Timothy Birdnow

From meteorologist Chris Martz:

The longest continuous record of hurricane data is of Contiguous U.S. landfalls since 1851. We have a total of 173-years of data to work with.

In spite of long-term ocean warming [a large chunk of which has been recovery from the Little Ice Age] and 1.5 trillion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the long-term linear trend of hurricane landfalls in the Lower 48 is slightly down since 1851, albeit the trend isn't very significant from a statistical standpoint.

What's more, there has been no discernable increase in the number of major hurricane landfalls either over the same time interval. If hurricanes were landfalling at higher intensities, there'd be a notable increase in C3-5 hurricane strikes.

The bottom line is this: in the era of rapidly increasing emissions, a detectable influence on hurricane strikes in the U.S. has yet to emerge in the historical record. Natural variability on interannual and multi-decadal time scales masks any anthropogenic influence.

Data from NOAA HURDAT here.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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