The Imperfect Storm

Chris Landsea et al's recent paper in Science reveals some interesting information regarding the climate change and tropical cyclone debate, which challenges recent high-profile papers arguing for strong upward trends in tropical cyclone intensity.

According to Landsea,
"...tropical cyclone databases in regions primarily dependent on satellite imagery for monitoring are inhomogeneous and likely to have artificial upward trends in intensity. Data from the only two basins that have had regular aircraft reconnaissance—the Atlantic and Northwest Pacific—show that no significant trends exist in tropical cyclone activity when records back to at least 1960 are examined."

In short, Landsea offers evidence suggesting that our methods for estimating cyclone intensities during the early-70s to late-80s tended to underestimate actual intensities. When those data are subsequently combined with more recent observations, the result is an artificial upward trend. Should this argument hold, it will certainly raise questions regarding the cadre of scientists that has been so quick to attribute recent cyclone events to global warming (and the journals that have been so quick to publish their analyses), and provide more fodder for the climate skeptics. Here's hoping that in potentially making a mountain out of a molehill, we didn't just simply dig a hole.

Meanwhile, NOAA has revised (downward) it's hurricane forecast for 2006.