If global warming equals more storms, where are they?
In December 2008, the National Hurricane Center predicted an above-average hurricane season for 2009. Since then, the organization has downgraded it to a below-average season.
El Niño plays a part
A periodic weather phenomenon that warms the surface of ocean water and slows wind shear needed for storms to pick up speed, El Niño is partially to blame for the glacial pace of this year’s hurricane season. Occurring every three to eight years, fewer hurricanes typically form during El Niño cycles. But in the last 17 years, there have been three El Niños, and still 2009 marks the slowest startup. Food for thought.
Rebuttal
Hari Pant, environmental scientist at Lehman College at the City University of New York, sizes up the debate.
1 “People get confused between climate and weather and tend to think of localized effect as if it is the global trend. Any particular year or few years may not fall within the trend.”
2 “We should not look at slower than usual hurricane activity in a particular region of the world for a given year as evidence of a cooling earth or a slowing of global warming.”
3 “Scientists have suggested that because of the global warming effect, the world may experience intense hurricanes; however, that does not mean only in the Atlantic. What about what China and Taiwan are going through as we speak?”
The now iconic image of murky dust rising from a smokestack in the shape of a hurricane on the cover of Al Gore’s global warming documentary draws a distinct correlation between rising temperatures and stronger storm patterns.
But here’s an inconvenient truth: This year’s hurricane season has gotten off to the slowest start in 17 years. And yet global warming alarmists continue to ring their doomsday sirens.
The official start of the hurricane season is June 1. And not since 1992 — the year of Hurricane Andrew — has the Atlantic Ocean been silent past Aug. 4. Meteorologists have yet to name even a single tropical storm in the Atlantic in 2009.
So is global warming really doing anything?
“While it is commonly thought that global warming would increase hurricane activity, that is far from a settled issue,” said Rob Eisenson, a meteorologist at Western Connecticut State University. “There are some research studies that suggest global warming would not have that effect.”
But Eisenson cautions that looking at one season’s activity cannot determine whether a long-term trend is or is not happening.
“I don’t think the slow start to the hurricane season can be pointed to as an erosion of the claims of global warming or hurricane activity. Likewise, I don’t think a single especially active hurricane year is highly supportive of these claims. ... Anyone can claim anything in this debate — fact is, there is no way to prove or disprove any of it.”
