A new, experimental long-range forecast from the UK Met Office (the British equivalent of the National Weather Service) says we can expect a slightly below average hurricane season. Whereas previous forecasts have called for as many as 15 named storms in 2007, UK Met is predicting just 10, including the two that have already formed (Andrea and Barry). That would be the same number as last year, and two below the average of 12. If the forecast is borne out, 2006-07 would be the first two-year period with 20 storms or less since 1993-94 (when there was a total of just 15 storms).
This news comes on the heels of the latest La Niña developments, reported a few days ago by Margie Kieper:
After months and months (since…February?) of the weekly, “Subsurface conditions and recent CFS forecasts indicate a possible transition to La Niña conditions within the next 3 months,” today [NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center] has finally replaced it with:
Recent trends in surface and subsurface ocean temperatures indicates that ENSO-neutral conditions are likely to continue during the next 3 months.
If a La Niña does develop, it won’t be in time to affect the [Northern Atlantic] hurricane season. The bad news: don’t discount ENSO-neutral conditions. [”ENSO” means “El Niño/Southern Oscillation.” -ed.] In terms of ramping up / dampening hurricane seasons, only strong El Niño events have a significant effect on dampening the hurricane season — busy years can occur in both La Niña and ENSO-neutral conditions (for example, 2005).
Really, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. This long-range hurricane prediction stuff is an inexact science, and anyone who pretends otherwise is kidding themselves. So many factors, like the amount of Saharan dust, can have such a huge influence — or none at all. It’s not like anybody predicted in advance that there would be 28 named storms in 2005… or 10 in 2006.
Something else to keep in mind: it doesn’t necessarily take an active season to cause a lot of death and destruction. The costliest pre-Katrina hurricane in U.S. history, Hurricane Andrew, occurred in a season, 1992, with just seven named storms. But nobody remembers that. They remember this.
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Categories: 2007 Hurricane Season
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June 21st, 2007 at 10:23:05 pm
This long-range hurricane prediction stuff is an inexact science, and anyone who pretends otherwise is kidding themselves
But we can predict the climate 50 years in the future right?
June 21st, 2007 at 10:30:28 pm
Gahrie, you’re looking at the question in a very one-sided way, devoid of nuance or inquiry. Your response is a sound byte, not a thought.
Fundamentally, it’s a question of just what one is attempting to predict. I’m no scientist, but off the top of my head, yes, predicting the average temperature (as opposed to the behavior of individual storms and potential storms, each of which is a complex, independent system) over a lengthy period of time (as opposed to a limited window of just a few months, where random events can have disproportionate influence) across the entire globe (as opposed to just in one small segment, which again increases the importance of random events), is probably a lot easier 50 years off, than predicting the number of hurricanes 50 days off.
No one would suggest that we can predict the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic basin in a given year 50 years from now. But to predict the average worldwide temperature in a given decade 50 years from now? That’s such an entirely different type of measurement that the comparison is almost meaningless.
Why does every thread about weather have to become a global warming debate?
June 21st, 2007 at 10:54:55 pm
Because those of you who endorse global warming and man made global warming insist that there is no longer any debate on the issue, which is simply preposterous. Then the self-rightousness, sanctimony and rabid attacks on those of us who refuse to bow before the altar of Gore compound the annoyance. There are simply so many components of climate that we don’t understand yet, an idea you insist is valid for every component of weather and climate except global warming.
Just off the top of my head, we have the recent revelations concerning where some of the weather stations are located. (next to incinerators, air conditioner outlets and on urban rooftops just for example) and the still unanswered question as to why so many of the solar bodies are undergoing warming at the same time.
Just today a Canadian scientist predicted that the sun is going into it’s lowest period of activity in two centuries. He warns that this could produce global cooling.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:11:36 pm
Both sides in the global warming debate behave poorly on a regular basis, engaging in all sorts of exaggeration, sanctimony, personal attacks, conspiracy-mongering and so forth. Nobody can claim the moral high ground on that front. If you want to get into an argument over “who started it,” well, more power to you. Maybe it was my “side” that started it. Whatever. At this point, I can and do pronounce many people on both sides guilty of being total dicks, so I don’t think that gets us anywhere.
As for the science, I have never denied that “there are simply so many components of climate that we don’t understand yet.” I have instead pointed out that the overwhelming (not universal, but overwhelming) scientific consensus points strongly to some degree of manmade global warming, with a great deal of debate around the edges (how much, how soon, etc.). Is it possible that the consensus is wrong? Yes. But there is no present reason to believe it’s wrong, and the science backing up the consensus is solid (though of course not complete — science is never “complete,” there is always more evidence to consider, more data to factor in), so the only rational course of action is to make decisions based on the evidence as it currently exists… not deny reality (or what strongly appears to be reality) for the sake of economic or political convenience… and still less so to cloak such denials under the guise of science.
