• Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Climate Change Dispatch
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Climate Change Dispatch
No Result
View All Result

Climate Expert: What The Media Won’t Tell You About Hurricanes, 2023 Edition

by Roger Pielke Jr
June 03, 2023, 2:35 PM
in News and Opinion
Reading Time: 6 mins read
A A
2

hurricane damage[June 1] is the official start of the 2023 hurricane season in the North Atlantic.

Over the past few decades, the media has increasingly celebrated every hurricane as an indicator of climate change — whether juiced, intensified, linked, or fueled — pick your favorite.

Typically lost in the apocalyptic narratives has been actual science and data. [emphasis, links added]

Below are five important conclusions from the scientific literature that are rarely, if ever, found in coverage of hurricanes.

1. The scientific consensus on hurricanes and climate change is clear and consistent.

In short —trends in hurricane activity outside the range of documented variability have not been detected, nor is there high confidence in connections of hurricane behavior to greenhouse gas emissions.

Don’t take it from me. Here is what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said this month:

[F]or Atlantic hurricane activity, the attribution-observed changes to increasing greenhouse gases is not yet assessed as highly confident, apart from impacts related to sea level rise. Observed hurricane data generally either do not show clear centennial-scale trends or do not cover enough years to assess century-scale trends. Pronounced multidecadal variations typically dominate over long-term (centennial-scale) trends over decadal timescales for Atlantic hurricanes.

NOAA’s assessment of scientific understanding is consistent with that of the most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

[T]here is still no consensus on the relative magnitude of human and natural influences on past changes in Atlantic hurricane activity, and particularly on which factor has dominated the observed increase (Ting et al., 2015) and it remains uncertain whether past changes in Atlantic TC activity are outside the range of natural variability.

There are hypothesized effects — such as the rapid intensification of storms or enhanced precipitation — but NOAA concludes that “confident quantitative attribution” of changes in the phenomena to greenhouse gas emissions or internal variability “remains an unsettled topic of research.”

The media often conflates hypotheses with firmly established conclusions.

NOAA further states:

  • “an anthropogenic influence has not been formally detected specifically for hurricane-related precipitation”
  • For storm numbers, rapid intensification probability, and extreme precipitation, “climate change detection/attribution studies are not yet definitive for hurricane activity metrics, and more research is needed for more confident conclusions.”
  • “it is premature to conclude with high confidence that human-caused increases in greenhouse gases have caused a change in past Atlantic basin hurricane activity that is outside the range of natural variability”

There is little ambiguity in the current state of the science of hurricanes and climate change.

2. Hurricane landfalls along the continental U.S. show no trends since at least 1900.

Here are all landfalling U.S. hurricanes since 1900.

Here are all landfalling major hurricanes since 1900.

I’ve not seen either dataset appear in the legacy media — well, except once, when Bill Nye “The Science Guy” printed out my graph and took a sharpie to it on CNN, apparently to “correct” the data to show an increase!

How to turn “No Increase” into an “Increase” — Use a Sharpie!

3. Development and growth are sufficient to explain why hurricane damage has increased dramatically

Spot the change

While climate change is typically the focus of attention when hurricanes make landfall, there is no debate that the single biggest factor driving increasing damage from storms is development — the growth of buildings and the amount of wealth exposed to storms.

As blindingly obvious as this may seem, it is routinely ignored in the promotion of NOAA’s “billion-dollar disaster” campaign.

For more than 25 years, my colleagues and I have estimated how much damage the storms of the past would cause if they occurred with contemporary levels of development.

Our methods offer a useful independent estimate of such losses that can be compared to the results of catastrophe models.

Here are estimates of the top 25 most costly hurricanes (continental US) had each storm occurred in 2023. The 1926 Great Miami Hurricane approached $300 billion.

Updated from Weinkle et al. 2018

The figure below shows an estimate of how much damage would occur in 2023 if each past hurricane season occurred this year.

You might be able to eyeball a small increasing trend since 1900 — trends are sensitive to time frames, e.g., start in the 1970s and you’ll find an increasing trend, start in the 1920s and find no trend.

