- A study based on data from the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre and the Japan Meteorological Agency shows the number of typhoons making landfall in the Philippines has declined since 1990.
- The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – hailed by greens as the ultimate arbiter – does not agree tropical storms have become more intense or frequent, but says the opposite. Their special report last year said: ‘There is low confidence in any observed long-term (40 years or more) increases in tropical cyclone activity (ie intensity, frequency, duration).’ Its authoritative Fifth Assessment Report added in September there have been ‘no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century’.
Davis was interviewing World Bank President Jim Yong Kim (pictured)
- The reason Bangkok is suffering serious floods isn’t rising sea levels but the fact the city is built on soft clay – the weight of its skyscrapers is causing subsidence of up to 2in a year. Local expert Anond Snidvongs says: ‘The rise in sea level is not that great and climate change only plays a fairly small part – about one-fifth – in the current scenario.’
- There have been very few Category 5 storms like Haiyan in the Pacific since 1991. A study published this year by the American Meteorological Society states in the North Pacific ‘overall tropical cyclone activity shows a significant decrease’ since 1998.
- This year has been the quietest Atlantic hurricane season for decades. No Category 3 or stronger storm has made landfall in the US since Katrina in 2005 – the longest hurricane ‘drought’ on record.
- A new study published last week said the rate of sea level rise has diminished by 44 per cent since 2004, to just 1.8mm per year – 18cm (7in) per century. The reason is the 17-years-and-counting global warming ‘pause’, which was not predicted by computer models.