Put another way: if I was before a jury in a criminal case, trying to prove mankind guilty of global warming beyond a reasonable doubt, I would probably lose, and I probably should. But if it were a civil case, and I only needed to prove guilt by a preponderance of the evidence? Hell yeah I’d win. I think I’d win if the standard were clear and convincing evidence, too. And I don’t think it makes much sense, from a public-policy perspective, to simply ignore clear and convincing evidence of impending catastrophe, just because you might be able to raise reasonable doubt.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:26:14 pm
P.S. It is a common argumentative technique on the right — one which is sometimes valid and necessary, so long as its practitioners recognize its limits — to poke holes in everybody’s orthodoxies and conceptions of reality: liberals, academics, the MSM, global-warming scientists, etc. Poke and poke and poke. Try and turn the argument into swiss cheese.
The thing is, swiss cheese still has more cheese than it has holes. Unless you have something to replace the argument that you’re poking holes in (i.e., your own argument, your own theory, your own conception of reality), then all you’re doing is injecting reasonable doubt into the equation — not actually disproving the other side’s argument. That’s all well and good, but where things go off the rails is where the hole-pokers mistakenly think they’ve proved their own case, rather than merely weakening the other side’s case. I admit, I fall into this trap occasionally; it’s easy to do when you get caught up in disproving obnoxious absolutists. But it’s important to try and avoid it. Because when Group A argues for a change to the status quo, and Group B pokes enough holes in Group A’s argument for change, the result tends to be a continuation of the status quo… even though everyone might agree that the status quo is really quite bad (i.e., that a whole ton of holes could be poked in it), and even though the admittedly somewhat hole-filled alternative is still significantly better. Of course, that’s not always a bad result, because change is not always better than the status quo. But generally, if the status quo is better than the proposed alternative, it should be possible to construct a full argument defending the status quo, and not merely poke holes in the alternative.
This isn’t all directly relevant to global warming, but part of it is. For the most part, I think the global warming skeptics are doing little more than poking small holes in a very large piece of swiss cheese. Which proves what, exactly? That no scientific theory is 100% guaranteed to be correct? That some global-warming alarmists are self-righteous pricks? That Al Gore is a pompous ass? I happily concede all three of those points. What I don’t concede is that all of the collective hole-poking even comes close to adding up to the conclusion that, all things considered, at this point in time, doing nothing is better than doing something. And isn’t that what we should really be arguing about?
June 21st, 2007 at 11:36:57 pm
1) I believe any warming the Earth is under going is part of the natural cycle. Until the recent global warming craze, most scientists actually stated that we are in an warm interval in the middle of an ice age.
2) My biggest beef with the global warming lies with the proposed solution. Both the eco-fanatics and the radical left are seizing on this issue to try and radically restructure the economy of the United States. (and the West but not China or India who will be adding the most to the problem if there is one) It seems coincidentally that the solution to global warming is to make all the changes that they have been advocating all along. Changes that would cripple our economy and drastically lower our standard of living. Changes that many of us believe would result in much bigger problems than any warming would.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:37:12 pm
P.P.S. I acknowledge that the above argument is ripe to have holes picked in it. :)
And I do believe, as I’ve said before, that those proposing change to the status quo have the burden of proof.
Really, it’s a question of how high that burden should be. The ability to poke some holes in an argument isn’t necessarily enough. This goes back to my discussion of “reasonable doubt,” “preponderance of the evidence,” etc., above.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:00:33 am
Personally, I keep hoping that another city gets wiped out. It’s at least more interesting news than the Paris-a-thon or search-for-little-blonde-white-girl stuff. And the rebuilding can actually be a good thing, if it ever actually gets done.
(As I once heard: “Strategic bombing is a form of urban renewal.”)
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:38:17 am
Just a note: the forecast is for ten more storms during the Jul-Nov timeframe, in addtion to the two already named (Andrea and Barry).
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:58:04 pm
Brendan @ 10:30 - yup, it’s easy to predict - but that, sadly, doesn’t mean the prediction is likely to turn out to be accurate … with the track record of global temperature acolytes, whether for Global Cooling (the 70s) or Global Warming (the 00s), I close-to-automatically find against those who claim that “The science is decided !” …
As for the “criminal” vs “civil” example, you managed to astonish me by raising that … should I mention the history of Breast Implants in such a setting - where massive civil cases ended up driving manufacturers out of the business, and scientific studies have eventually determined that the implants were not responsible for the problems …
I’m astonished you would be proud of *any* lawyer’s ability to sway a civil jury with non-scientific “facts” which end up proven to be false …
June 25th, 2007 at 3:58:19 am
The link is here.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,285774,00.html
June 25th, 2007 at 3:59:06 am
Sorry..the above post refers to the canadian scientist who is predicting global cooling.