Carbon Brief and The Guardian falsely claim climate change is making cyclones worse – what does Watt think?

from climaterealism

Author: Linny Luken

Media organizations such as Introduction to Carbon and The Guardian Recently published articles claim that climate change is making tropical cyclones more severe, shortly after Cyclone Chito caused destruction and tragic loss of life in Mayotte and Mozambique last December. This is wrong. The tropical cyclone did not worsen. Data shows no increase in the severity or number of hurricanes and typhoons. In fact, recent research shows that cyclone frequency and power have actually declined slightly over the past 30 years.

this Introduction to Carbon The post, “Chido hits; new peak for coal; Africa's energy transition” quoted the Associated Press reporting that Chido was “the most powerful storm to hit Mayotte in 90 years,”[s]Scientists have long believed that climate change is making cyclones more severe in the region, but a lack of weather data has hindered a more conclusive statement.

Guardian's The report in “Cyclone Chito devastates French island of Mayotte, hundreds feared dead” correctly examines the tragedy of the disaster there, but the newspaper cannot help itself, claiming in the last paragraph that the tropical cyclone “is getting worse “due to the climate emergency” and “creating a massive humanitarian crisis in poor countries in southern Africa that have had minimal impact on global warming, underscoring their calls for richer countries to provide more help to combat climate change.” Influence.

The GuardianThe idea that African countries need more help because rich countries contribute more to “global warming” is foolish, because it is believed that when natural disasters occur, poor countries need and demand assistance regardless of how the climate changes. They need help because they are underdeveloped, and they are underdeveloped for many reasons, including weak institutions, limited property rights and political corruption, none of which have anything to do with climate change.

Beyond this logical error, public data shows that tropical storms are not becoming more frequent or extreme. climate realism We have reported this fact many times by looking at historical tropical cyclone storm data compiled and provided by meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue. The lack of trend is particularly evident when looking at global accumulated cyclone energy (ACE). (See chart above) Climate Overview: Hurricanes and Climate Overview: Global Tropical Cyclones also provide real-world data showing no increase in the frequency or severity of such storms.

Emerging research discussed by Chris Morrison in a Daily Skeptic article also suggests that Introduction to Carbon and The Guardianthe cyclone did not intensify. Recent research published in journals nature This shows that “the destructive power of cyclones (a common term for typhoons and hurricanes) has not increased in any ocean basin over the past 30 years.”

Morrison explained that the researchers developed a “Power Dissipation Index” (PDI), which is similar to ACE, except that it includes the intensity of storms as well as their duration and frequency. This indicator shows that the PDI of the South Indian basin formed by Chido has declined over the past 30 years. This shows that the mild warming over the past hundred years or so has had a limited, if any, effect on cyclone formation and severity. (see picture below)

In addition to water temperature, there are many factors that affect whether a cyclone forms, how powerful it is, and how long it lasts. This partly explains why there will be more typhoons (hurricanes in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean) in 2024 than in 2023, even though ocean temperatures will be much warmer in 2023, because climate realism Discussed in the South China Morning Post article “Global warming doesn't create record typhoons”.

Several lines of evidence suggest that, whatever the cause of the warming, tropical cyclones have not become more severe as a result of the mild warming of the past hundred years or so. Introduction to Carbon and The Guardian When they attribute individual storms to climate change, especially when evidence to the contrary is so readily available to the public and journalists, they mislead and harm their readers.