Over the past week, media across the world have proclaimed climate change as the cause of Hurricane Ian’s unusual ferocity. Perhaps no outlet has been more supportive of this flawed narrative than MSNBC News which began its September 28th interview with Canadian atmospheric scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, “it is clearly the case that climate change is making storms like this one stronger.”
Hayhoe, chief scientist with the Nature Conservancy and professor at Texas Tech University, supported this, saying: “climate change is exacerbating them [hurricanes]… making them worse, like putting them on steroids. … Climate change is truly loading the weather dice against us putting us all at risk.”
While we have sincere empathy for those who suffered or lost their lives in the Hurricane Ian, Hayhoe’s statement makes no sense. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina was a category 5 storm with maximum sustain winds of 175 mph, causing over $150 billion in damages. Ian was a category 4 at its peak and maxed out at 155 mph sustained wind speed. There has been no hurricane stronger than Katrina in the 17 years since.
Hayhoe attributed the rapid growth of Ian to warmer oceans, asserting:
“Now over a 90% of the extra heat that's being trapped by that blanket [of greenhouse gases] is going into the ocean where it is powering stronger storms and enabling those storms to ratchet up far more quickly from a tropical storm to category 1, 2 or even 3, 4 or 5.”
Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, contradicts this saying, “major hurricanes don’t really care whether the Gulf [of Mexico] is above average or below average in temperature.”
Regardless, the world oceans are not currently warming. The North Atlantic is cooling and overall, hurricane activity in the region is now at a low point and there is no other hurricane developing. With luck, we may not see another major hurricane this season.
History tells us that Hayhoe’s apparent belief that warming air makes hurricanes worse does not stand up to scrutiny either.
It was during the global cooling period between 1945 and 1977, when ocean temperatures were undoubtedly lower than today, that we witnessed stronger hurricanes than now. For example:
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Hurricane Camille, the second-most intense tropical cyclone to strike the U.S. on record, slammed into Mississippi as category 5 on August 18, 1969, producing a storm surge of almost 24 feet (Ian hit Ft. Myers with a 15 foot surge), killing over 250 people (Ian is known to have killed just over 100 people; Katrina killed 1,800 people) and inflicting damage of perhaps $10 billion ($25 billion in today’s dollars).
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Hurricane Dora, in September 1964, was the first recorded hurricane to make landfall over the Atlantic coast of north Florida. The storm peaked as category 4 with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph.
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The deadliest tropical cyclone (hurricanes are one type of tropical cyclone), which killed an estimated quarter-million people in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), was category 4 Cyclone Bhola in the Bay of Bengal in 1970.
Immediately following that cooling period, the 2,200 km-wide ‘Super Typhoon’ Tip, the strongest ever, made landfall in southern Japan on October 19, 1979.
According to the World Meteorological Organization the biggest storm surge worldwide was 42 feet at Bathurst Bay, Queensland, in 1899. During the warmer 20th and 21st centuries, no tropical cyclone was strong enough to generate a surge greater than 32.8 feet.
And we see the same going even further back in time. Chinese scientists reported that “typhoon frequency seemed to have increased at least regionally during the coldest phases of the Little Ice Age.”
Hayhoe stated that hurricanes have become more damaging due to heavier rains and higher storm surges. While generally true, the actual damage depends upon the hurricane’s path; if the eye is further away from U.S. coastline, there would be less damage, even though there may be lots of rain.
A hurricane’s path is determined by atmospheric circulation patterns at time of hurricane formation in the western Atlantic and its progression towards the U.S. mainland. In particular, the likelihood of a hurricane making landfall depends upon the phase of the “El Niño-Southern Oscillation,” a recurring climate pattern involving changes in water temperature in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. An El Niño phase seems to produce more landfalling, than a La Niña phase. Fortunately, we are currently in a La Niña phase, when we see below average sea surface temperatures in that region so we may see fewer hurricanes landfalling and overall damage could very well be relatively low this year.
Rather than focusing on restricting our use of fossil fuels, which would only raise the cost of living and hurt the poor more than anyone, Hayhoe should promote improved early warning systems and the construction of more storm shelters. Concerning herself with carbon dioxide emissions is a wasteful distraction and will have no impact on future hurricane strength or frequency.
Dr. Madhav Khandekar is a former Research Scientist with Environment Canada and has been working in weather and climate science for about 60 years. He was an Expert Reviewer for the 2007 climate change documents prepared by the UN climate body, the IPCC.
Tom Harris is Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition.