No Trends In Extratropical Cyclones – IPCC
By Paul Homewood
We constantly hear that storms are getting worse because of global warming. These claims are not referring to hurricanes and tropical storms, but the sort of storm which hits the UK several times every winter.
These are known as Extratropical Storms. The clown Jim Dale made this very claim again this week after Strom Gerrit. According to him, it is all to do with warm oceans, which pep up these storms. If this was correct, there would never be any storms in the Arctic. But claims such as this show a basic misunderstanding of meteorology; astonishing for somebody who claims to be a meteorologist!
NOAA explain the difference between tropical and extratropical cyclones (ETCs):
http://web.archive.org/web/20060321200304/http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/A7.html
Given that the Arctic has been warming in the last few decades, whilst the tropics have changed little, the temperature differentials they talk about are much smaller now, so ETCs should theoretically be weaker. It is TCs which feed off warm oceans, not ETCs.
As I reported the other day, here, the Met Office acknowledge that storms in the UK are not as strong as in the 1980s and 90s:
As a measure of storminess Figure 51 counts the number of days each year on which at least 20 stations recorded gusts exceeding 40/50/60 Kt (46/58/69 mph). Most winter storms have widespread effects, so this metric will reasonably capture fairly widespread strong wind events. The metric will consider large-scale storm systems rather than localized convective gusts.- The most recent two decades have seen fewer occurrences of max gust speeds above these thresholds than during the previous decades, particularly comparing the period before and after 2000.
This earlier period [before 2000] also included among the most severe storms experienced in the UK in the observational records including the ‘Burns’ Day Storm’ of 25 January 1990, the ‘Boxing Day Storm’ of 26 December 1998 and the ‘Great Storm’ of 16 October 1987. Any comparison of storms is complex as it depends on severity, spatial extent and duration. Storm Eunice was the most severe storm to affect England and Wales since February 2014, but even so, these storms of the 1980s and 1990s were very much more severe."
However it is also worth looking at global trends. This was the IPCC’s conclusion in AR6:
In short, they can find no trends in either the frequency or intensity of ETCs. In particular, in the Atlantic the number of intense ETCs appears to have increased between 1979 and 1990 (a period of global cooling), and then fell up to 2010.
They also noted a poleward shift since the 1980s. Given that Britain lies in the usual belt of these storms, any shift polewards would tend to move storms north, away from the mainland.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
To miss the UK entirely then a pretty dramatic shift northwards is needed. The Lizard to Unst is around 800 miles as the crow flies.
They won’t miss completely, but if the band switches a couple of hundred miles north, some will
Won’t we catch a few that would have hit France when they move north?
There has been no trend i. any tropical cyclones. See the data and graphs from Dr Ryan Maue.
https://climatlas.com/tropical
Ralph
Thanks Ralph
My GWPF Hurricane Review 2023 is nearly ready – watch this space!
Paul Burgess is doing an excellent job each week on GB News debating climate with Jim Dale. Admittedly the time on air is very short, but at least there is a genuine opportunity for Paul to get across some facts which no other TV channel seems willing or able to do. Here is a link to his You Tube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@ClimateRealism
He always does a follow up to the GBNews event. I enjoy wtching Jim Dale’s frustration at not being allowed to shout down Paul Burgess. It must irk him no end that he’s not allowed to use a loud voice to silence the other side.
I’ve used this “just because you can shout louder than I can it doesn’t make you right!” when faced with someone like Dale. I’m quietly spoken so easily talked over.
Yes, the debate is well controllled by Nana Akua. I have written to GB News to ask if Paul Burgess could be given more air-time. I see no need for a science programme to be “balanced”, like a political discussion needs to be. How about a few more of us writing in support of this?
All that “low confidence” stuff that the IPCC use as a summarising formulation is a real bastardisation of how statistics should be applied in this context. The proper way of trend testing starts with a null hypothesis that there is no trend, just random variation (based primarily on the fact that the record is if finite length but other sources may be included such as measurement deficiencies). Then one looks to see where the actual data sits within this so-called sampling variance – how many sigma from the null hypothesis of zero trend.
The confidence is then expressed in terms of how likely the real world data could arise from a stationary world. Three sigma would be pretty convincing that the null hypothesis can be rejected – ie the trend is real. Two sigma may suffice if there was good reason anyway to expect the null hypothesis not to hold. In high energy physics they look for five-sigma if they are checking on long established accepted theories like the standard model.
