U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA told Climate Depot his reaction to President Obama’s new climate report on June 16, 2009. (See: Obama issues global warming report — ‘Detailed picture of the worst case scenarios’ — ‘Poised for its most forceful confrontation with American public’ ) Goldenberg is expressing his personal views on the report, not those of any organization. (Full Goldenberg bio available here.)
Goldenberg: I saw the news story on this and looked up the report. I have a pretty good grasp of the hurricane and AGW issues. I have skimmed over the hurricane findings (by the way — I didn’t notice a single recognized hurricane climate expert in the list of authors) and they definitely ignore a large body of the published hurricane research. There are a number of hurricane climate experts (including myself) that would disagree strongly with the hurricane-related conclusions of this report!
The report states (among other things) that:
The power and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes have increased substantially in recent decades.
The number of North American mainland landfalling hurricanes does not appear to have increased over the past century.
Though it is nice that they admit landfall frequency has not increased (happens to be the most reliable long-term Atlantic hurricane statistic) they state as “fact” flawed results that the power and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes have increased.
I can only imagine how slanted the other portions of the report might be as well.
Regards,
Stan
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