Hurricane season begins today — and it is supposed to be a doozy. We may see as many as 17 named storms and five major hurricanes (wind speed of 111 mph or more). See here for multiple forecasts compared.
Considering that we already had one named storm, Andrea, 3 weeks before the official start of the season, it seems unlikely that we will have a replay of last year, with its average hurricane season.
The scientific debate continues to rage over how much global warming is affecting Atlantic hurricanes. As always, I am inclined to listen to our top climatologist, NASA’s James Hansen, especially when he is joined by four dozen expert coauthors.
According to their recent article, “Dangerous human-made interference with climate,”
We conclude that the definitive assertion of Gray (2005) and Mayfield (2005), that human-made GHGs play no role in the Atlantic Ocean temperature changes that they assume to drive hurricane intensification, is untenable. Specifically, the assertions that (1) hurricane intensification of the past decade is due to changes in SST [sea surface temperature] in the Atlantic Ocean, and (2) global warming cannot have had a significant role in the hurricane intensification of the past decade, are mutually inconsistent. On the contrary, although natural cycles play a role in changing Atlantic SST, our model results indicate that, to the degree that hurricane intensification of the past decade is a product of increasing SST in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, human-made GHGs probably are a substantial contributor, as also concluded by Mann and Emanuel (2006). Santer et al. (2006) have obtained similar conclusions by examining the results of 22 climate models.
The oceans are getting warmer, and hurricanes are getting more intense as a result.
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Of course, last year at this time forecasters were just as confident that they gotten their forecasts right. They turned out to be miserably, completely, totally wrong. You’ve presented no evidence here that suggests we should consider this years’s forecast any better. I think hurricane forecasters are guessing, essentially.
They have very little credibility left. You quote them only because it serves your political and scientific agenda.
Weird comment. These forecasts are made by people who don’t even believe in the global warming connection. Last year was weakened by an unexpecterd El Nino. Read the second link above for the inside scoop of why this year is probably going to be a doozy (we haven’t had two ordinary seasons in a row since the early 1990s). By the way, last season was an AVERAGE season, it just didn’t have any landfalling hurricanes so people thought it was a weak season.