As to what games the IPCC are playing by turning convention upside down – asking how well data fit trend rather than how well does trend explain data. It effectively sets up the existence of trend as a paradigm not a hypothesis to be tested. This is a direct consequence of and compatible with the IPCC’s limited remit which was to confirm, not study, man-made global warming. This let them off the hook as not needing to explain phenomena that do not agree with the thesis (like warming first, CO2 rise later) nor do they need bother their heads about other explanations (like natural variability). “Low confidence” leaves the reader thinking that it’s just a matter of time and data for the confidence level to be raised; it’s a one-way street where lowering is unthinkable. This residuum of doubt is just what feeds the precautionary principle – if it can happen, then policy should be based on the assumption that it will.
Exactly right, though I think 3 sigma is still a low barrier for something as non-linear as weather and when the length of the data to be used as baseline is impossible to determine. I am also pretty sure ghe world is not “static” as orbital variation, changes in obliquity and variation in the sun’s output must play at least some part in weather.
Known or suspected sources of non-stationarity would also be considered in a real professional job, often ass a irst stage to leave a cleaned-up series. Strictly the uncertainties in estimating phase, amplitude and duration should be included in the sigma thus raising the bar on rejecting the hypothesis.
How many sigma is a subjective choice and, as you imply, the greater the surprise element of rejecting a previously generally accepted position, the larger the multiple should be set. One also has to consider whether to apply a one or two tailed test, the latter if there was no prior expectation of which direction the trend is pointing. One should be extra wary of rejecting the no-trend null hypothesis if the data could go either way, up or down.
According to the hysterics, the poles are melting faster than ever, and warming faster than everywhere else.
In which case the cold reaching the equator should be warmer, meeting warm air, and causing fewer mid Atlantic/Pacific storms.
OK, so what Dim Dale is saying is, storms are getting worse, which suggests the cold air reaching the equator from the poles is getting colder, or equatorial regions are getting warmer.
But the IPCC tells us a warming climate will affect the northern hemisphere more than it will equatorial regions, so the cold air from the poles will be warmer, inducing fewer storms.
There you go……
‘According to him [Jim Dale], it is all to do with warm oceans, which pep up these storms.’ But Storm Arwen 2 years ago came from the north east where there aren’t any warm oceans.
Storm Arwen power cuts ‘made worse by wind from unusual direction’
Paul McGimpsey, from the Energy Networks Association, said trees fell differently because the wind had come from the north-east.
7 DECEMBER 2021
“More than one million homes experienced a loss of power as falling trees brought down power lines, with over 100,000 homes subsequently experiencing several days without power.”
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/boris-johnson-mps-met-office-graham-b970442.html
Actually, the quote from NOAA,
“…[the winds of Tropical Cyclones] are derived from the release of energy due to cloud/rain formation from the warm moist air of the tropics.”
is largely wrong.
The rapidly circulating winds are actually derived from CONCENTRATION, or localization*, of pre-existing vorticity in the atmosphere. Only about one half of one percent of the heat energy transferred from the sea in cyclogenesis finds its way into INCREASING the kinetic energy and vorticity of the atmosphere.
* In the overall scheme of things, cyclones have to be regarded as extremely local and transient phenomena.
Your second last paragraph states that The period between 1979 and 1990 is a time of global cooling. However, I thought global cooling was from 1940 to 1970ish. Have I got this wrong?
How does the meridional jetstream effect this discussion and what explanation have the global warming alarmists given for the change in the jetstream to being meridional? Can anyone enlighten me please?
CO2 of course. And no, they offer no verifiable evidence to back up this statement. Sometimes they do float this out with an element of doubt but it still has the effect of focussing attention on CO2 emissions as opposed to other more robust explanations such as the solar cycles.
The problem the Alarmists have is that nothing can be getting “better” with climate change. To admit some storms might be doing less damage is impossible for them.
“In short, they can find no trends in either the frequency or intensity of ETCs”
Dang it all……Chicken Little is out of a job again.
Dec 4, 2023 LEFTISTS freak out after COP28 Leader SLAMS Climate SCAM in Dubai
Cop28 president doubled down today and says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels. UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber says phase-out of coal, oil and gas would take world ‘back into caves’. Woke climate nuts are freaking out!