First August since ‘97 with no named storm? Quiet at height of hurricane season

Tropical Storm Colin dissipated almost two months ago, on July 3rd. Since then, there has not been even one named storm in the Atlantic Basin - no hurricane, no storm, no tropical depression. There are a couple of tropical waves which could still develop into a named storm by the month’s end. If not, this will be the first August since 1997 without a named storm.

Inconvenient data

As the Cato Institute pointed out a decade ago, “For Al Gore, The Lack of Any Increase in Hurricanes Related to Global Warming Is an Inconvenient Truth.” The reference, of course, was to Gore’s 2006 film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” With Hurricane Florence approaching the Carolinas in 2018, Medium.com was quick to remind the public of the film:

His messages included the threat of increased severity and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes.

Pointing to one hurricane as proof of an increase in anything would be akin to claiming a day with below average temperatures as proof of global cooling, an idea more recent than Gore’s birth.

Turning to the actual data, the senior scientist at the government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and author of 122 climate papers, Thomas Knutson, concluded just last month that, 

neither our model projections for the 21st century nor our analyses of trends in Atlantic hurricane and tropical storm activity support the notion that greenhouse gas-induced warming leads to large increases in either tropical storm or overall hurricane numbers in the Atlantic.

Not more, not stronger

In 2021, Knutson, other government scientists, and university researchers concluded that besides having a normal number of annual storms, the storms are also not more powerful than past storms.

At the ten year anniversary of “An Inconvenient Truth,” sciencenews.org took a look at Gore’s predictions and included this section:

Hurricanes            

2006: The warming ocean could fuel more frequent and more intense Atlantic hurricanes.    

2016: Hurricane frequency has dropped somewhat; hurricane intensities haven’t changed much — yet. [Emphases added].

Why add “yet?” As in, “I haven’t won the lottery - yet.” Is there a basis for expecting the failed prediction to turn around, or just too much at stake to accept the failure? Out of control storms ravaging the nation are more likely to induce acquiescence to major changes to our lives through climate legislation than threats of an extra half-degree of heat in the summer in a few decades. The failure of that prediction removes the fear factor, the significance of which was not lost on the author. 

“Hurricanes were the poster child of global warming,” says Christopher Landsea, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “In reality, it’s a lot more subtle than that.” [Emphases added].

Fake fright

So what about those articles we’ve seen warning about more, and worse, hurricanes? Would those in favor of returning the world to its pristine state with no human impact, not just preserving a stable world, put out frightening, but unsupported, headlines? 

The Independent ran a headline years ago warning, “Global warming is 'causing more hurricanes,'” with a satellite picture of one swirling towards the East Coast. The opening paragraph even threatened that there would be “more frequent and destructive hurricanes.” But the research they reported on did not actually find an increase in hurricane activity. They didn’t report any change at all. Rather, they pointed out what may have been true from time immemorial - that hurricanes were more likely to occur when the sea was warmer.

When it came to hurricane strength, they were even more forthcoming about their lack of evidence:

Although scientists were not able to prove that climate change is causing more large hurricanes, they believe the study is consistent with the predictions that global warming and warmer seas could bring about more intense tropical storms. [Emphasis added].

So a more appropriate headline would have been, and remains, “Scientists unable to prove climate change is causing stronger hurricanes.”