July Sees No Pacific Typhoon for First Time in 70 Years
Global warming alarmists like to claim that tropical storms will intensify and become more frequent unless people stop using fossil fuels. And recently these alarmists have had our attention steered to the Atlantic basin, where tropical storms this year have seen quite an active season thus far.
Another reason the focus has been on the Atlantic is that very little has been happening in terms of Pacific typhoons, and the alarmists don’t want to talk about that.
In fact, this July is the first July to have seen no typhoons formed in the Pacific at all since statistics on this began in 1951, according to the data from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
Normally between 3 to 4 typhoons form in the Pacific in July. Up to 8 have formed in the past, e.g. on 2017 and 1971. But this year July failed to see a single typhoon form – the first time this has occurred since 1951.
Trend contradicts the forecasts of climate scientists
But one year does not make a trend. Global warming alarmists say storms are getting and will be more frequent, and stronger. So let’s look at the data here as well.
The following chart shows the number of typhoons formed in the Pacific each year from January to July, since 1951:
Contrary to what global warming alarmists say, the trend has been downward! The year 2020 has been the second quietest on record – so far.
A warmer world is tamer?
Now we look at the total number of typhoons formed each entire year:
Once again the global warming alarmists are shown to be wrong. In fact, it’s probably the other way around: A warmer planet leads to less storm activity. But this is not the message the purveyors of fear want us to hear.
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Koen Vogel
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Global warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gasses cannot explain regional differences in ocean heat content. These regional differences are noted upon by the IPCC (see e.g. IPCC volume 3: Observations: Ocean”) and filed under “internal variability”, i.e.temperature and energy variability that cannot be explained by the climate models. The models cannot explain:
1) why the northern hemisphere is heating more than the southern hemisphere
2) Why the Atlantic – especially the Northern Atlantic – is heating more than the Pacific
IPCC state that “Warming of the ocean accounts for about 93% of the increase in the Earth’s energy inventory between 1971 and 2010”. The oceans pass this energy along via the climate systems, such as storms. It is therefore unsurprising that the Atlantic is currently experiencing more storms than the Pacific. While remarkable that the number of typhoons has actually dropped to 0 this year, it may be – as you concede – an outlier occurrence. More significant is – as you note – a downward trend.
My PROM article correlates upper ocean energy to geomagnetic variability. Currently the geomagnetic variability is largest near the North Magnetic Pole, and its location has shifted more than 500 km over the last 10 years, from just north of the Canadian arctic islands to a location that is currently very proximal to the geographic north pole. This movement of the magnetic north pole, and the area of maximum geomagnetic variability, could explain why currently:
1) Why the Pacific ocean is heating less, as it becomes more distant to the zone of geomagnetic variability
2) Why the Arctic is heating more (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-arctic-sea-ice-crossing/)
3) The North Atlantic – especially its Labrador and East Greenland currents – is currently heating, and the Greenland icecap is currently melting at an accelerated pace.
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Andy Rowlands
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Great article, and confirms what Tim Ball told me a couple years ago; that in a warmer world you get less storms, and those that do form are less severe.
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Koen Vogel
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I am not sure such a general comment is always valid. Wikipedia states: “There are six main requirements for tropical cyclogenesis: sufficiently warm sea surface temperatures, atmospheric instability, high humidity in the lower to middle levels of the troposphere, enough Coriolis force to develop a low pressure center, a pre-existing low level focus or disturbance, and low vertical wind shear. … Normally, an ocean temperature of 26.5 °C (79.7 °F) spanning through a depth of at least 50 metres (160 ft) is considered the minimum to maintain the special mesocyclone that is the tropical cyclone” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon#Genesis). Generally, in the Northern Hemisphere – temperatures above 26.5 °C occur between the equator and 30 °N. The Coriolis force is low in the lower latitudes, so between 10-30 °N is the prime typhoon and hurricane territory: offshore Florida, Japan, Philippines. Heating a larger area (the 30-60 °N areas) of the North Pacific to 26.5 °C should therefore increase the number of typhoons, as the other 4 necessary factors occur due to happenstance, i.e. due to local weather conditions. The fact that the frequency trend is decreasing could point to the 26.5 °C+ area getting smaller, i.e. a relative cooling of the North Pacific. The oceans around the Indonesian Archipelago were already cooling in 2010 (IPCC Vol. 3), so maybe this area is expanding or moving north. It will be interesting to see the data.
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Andy Rowlands
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I saved the actual wording Tim used, let me see if I can find it.
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