Compare our results (above) with independent estimates from a catastrophe model (below). They are pretty similar, but there are some differences (like the 1930s and 1940s).

4. Climate change is important, but far more important for understanding trends and causes of increasing disaster costs is societal change, especially what we build, where we build, and how we build.

It is not just hurricanes. Damage associated with extreme weather events has increased dramatically in recent decades. The reason? More people with more stuff.

The map and graph below show population increases in different regions of the United States. We like to live where risks are high — in particular, East and Gulf Coasts (hurricanes) and in California (fires and earthquakes).

Source: Klotzbach et al. 2018

The figure below shows that the number of houses has increased in parallel to the increase in population. More houses mean more damage.

Source: Klotzbach et al. 2018

It is not just the number of houses, but their sizes have increased as well, reflecting growing affluence.

Larger houses are filled with more stuff, and more stuff means more damage when an extreme event occurs. The figure below shows that the average U.S. home increased by about 1,000 square feet (~60%) over about 40 years.

Source: Klotzbach et al. 2018

5. The largest climate signal — by far — in the damage record of U.S. hurricanes is ENSO [El Niño/Southern Oscillation].

There are only a few times in my career when I can say that I discovered something fundamentally new.

Once was in the 1990s when, along with Chris Landsea, we discovered a very strong signal in U.S. hurricane damage based on the phases of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

In a nutshell, during the peak of the hurricane season (that is August-October), El Niño conditions have the fewest landfalls and damage, and La Niña conditions have the most, with neutral years falling in between.

You can see this in the figures below:

Source: Klotzbach et al. 2018

The panel on the left shows that there are almost twice as many hurricane landfalls in La Niña years compared to El Niño years. The panel on the right shows an even larger difference in median damage.

But be careful — these are summary statistics with considerable variation and damaging storms can happen in any phase of ENSO.


Roger Pielke Jr. has been a professor at the University of Colorado since 2001. Previously, he was a staff scientist in the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He has degrees in mathematics, public policy, and political science, and is the author of numerous books. (Amazon).

Read the full post at The Honest Broker

  • Truth
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Gettr
  • Threads
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Mastodon
  • Buffer
  • Telegram
  • Email
  • Copy Link
  • Share Using More Networks…

Popular Posts

Electric Vehicles (EVs)

The ‘Green’ Scam Of The Century: How ‘Renewables’ Increase Fossil Fuel Demands

Oct 23, 2024
News and Opinion

Antarctica Is Colder, Icier Today Than At Any Time In 5,000 Years

Apr 15, 2024
Energy

30-Plus Signs That The Climate Scam Is Collapsing

Apr 09, 2025

Comments 2

  1. SPURWING PLOVER says:
    2 years ago

    We all know by now most of all the news we get is totally fake news so why should we be surprised since its mostly all leftists propaganda NYT , time Newsweek Etc. and the typical leftists propaganda

  2. Joseph Repas says:
    2 years ago

    To translate the early section of this story, the terms by NOAA stating that they have no conclusive evidence of” climate change” affecting the number or strength of hurricanes simply means that they know that man made climate change is a farce but they will keep trying to fudge the numbers until they lean toward a strong possibility that hurricanes will destroy the entire planet.

Stay Connected On Social Media

gab-logo

Donate Today

Beating back the alarmist narrative takes time and money. Please donate today to help!

