As of this writing, the Atlantic Hurricane season is about half over . . . and there hasn’t been a hurricane yet! This is a bit surprising, given the frequency and intensity of Atlantic and Caribbean tropical storms over the past 10 years. In the over $10 billion of damage range (adjusted to 2010 dollars), since early 2004, we have had Katrina ($105.8 billion 2005), Ike ($27.8 billion 2008), Wilma ($20.6 billion 2005), Ivan ($19.8 billion 2005), Charley ($15.8 billion 2004), Irene ($15.8 billion 2011), Rita ($11.8 billion 2005), and Frances ($10.02 billion 2004). Oh, and let’s not forget the memorable almost-hurricane that knocked New York City and New Jersey for a loop last year: Sandy, weighing in at about $64 billion in overall damages (adjusting back to 2010 dollars for comparability). There were only four other 10 billion + storms between 1965 and 2003 (admittedly, there was less coastal residential development back then; but there was also more industrial factory and port infrastructure along the East Coast and Gulf before 2003, so 9 mega-damage storms in 10 years still says something against 4 others in the previous 39 years).
Is this an early sign of global warming? The jury still seems to be out on this. Even the 10+ billion list above indicates that two-thirds of the recent mega-storms were concentrated in two seasons, 2004 and 2005; indicating that this hurricane outburst may have been something of a “freak of nature”. If progressive global warming were the main driver of increasing hurricane intensity, you might have expected more storms in the second 5 years (2009-2013) than the first; but the results are skewed heavily towards the first 5 years (7 versus 2).
But there is something else happening in the weather that doesn’t make the headlines like major hurricanes, but is more likely to be resulting from “anthropogenic climate change”. And that is » continue reading …
