Re: [asa] Hurricanes and global warming

I still need to see if this study successfully overcomes observational bias.
 It's still not clear whether the trend is over the entire Twentieth Century
versus multidecadal oscillation. The most likely answer is a combination of
both the observed global warming of the oceans and MDO. The question remains
which of the two effects is most dominant. The he said/she said is in the
New Scientist story
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12377-tropical-storms-stepping-up-with-climate-change.html
 :

> However, Chris Landsea, at NOAA's National Hurricane Center, says that
> improvements in monitoring and technology over the last century mean that
> storms that were not picked up by meteorologists in the past are no longer
> overlooked (PDF)<http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea-eos-may012007.pdf>.
> These improvements include more shipping traffic, aircraft reconnaissance
> and satellites, as well as even newer technologies such as satellite
> microwave data and sophisticated analysis techniques.
>
> "When one takes into account these 'missing' storms, the upward trend
> disappears and large [long-term] variations remain," Landsea told *New
> Scientist*. "This is consistent with previous studies that suggest that
> the main variability in Atlantic storms is dictated by the Atlantic
> Multi-decadal Oscillation <http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/amo_faq.php> and
> that there is little to no impact of global warming on the number of
> tropical storms."
>
> Holland responds that he has accounted for the missing storms. He says
> Landsea's argument of long-term cycling is hard to make when the available
> data stretches over only about 2.5 cycles.
>

On 7/30/07, PvM <pvm.pandas@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What will the global warming deniers have to say about yet another
> data point undermining their position?
>
> http://www.usatoday.com/weather/hurricane/2007-07-29-more-hurricanes_N.htm
>
> <QUOTE>
> "We're seeing a quite substantial increase in hurricanes over the last
> century, very closely related to increases in sea surface temperatures
> in the tropical Atlantic Ocean," says study author Greg Holland of the
> National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.
>
> Working with hurricane researcher Peter Webster of Georgia Institute
> of Technology, Holland looked at sea records from 1855 to 2005 in a
> study published in the British journal Philosophical Transactions of
> the Royal Society A.
>
> The researchers found that average hurricane numbers jumped sharply
> during the 20th century, from 3.5 per year in the first 30 years to
> 8.4 in the earliest years of the 21st century. Over that time,
> Atlantic Ocean surface temperatures increased .65 degrees, which
> experts call a significant increase.
> </QUOTE>
>
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Received on Mon Jul 30 12:22:37 2007