Recent Posts

  • COP30 Amazon17 Republican AGs Urge Trump Admin To Skip COP30 Over Green Energy Policies
    Oct 24, 2025
    The attorneys general say attending COP30 would back costly, unreliable wind and solar and risk U.S. energy security. […]
  • severe storm over cityClimate Expert Reveals Latest Scandal Tied To Billion-Dollar Disasters
    Oct 24, 2025
    Climate Central takes over the Billion-Dollar Disasters tabulation, sparking fresh controversy over its methods and motives. […]
  • ocean sun cloudsNew Study Finds 75% Of Rising Ocean Heat Likely Natural, CO2 Not A Factor
    Oct 24, 2025
    Study shows ocean warming driven mostly by natural cycles, not greenhouse gas emissions, challenging mainstream global warming narratives. […]
  • LNG terminal in germanyU.S. And Qatar Push Back On EU’s Climate Mandates That Threaten LNG Exports
    Oct 24, 2025
    U.S. and Qatari officials warn that the EU’s latest climate regulations under CSDDD could endanger Europe’s access to affordable natural gas. […]
  • marines trainingCrazy Hill Op-Ed Demands Generals Respond To Climate Change ‘National Security’ Threat
    Oct 23, 2025
    The Hill warns of climate Armageddon unless U.S. generals join the fight against ‘Mother Nature,’ now deemed a national security threat. […]
  • Shipping port near power plantEurope’s Energy Crisis Shows Net Zero Dogma Comes At A Cost
    Oct 23, 2025
    While China’s rare earth threat exposes U.S. supply chain risks, Europe’s energy crisis shows how net zero policies backfired spectacularly. […]
  • wind farm climate outDemocrats Ditch Climate Messaging As Rising Utility Costs Hit Voters
    Oct 23, 2025
    As Democrats struggle with climate messaging, voters feel the pinch from rising utility bills and the party's costly green energy policies. […]
  • Protest system change not climate changeLead Attorney Admits Real Goal Of Climate Lawsuits: Backdoor Carbon Tax
    Oct 23, 2025
    A top lawyer spearheading climate lawsuits says the quiet part out loud: litigation is a backdoor carbon tax on oil companies and consumers. […]
  • WMO reportHow The World Meteorological Organization Lies To You—Using Your Taxes
    Oct 22, 2025
    The WMO’s 2025 greenhouse gas report hides key data that undercuts the so-called climate 'crisis' narrative—funded by your tax dollars. […]
  • Hurricane generating ocean waves2025 Hurricane Season Is Flopping As Alarmist Predictions Fail
    Oct 22, 2025
    The 2025 hurricane season so far has seen no major U.S. landfalls, exposing alarmists’ failed predictions of catastrophic storms. […]

Get Instant Email Notifications

Subscribe to receive a digest of daily stories, or get emailed once they're published. Check your Junk/Spam folder for a verification email.

Submit a tip

Please enter your email, so we know you're human.

Books You May Like

exposing great lie

Have a suggestion? Let us know! We swap out books based on your input. We participate in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. See here.

  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

© Portions copyright Climate Change Dispatch

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us

© 2025 Climate Change Dispatch

 
Share via
  • Facebook
  • Like
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • VKontakte
  • Print
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Buffer
  • Love This
  • Weibo
  • Pocket
  • Xing
  • Odnoklassniki
  • WhatsApp
  • Meneame
  • Blogger
  • Amazon
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Gmail
  • AOL
  • Newsvine
  • HackerNews
  • Evernote
  • MySpace
  • Mail.ru
  • Viadeo
  • Line
  • Flipboard
  • Comments
  • SMS
  • Viber
  • Telegram
  • Subscribe
  • Facebook Messenger
  • Kakao
  • LiveJournal
  • Yammer
  • Edgar
  • Fintel
  • Mix
  • Instapaper
  • Copy Link
  • Truth
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Gettr
  • Baidu
  • Mastodon
  • Threads
  • Bluesky
Share via
  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • VKontakte
  • Print
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Buffer
  • Love This
  • Weibo
  • Pocket
  • Xing
  • Odnoklassniki
  • WhatsApp
  • Meneame
  • Blogger
  • Amazon
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Gmail
  • AOL
  • Newsvine
  • HackerNews
  • Evernote
  • MySpace
  • Mail.ru
  • Viadeo
  • Line
  • Flipboard
  • Comments
  • SMS
  • Viber
  • Telegram
  • Subscribe
  • Facebook Messenger
  • Kakao
  • LiveJournal
  • Yammer
  • Edgar
  • Fintel
  • Mix
  • Instapaper
  • Copy Link
  • Truth
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Gettr
  • Baidu
  • Mastodon
  • Threads
  • Bluesky