Links tagged “irma”

Paul Homewood:

Many storms were missed over the open ocean prior to hurricane hunter aircraft in 1944.
Even then half of the Atlantic basin was not covered.
Satellite coverage began to improve matters in 1966.
But even then monitoring has considerably improved since 1966, particularly regarding short lived storms.

Contrary to popular myth, the year with most major hurricanes was not 2005, but 1950, when there were eight.

To have four, as we have so far had this year, is not in the slightest unusual. In fact, there have been 27 years on the record, when there has been four or more major hurricanes.

But are hurricanes getting more powerful?

Well, not according to the ACE index (1), which shows hurricane seasons in the past every bit as strong as the past couple of decades.

The worst year of the lot was 1933.

"First, two big storms don’t mean much. The global-warming activists must know that because when Donald Trump joked about a lack of warming on a snowy day, they lectured us about how “weather is not climate — one snowstorm is irrelevant to long-term climate.”

Dr. Maue: 'My own research, cited in a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, found that during the past half-century tropical storms and hurricanes have not shown an upward trend in frequency or accumulated energy. Instead they remain naturally variable from year-to-year. The global prevalence of the most intense storms (Category 4 and 5) has not shown a significant upward trend either. Historical observations of extreme cyclones in the 1980s, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, are in sore need of reanalysis.'

Rabbi Yonatan Neril, founder of  Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development: 'We need to listen to what Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Katia are saying as messengers of God’s creation, planet earth. Something is out of balance in the way we are living, and the need to change is hitting us in the face.'

Neril: 'This is a huge wake up call for humanity that we need to change. It's no longer about recycling or getting a hybrid car. We need a fundamental reorientation of the way that we are living for sustainability.'

"Those who deny it [climate change] should go to the scientists and ask them," the pontiff said on Monday during an in-flight press conference on the return leg of a five-day Colombia trip. "They speak very clearly." As his charter plane flew over some of the recently devastated areas en route to Rome, Francis added: "I am reminded of a phrase from the Old Testament, I think from the Psalm: 'Man is stupid, he is stubborn and he does not see.'"

He said individuals and politicians had a "moral responsibility" to act on advice from scientists, who had clearly outlined what must be done to halt the course of "catastrophic" warming. "These aren't opinions pulled out of thin air," he said. "They are very clear. They [world leaders] decide and history will judge those decisions." Recalling last month's news that a ship crossed the Arctic without an icebreaker for the first time, Francis said: "We can see the effects of climate change, and scientists clearly say what path we should follow." 

'Nothing on earth can stop the climate from changing.'

Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert: 'I will tell you that we continue to take seriously the climate change -- not the cause of it, but the things that we observe. And so there's rising flood waters -- I think one inch every 10 years in Tampa -- things that would require prudent mitigation measures. And what I said from the podium the other day, and what President Trump remains committed to, is making sure that federal dollars aren't used to rebuild things that will be in harm's way later or that won't be hardened against the future predicable floods that we see.'