World Climate Report, an excellent resource for scientific climate analysis, published an article that demonstrates the falsehood of increased hurricane intensity to have any relationship to increases in sea surface temperatures (SST) or anthropogenic (man-made) climate change.
Scientist Philip Klotzbach in a published paper analyzed the work done by a couple of misguided colleagues and compared their conclusions to his:
These findings are contradictory to the conclusions drawn by Emanuel (2005) and Webster et al. (2005). They do not support the argument that global TC [tropical cyclone] frequency, intensity and longevity have undergone increases in recent years. Utilizing global ‘‘best track’’ data, there has been no significant increasing trend in ACE [accumulated cyclone energy] and only a small increase (~10%) in Category 4–5 hurricanes over the past twenty years, despite an increase in the trend of warming sea surface temperatures during this time period.
The results of this paper are more in line with a prior study by Shapiro and Goldenberg (1998) and a project report by Gray and Klotzbach (2005). Shapiro and Goldenberg (1998) showed only marginally significant correlations between SSTs in the tropical Atlantic and major hurricane development in the basin. Vertical wind shear was shown to be a much more fundamental component for major hurricane development and maintenance. Gray and Klotzbach (2005), while developing seasonal hurricane forecasts for TC activity, found only a modest correlation (~0.4) between seasonal and monthly Atlantic basin SSTs and major (Category 3–4–5) hurricane frequency. This study indicates that, based on data over the last twenty years, no significant increasing trend is evident in global ACE or in Category 4–5 hurricanes.
WCR concludes:
The more you look, the less obvious it becomes that anthropogenic global warming has significantly (i.e., measurably) contributed to the current increase in hurricane activity in the North Atlantic basin, or anywhere else in the world, for that matter.
In science, you must formulate hypotheses, test them and draw factual conclusions. Politicians like Al Gore and others ignore science, and rush to judgement based on “consensus science” which has little to do with reality and actual scientific discovery.
Read WCRs report at: Hurricane/Global Warming Linkage Takes Another Hit
Update Thanks to Florida Cracker for the link to this article.