Lowered Hurricane Forecast Tied To Global Cooling

As we had predicted in our article in the May 26th issue of Musings From The Oil Patch,  the hurricane forecasting team at Colorado State University reduced their April 7th forecast for the number of and intensiy of tropical storms and hurricanes this year.  The CSU team's June 2nd storm forecast calls for one less tropical storm (11) and hurricane (5) with an unchanged two hurricanes becoming intense storms of Category 3, 4 or 5.  In addition, the new forecast reduced the combined impact of storms and the number of days for each storm to an average of 90, down from 105 in the April forecast and 135 for their December 2008 forecast.  The average of all these factors for 1950-2000 is 100.

Dr. William Gray, the originator of the tropical storm forecasting effort, in its 26th year, but now only a contributing author, has shifted his research focus to trying to predict the probability of hurricane landfalls.  In the entire scheme of weather forecasting, being able to pinpoint where a tropical storm or hurricane is likely to land is of the highest value.  It would allow people to prepare their physical assets to withstand the storm's furry and evacuate for their own safety.  He has lowered his probabilities for U.S. and Caribbean landfalls in line with the reduced storm prediction.  He sees all U.S. coastlines and Caribbean islands experiencing slightly-below average chances of experiencing a tropical storm landfall.  For the U.S. it is down to 48% from the average for the last century of 52%, and in the Caribbean the probability has been reduced to 39% from the historical average of 42%.

The most interesting part of the analysis that has contributed to both the reduced April and now June forecasts is the CSU analysis of cooler than average waters in the Atlantic Basin.  Surface water temperatures are a function of atmospheric temperatures, so cooler waters imply a cooler atmosphere.  This would be consistent with the gradual cooling the Earth has been experiencing in recent years in contrast to the claims of impending doom from escalating global warming.  (We commented on this issue in the last Musings, also.)  Dr. Gray's work demonstrating the lack of any link between global warming and CO2 atmospheric concentrations with the number and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes is compelling.  His work underscores the lack of credibility of global-warming scientists using Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike as examples of the impact global warming is having on the earth's climate.  Unfortunately, good science often is ignored by popular beliefs, albeit founded on poor science.