the data is there at the moment either, however a general trend of reduced shear and increased SST's as forecasted by GCM's will produce more and more intense hurricanes.

Landsea has rather lost it with AGW IMO a very conservative american.

[dvdfjojo]

The Study probably states far more but this is what bugs me about current reporting - every strong weather event seems to be put down to manmade global warming. The quote that people will remember will be "Approximately 60%, and possibly even 70% of what we are seeing in the last decade can be attributed directly to greenhouse warming," he said, and the authors say that man-made climate change, which has increased the temperature of the sea surface, is the major factor behind the increase in numbers. No suggestion there - it's hard fact.

The hot sea is just a superior fuel once a system has got going, surely. And a exceptionally busy season will surely stir up the seas and is nature's way of keeping those SSTs in balance from year to year. The technology we now have and are continuing to develop to detect these systems just gets more and more advanced and we have named systems in the last few years that only last a day or two before disappearing - there's no way these systems would have been detected just a few years ago so I'd agree with you all on that score.

Last year's Atlantic hurricane season must have been so annoying for those reporters of doom predicting the end of the world. Strong shear and harsh conditions for systems to develop was pretty much the norm for the whole season, wasn't it. Perhaps that was the one-off rather than 2005?

Edited July 30, 2007 by dvdfjojo

[davehsug]

Again, exactly what I said when it was on breakfast tv this morning. How on earth could you know? If a system didn't make landfall, recording their existence, let alone their intensity, was a complete matter of pot-luck.

I'm sure there must be more science to it than the brief headlines I've seen suggest. It's this sort of stuff however, that gives some parts of the AGW argument a bad name. Sadly, whilst it remains flavour of the month/year with the media, lots more unsubstantiated & inaccurate statements will be made, with even the smallest deviation from the norm, weatherwise, being attributed to AGW.

Dave