Facts and Figures

So, a new report indicates that the strength of hurricanes isn't necessarily determined by global warming and that supposed spike in hurricane intensity simply isn't true. It's the result of relying upon spotty and inaccurate historical data.

Studies that link a spike in hurricane intensity with global warming are spotting "artificial upward trends" because they rely on bad historical data, a paper suggested today in the journal Science.

Hurricane intensity is measured by the storms' surface winds. Sometimes those winds are estimated by looking at satellite pictures, using a subjective technique invented in 1972.

Better technology since then, including greater satellite coverage, has led inevitably to higher wind-speed estimates for more recent storms, the authors suggest.

"The resulting higher resolution images and more direct overhead views of tropical cyclones result in greater and more accurate intensity estimates in recent years when using the Dvorak Technique," according to authors Christopher Landsea of the National Hurricane Center, Bruce Harper, Karl Hoarau and John Knaff.

Now that we have satellite coverage and hurricane hunters probing storms from their inception, we can say that a category five storm has formed somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico or out in the Atlantic, whereas a hundred years ago, we would have no idea such storms formed, even when they hit land, because by that time, the storm might be a category one or two.

Also, what people tend to forget is that the claims and suppositions of those saying that the world is facing global warming are doing so based on computer simulations that take into account hundreds and thousands of variables. Yet, as we see on a daily basis, weather forecasts can't even get the next day's weather correct. They could be off by a couple of degrees. The path of storms might diverge from the prediction by a few miles, and the severity of storms might be more or less than predicted.

Those inaccuracies at the macro level might be brushed off, but trying to model how the planet will heat or cool years into the future introduces all kinds of problems if you leave variables out. Do the models include fluctuations in the sun's output? The sun doesn't provide a constant level of energy, and a slight variation could present tremendous changes. Volcanic eruptions are another variable.