Hurricane activity not getting worse, new paper shows
By Paul Homewood
Author calls for news media to report empirical facts accurately
London, 24 February – The Global Warming Policy Foundation has today published its periodic review of hurricane activity around the world. The author, climate writer Paul Homewood, says that official data is absolutely clear: they are not getting worse. Indeed, there is some evidence that they are less active in recent years.
Homewood says:
"2021 and 2022 recorded the lowest number of both hurricanes and major hurricanes globally for any two year period since 1980, and this comes against long-term hurricane activity trends that are essentially flat."
And Homewood calls on journalists to start reporting these undisputed facts to the public:
"While scientists are quite clear that we are not seeing a dramatic increase in hurricanes, or even any increase at all, the public have been conned into thinking that tropical storms are getting worse. It’s high time the mainstream media came clean and told people what is really going on."
Executive summary
It is widely believed that hurricanes are getting worse as a consequence of climate change. This belief is fuelled by the media and some politicians, particularly when a bad storm occurs. This belief is reinforced because the damage caused by hurricanes is much greater nowadays, thanks to increasing populations in vulnerable coastal areas and greater wealth more generally.
But is this belief correct, or is it a misconception? This study has carefully analysed official data and assessments by hurricane scientists, and finds:
• 2021 and 2022 recorded the lowest number of both hurricanes and major hurricanes globally for any two year period since 1980.
• The apparent long-term increase in the number of hurricanes since the 19th century has been due to changes in observational practices over the years, rather than a real increase.
• Data show no long-term trends in US landfalling hurricanes since the mid-19th century, when systematic records began, either in terms of frequency or intensity.
• Similarly, after allowing for the fact that many hurricanes were not spotted prior to the satellite era, there are no such trends in Atlantic hurricanes either.
• Globally there are also no trends in hurricanes since reliable records began in the 1970s.
• Evidence is also presented that wind speeds of the most powerful hurricanes may now be overestimated in comparison to pre-satellite era ones, because of changing methods of measurement.
• The increase in Atlantic hurricanes in the last fifty years is not part of a long-term trend, but is simply a recovery from a deep minimum in hurricane activity in the 1970s, associated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
These findings are in line with those of hurricane scientists generally, as well as official bodies such as NOAA and the IPCC.
Paul Homewood: The 2022 Hurricane Season (pdf)
Comments are closed.
Has that been run past the owners of climate science?
Ahh…the UN Science! Says it all ..
When reading about the UN “owning” climate science I was reminded of the old saw: “You break it, you own it.” When people become aware of how the UN and Western governments “broke” climate science I hope they will hold those responsible to account. Maybe that’s a forlorn hope; there doesn’t seem to be much accountability in government “service” anymore.
Well done Paul – yet again. Keep up the good work.
All well and good. But understand that it would make no difference if they had gone up or gotten “worse.”
Hurricanes are weather events with finite causes. Any suggestion that their rate/intensity is subject to change due to “climate change” must explain how, what finite changes have occurred and what limiting factors have changed.
“It’s caused by climate change” is NOT science.
” “It’s caused by climate change” is NOT science. ”
It’s an attempt to create science based on assertion and belief.
A narrative. FTFY. Science is not based on belief or assertion.
Excellent work Paul! In 1967 I was living in Singapore, the monsoon that year was very harsh, the Bukit Timah road was a river and the monsoon drains were overflowing – I had never seen rain that intense before. The following year was much quieter as your data shows. So I take these claims of imminent disaster with a sceptic’s view. As you clearly show, the data does not support the hypothesis that these events are all correlated to a singular cause. Keep up the good work!
Guido has given it an airing too. Nice one.
Don’t worry about hurricanes, Tresemme the cosmetics firm has produced a “TRESemme Climate Protection Hair Spray” . We’re all saved, if we needed saving.
I don’t use hairspray, do you know if they do a mousse to save the planet? I have reported these companies, who jump on the climate change bandwagon, to the Competition and Markets Authority.
Does it keep your hair in place during a hurricane I wonder?
If it does what it says on the tin it will actually stop the hurricanes!
Have they got something I can spray on my golf balls so they won’t hit trees?
Excellent report. Good to see it beginning to get wider publicity. Let’s hope that extends further. Someone who could do with a copy:
https://image.vuukle.com/afdabdfb-de55-452b-b000-43e4d45f1094-57bf43aa-8e78-4679-aab6-97b6edd86e89
LILAPSOPHOBIA!
Mental and emotional symptoms include:-
Obsessive thoughts
Difficulty thinking
Feeling of unreality or being detached
Fear of losing control or going crazy
Anticipatory anxiety
Terror
Desire to flee or hide
Just caught BBC news (saturday 9.00 am)- feature on the cold weather and snow in California. Usual exaggerations of how bad it is. Final comment from narrator was around “Scientists say that extreme cold weather such as this interspersed with dry periods and extreme heat is an effect of Climate change ” That is the gist of it . I glazed over after a few seconds .. So adding to the narrative that anything unusual (i.e weather) is due to climate change.
If the rain falls before sundown, it’s climate change.
If the morning fog has not disappeared by eight, it’s climate change.
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there’s a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
Varoufakis exposes Europe’s energy scam
Not much to do with the subject here but I just read a comment on another blog when describing Net Zero. They called it “all pain, no gain” which I though was apt and catchy. I will now add that to my phrasebook. It’s just the sort of slogan that might catch on and describe NZ precisely.