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Published online 12 August 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.821
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Hurricane peak not unique
Historical estimates suggest that global warming could boost the number of hurricanes.
A surge in the number of Atlantic hurricanes over the past 10 years is not unusual and could be part of a naturally occurring millennial peak, say US researchers1. The finding suggests that any increase in hurricane activity due to global warming would add to the current peak.
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Do 2006, 2007, and 2008 count? Despite record high Atlantic Ocean surface temperatures, hurricane incidence severely decreased, http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/hurricane2008/May/figure3.gif Solar minima are coincident with the most intense Pacific El Niño events: 1957-8, 1972-3, 1982-3, and 1997-8 (190% of average California rainfall). The deepest solar minimum in the past 100 years further deepens every day. One presumes Official Truth is ready to furiously backpedal ("Heteroskedasticity!" in economics).
I read that Mr. Mann says global warming is causing the increase in hurricanes, right? And he says that there was an increase back in 1000 AD ? Well, I would like to know what kind of global warming accured back in 1000 AD that would have caused those increases in hurricanes. I'm assuming that that is what caused the increase in hurricanes back then? Thank you, Judy J.
It was the same kind of global warming we are now having. Anything can be explained by global warming due to human carbon dioxide (and water vapor) emissions. I've even heard people seriously arguing that the increased volcanic activity we saw a few years back was due to these human carbon emissions. I suggest that the climatologists use their superiour algorithms to correctly predict the weather in 3-day forecasts.
Mann et al. ignore sedimentation/errosion caused by tsumanis. Although less common than in the Pacific, Atlantic tsunamis have been recorded regularly in post-historic times. Tsunamis, due to their rapid forward speed and force, would deposit/remove much more coastal sediment than hurricanes.
I agree with the author, the direct link between the El Nino and the strength and occurrence of hurricanes. Call attention to the anomalous amplitude of the temperature of the waters of the North Atlantic, especially on the east coast of the USA. In my opinion, created a huge trend, a path to a hurricane up the coast to North America, and reach the city of New York. Very similar phenomenon in the form of the anomalies of ocean temperature, I saw here in Brazil, where we had Catarina, the first hurricane observed the Brazilian coast.