from climaterealism
Author: Linny Luken
CBS News in Los Angeles recently aired a weather segment titled “Helen Gains Strength from Climate Change Impacts” in which a meteorologist claimed that climate change had strengthened Hurricane Helene and that the intensity and power of hurricanes in general were indeed In enhancement. This is wrong. In fact, it's shocking how wrong CBS is about the actual hurricane data showing that hurricanes are not getting more intense, frequent, or powerful.
CBS describes the film as follows: “…Helen is gaining strength from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, an effect linked to climate change that appears to make hurricanes and storms more powerful.”
The CBS anchor turned the segment over to meteorologist Marina Jurica, who claimed that “the increase in hurricane intensity is basically rooted in physics…hurricanes draw energy from warm ocean waters , and climate change increases sea surface temperatures, increasing the energy available for hurricanes.”
It's true that warm sea surface temperatures help hurricanes form, but they're far from the only factor. In fact, for much of this hurricane season, storms struggled to form at all despite warmer than average sea surface temperatures.
Eureka stuck to the common refrain that warmer water leads to stronger winds and more moisture, which leads to more rainfall. “One of the most significant impacts of climate change is its impact on hurricane intensity… That's why we're seeing more catastrophic flooding related to all of this. The anchor went on to assert that hurricanes have become more intense in recent years and “storms are rising in magnitude,” Eureka added, “over the past few decades. Storms move slower,” citing Harvey as an example of this effect. Most of these claims are unfounded and utter nonsense.
Starting with the anecdote of Hurricane Harvey, when the storm hit Texas in 2017, it was the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2005, after one of the most active tropical storm regions in the country experienced 12 years of severe hurricane drought. This is the longest severe hurricane drought on record in the United States.
Eureka claims in the CBS clip that Harvey stopped and dumped more water on Texas because global warming brought more moisture to the air, although the region did not receive as much precipitation It was unprecedented, but reality showed it was warmer than normal and a trough of low pressure held back the storm over Houston. As professional meteorologist and hurricane historian Joe Bastardi points out here, storm stalls are nothing new. As a meteorologist, this is Eureka's Work Check this before going on live TV.
There is no measured hurricane data to support the notion that hurricanes are becoming more intense. This is simply computer model output that was found to be flawed.
public data records No trend Tropical cyclones are increasing in frequency or intensity in the Atlantic Ocean or elsewhere around the world. Cumulative cyclone energy is a metric used to track the overall intensity of tropical cyclones over time, and data provided by Dr. Ryan Maue shows that tropical cyclones have been weakening in intensity since the 1990s. (see picture below)
Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agrees, stating that “confidence in attributing any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to human influence is low”.
The CBS broadcast was conducted before Helen made landfall, and while Hurricane Helene proved to be highly destructive, it was not unprecedented. Past hurricanes have also caused severe flooding, wind damage, and tornado damage inland areas of the Appalachians and surrounding areas, such as Category 4 Hurricane Gracie, which made landfall in South Carolina in 1959 and killed 13 people in Virginia. Death due to tornado. There are many other examples, the most devastating of which was the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, a Category 4 storm that claimed 6,000 to 12,000 lives, mostly caused by storm surge and flooding of.
Every major storm involving loss of life and property is a tragedy and needs to be taken seriously, which is why it’s so distressing when the mainstream media exploits people’s fears before dangerous storms and the loss and pain that follows. Shock in order to make false claims about climate change. CBS meteorologists are shockingly Although she was trained as a meteorologist, she had little knowledge of hurricane data or no care for the facts.
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