Sorry, Nature, Associated Press, etc., Climate change doesn’t make hurricanes ‘wetter’ – Would you float for it?
Via H. Sterling Burnett -April 14, 2022
Originally posted at ClimateREALITY
Dozens of corporate media outlets have published stories claiming that human-caused climate change has made the 2020 hurricane season “wetter,” with more rain falling in a shorter period of time than most. with natural occurrence. The data indicates this to be false. All stories are based on a single “attribution”, research in Nature Communications. The study could not be verified because it was based on simulated past and future computer models, not past precipitation measurements for the time period specified in the study.
The New York TimesAssociated Press (AP), CNNthe Washington Postand ABC Newsare among dozens of corporate and commercial media outlets that have published stories in recent days highlighting the reported results of a study published in Nature Communications which claims to be able to attribute a higher total amount of precipitation that has decreased during the 2020 hurricane season due to climate change.
According to the authors of the study, titled “Impact of hurricane season 2020 of extreme rainfall on anthropogenic climate change,“Human-induced climate change has increased the incidence of 3-hour extreme rainstorms and extreme 3-day cumulative rainfall over the entire 2020 hurricane season for… hurricane intensity storms… times… 11 and 8% respectively. ”
The AP report on this research is typical of corporate media reporting in general. In one story, titled “Pour it in: Climate change makes 2020 hurricanes worse,” said writer Seth Borenstein, “Climate change is making the 2020 record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season significantly wetter, a new study says. And it will likely make this season more rainy, scientists say. “
All that’s missing from media reporting is context and hard data.
With regard to context, an increase in excess rainfall due to hurricanes during the 2020 season is reported in Nature The study was based solely on computer modelling simulations, including simulations that forecast the amount of precipitation expected during past hurricane seasons and without enhanced anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Three-hour precipitation rate and three-day cumulative total rainfall were not measured for past storms, and although comparative data from more recent hurricane seasons are available, it is also not used. as a basis for comparison.
Instead of data, the researchers used the Community Earth System Modeling (CESM) Large Group, which includes multiple models and multiple running models (simulations) for hurricanes dating back to 1850. This forecast is built on a variety of assumptions including a limited effect of the sun on climate, assumptions about past sea surface temperatures, and estimates of carbon dioxide concentrations. They ignored all other natural and anthropogenic factors that could influence temperature and global and regional climate changes. Then, using the Extreme Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) to simulate temperature-pressed carbon dioxide, they ran their model to give an estimate of what total precipitation would reverse. with past and 2020 realities, with and without anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. . They then compared the counterfactual results with rainfall measured during the 2020 hurricane season and attributed the difference to human activities.
This is an extreme example of the concept of computer science and math, GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
General circulation climate models with severe failures are well known. There is considerable debate regarding what factors influence global temperatures, as well as for any particular factor, in what direction and to what extent they affect temperature. For example, those who have developed climate models admit that they do not understand the role of clouds or large-scale ocean circulation patterns in driving climate change. The result of this and other currently poorly understood factors that affect temperature, precipitation patterns, and the like, as discussed in Climate at a glance: Climate sensitivityThe main calculations for a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere range from eight tenths of a degree Celsius warming to almost 6 degrees Celsius when warmed by 2100.
As discussed in a Climate realism upload, thisTwo recent peer-reviewed studies show a large degree of bias towards warmer projections and CMIP5 models warm 4 to 5 times faster than actual observed temperature data. McKitrick and Christy (2020) writes in “Convincing warming trends in the CMIP6 convection layers” that “[W]I see no improvement between the CMIP5 and CMIP6 models. “
Indeed, in July 2021, the magazine Science published a paper noting that “climate scientists are faced with this alarming reality, the climate models that help them predict the future have grown alarmingly oversized. Many of the world’s leading models currently predict the rate of warming that most scientists, including the model developers themselves, believe. amazingly fast.
The researchers then combined their error when relying on computer models that had admitted errors as the basis for attributing changes in storm patterns using extreme climate scenarios. most generated by those models, RCP8.5. Research proves The world hasn’t gone the RCP8.5 path, since before it was first created by climate models. More recently, Climate realism highlighted two scientific papers demonstrating that future climate scenarios RCP8.5 are unlikely. There simply aren’t enough fossil fuels that exist on the planet to make that happen.
Attribution statements are made in Nature Communications also not supported by available storm data. Although 2020 is an active hurricane season, long-term data show no increase in the number or intensity of North Atlantic hurricanes.
As pointed out in Climate realism, this, data collected by Dr. Ryan Maue, formerly a principal scientist with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), shows that the accumulated Cyclone Energy from hurricanes in the United States has does not increase, as shown in Figure 1 below. As Figure 2 shows, the number of major hurricanes making landfall in the United States has also not increased.
Indeed, as discussed in Climate at a glance: Storm, NOAA records show that the United States recently experienced the longest period in recorded history without a major hurricane, Category 3 or higher, and the United States also recently experienced the fewest total hurricanes in any eight-year period. Repeated reports by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also indicate that they have found no evidence that human activities are changing storm patterns. In its 2018 interim report, the IPCC states that there is “only low confidence in the distribution of any detectable change in tropical cyclone activity on human influence” (emphasis mine). Similarly, in AR6 WG1 released in August 2021, the IPCC writes, “[i]identify past trends in CTV [tropical storm] indicators remain a challenge. ” The IPCC went on to say it cannot conclude that storm trends have changed or that it can attribute any storm’s effects to human activities. Many people argue that science indicates climate change. Human-caused storms are increasing hurricanes in the North Atlantic.
Finally, the virtual world is not the real world. Given the limited state of knowledge available today, studies attribution are just gazing at the festival’s crystal ball, after drinking tea to read, not serious scientific research. Watts Up with that published numerous articles examining the inherent weaknesses and failures of climate “distribution” studies.
Statements based on past and future rainfall on computer models do not even accurately reproduce past or present temperature or temperature trends, the most basic predictions they make. , is stupid. Adding that error using a climate scenario that is practically impossible is even worse. No element should have enough faith in the mainstream media to make the alarming rainfall claims made in this article. Nature Communications study, absent outside of verification. Available data do not support claims that climate change is causing storms to become more frequent, stronger, or causing them to shed more rain. Even the IPCC says so.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is managing editor of Environment & Climate News and a research fellow in environmental and energy policy at the Heartland Institute. Burnett has worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, most recently as a senior fellow in charge of the NCPA’s environmental policy program. He has held various positions in professional and public policy organizations, including serving as a member of the Environmental and Natural Resources Task Force on the Texas e-Texas committee. Comptroller.
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