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by todayiamme 3135 days ago
I don't understand the point you're making. Also to be clear, your statement;

> Harvey was the first cat3+ hurricane to hit the US in 12 years.

is patently false, because in that time period we've had (and I'm including 2005);

Katrina Cat. 5 (2005)

Rita (2005)

Wilma (2005)

Ike Cat. 4 (2008)

Sandy Cat. 3 at peak (2012)

I didn't bother to correct you earlier, because Cat. 3+ hurricanes hitting the US are more or less a very narrow set of data points. When you view the system globally and at sea, start counting the total number of hurricanes, and add up the data, then the trend becomes quite clear.

I feel that such cherry picking doesn't befit our discussion. Because we can argue passionately over this and one of us might convince someone else that we're right, but at the end of the day - either way - nature can't be fooled. Nature can't be lobbied against. Nature doesn't care about PR firms. Nature can't be reasoned against. Nor can the law of thermodynamics.

We have put a large amount of energy into the global system. We can now argue with the laws of man whether this is reasonable or not, but we can't argue against the laws of thermodynamics.

The data is clear. There's something going on and the mean frequency of intensity has increased. And we have a relatively solid understanding of why this has happened - which can be wrong, but the balance of probabilities right now is that our theory is correct. You can call BS all you want, but that doesn't change the science. That doesn't change the facts at hand.

1 comments

He specifically mentioned hitting the US. Ike hit Texas as a Cat 2 storm, Sandy hit the east coast as a Cat 2 storm. Their peaks (4, 3) were out in ocean/sea waters near the island nations. Of course, you don't have listen to me or the weather people who repeatedly say that storms have not increased in frequency or intensity (beyond their normal cycles) [0].

[0] - https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/908030951975989261

Have I made the claim that it increases the frequency of occurrence? I feel that link is a red herring and obfuscates reality. What I, and all of the papers above, have been referring to is the frequency of intensity of storms. NOT the frequency of storms.

Other than the graphs I've already pasted, the phenomena shows up over and over again in the power dissipation index;

http://images.nature.com/m685/nature-assets/ngeo/journal/v3/...

Here's yet another paper on the topic and its graphs;

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/roypta/365/18...

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1860/2695

> Of course, you don't have listen to me or the weather people who repeatedly say that storms have not increased in frequency or intensity (beyond their normal cycles) [0].

First of all, the graph you linked to only mentions the frequency of occurrence. It does not include intensity. Second, I trust well sourced papers featuring replicable research by scientists published in notable peer-reviewed journals over random people on Twitter.