Read here. Michael Mann, the "scientist" behind the infamous hockey-stick and Climategate fiascoes, decided that the world could use his brand of discredited statistics and data manipulation concerning Atlantic Ocean hurricanes. He subsequently published a study purporting to show an increasing trend of hurricanes supposedly due to human-caused global warming. To the surprise of no one, a new peer-reviewed study by actual, honest-to-god, hurricane scientists makes a complete mockery of Mann's non-expertise of hurricanes.
Villarini et al., using widely accepted statistical and data methodology techniques, examined the hurricane information and compensated for the superior satellite hurricane detection capabilities over the last few decades. The end result? There is no increasing trend of hurricane activity.
"By using statistical methods combined with the current understanding of the physical processes, we are unable to find support for the hypothesis that the century-scale record of short-lived tropical cyclones in the Atlantic contains a detectable real climate signal...Moreover, based on these results and those of Vecchi and Knutson [2008] it is unlikely that a homogeneous record of Atlantic tropical storm counts would contain a statistically significant positive trend since the late 1800s. Our results provide a context for interpreting studies exploring trend behavior in the North Atlantic tropical storm activity starting prior to the 1940s. In particular, the conclusions of certain studies reporting large secular increases in North Atlantic tropical storm activity in which shorties are included [e.g., Holland and Webster, 2007; Mann et al., 2007] could be affected by what we interpret as likely spurious nonphysical trends unless an alternative physical explanation can be uncovered for the pronounced increase in shorties starting from the middle of the 20th century. Further, statistical models of tropical storm activity built using century‐scale records that include shorties [e.g., Mann et al., 2007; Sabbatelli and Mann, 2007; Mann et al., 2009] likely include an element reflecting the spurious shorties in the record." [Gabriele Villarini, Gabriel Vecchi, Thomas Knutson, James Smith 2011: Journal of Geophysical Research]
Additional hurricane-cyclone and peer-reviewed postings. Severe-weather charts.
