Backcountry Notes

NOAA graphic of 2009 Atlantic hurricane season; click for larger imageWhere has all the weather gone? 

The Atlantic hurricane season has now ended with no hurricane having made landfall in the United States. The 2009 season was the slowest since 1997.  See Slow Atlantic Hurricane Season Comes to a Close. Despite predictions of a "strong tornado season" in 2009, tornadoes continue to occur well below the long-term average. 

NOAA Tornado Trend chart; click on image for larger versionThis is not the way it is supposed to be, at least according to global-warming theorists.  For years, we have been promised more and more bad weather, stronger "Cat-5" storms, and unprecedented spates of tornadoes.  Could it be that the climate situation is far more complex than has been presented and that the dire consequences predicted by global-warming adherents don't follow from the observable data?

On the one hand, I do conclude that the activities of mankind have an impact on our environment.  This has been true since humans learned to fell trees and to cultivate fields for crops, many millennia ago.  During the first 200 years of American settlement, most of the great eastern forest was clear-cut, and relatively little was left to regrow; had this not occurred, the climate of the Atlantic Coast states would be very different than it is today. On the other hand, nature has ways of re-balancing itself which are often beyond our ken.  Volcanic eruptions have saturated the atmosphere with sulfates, carbon dioxide, and particulates, causing short-term difficulties which then resolved.

Artic Sea Ice Extent; click on image for larger viewSo I remain a global-warming "skeptic."  Until the climate-change models have real predictive value, they are not a legitimate basis for making social and economic policy.  At this point, they less reliable than my copy of the Old Farmer's Almanac, which was right on point for November in my bailiwick, by the way -- mild, with average to somewhat above average precipitation. For the past decade, the climate seems to have been on a plateau; temperatures overall are somewhat cooler, icecaps are melting but sea ice, while lower than "normal," is holding its own, hurricanes and tornadoes are not laying waste to the coasts or the heartland. The earth and its climate are dynamic systems which we do not sufficiently understand and we need to take a more humble view of the matter than has been exhibited by the political class, both left and right.

RELATED ARTICLE: Where Has All The Weather Gone?

For years, we have been promised more and more bad weather, stronger "Cat-5" storms, and unprecedented spates of tornadoes.  But here we are, more than halfway through the 2009 hurricane season, and we have yet to see as much as a Category 1 storm make landfall.  There have been tornadoes, but nothing apocalyptic.  Where has all the weather gone?

click on image for larger viewThe fourth month of the Atlantic hurricane season is coming to an end, with not even a tropical storm now in sight.  No hurricane has made landfall in the United States this season.  Meanwhile, Clemson University researchers have concluded that the number of hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic Basin is increasing, but there is no evidence that their individual strengths are any greater than storms of the past or that the chances of a U.S. strike are up. Hurricane frequency is up but not their strength, say Clemson researchers. If this season continues to be, shall we say, "mild," even the increased numbers may be questionable.

click on image for larger viewAt the beginning of the year there were predictions of a "strong tornado season" in 2009. Then, earlier this month, Canadian researchers reported that global warming does not appear to be increasing storm events.  And now for an inconvenient fact: tornadoes have occurred well below the long-term average through September of 2009.  See Tornadoes in 2009: Well Below Average Through Sep.

Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice is continuing to rebuild, contrary to predictions of an ice-free Acrtic Ocean.  Although none of this is consistent with global warming theory, neither does it "prove" that there is no such thing as man-made global warming to some extent.  It does indicate, in my humble opinion, that the situation is far more complex than has been presented and that the dire consequences predicted by global-warming adherents don't follow from the observable data.

click on image for larger view

Stay tuned.  The sky isn't falling yet .