NOAA says 2020 had 102 tropical storms, well above world average
Tropical storms in 2020 didn’t just break records in the northern Atlantic. It happened everywhere claims NOAA.
Storm totals exceeded records all over the world, according to an international study from 60 countries detailed in the “State of the Climate in 2020″ report released Wednesday. The annual report is compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information and published by the American Meteorological Society.
In both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, scientists recorded 102 tropical storms. It’s a total far above the 1981–2010 average of 85, according to the study.
In the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, scientists observed a total of 30 storms—a record in its own right breaking the 2005 record of 28, according to the NOAA.
The Atlantic also had seven major hurricanes, or storms with maximum sustained winds greater than 110 mph (Category 3 or higher). One of those major storms was the development of Category 4 Hurricane Iota, which gave meteorologists a surprise last year as Category 4 storms rarely develop in November when waters begin to cool and the season comes to an end.
The year was also historic for the number of landfalling storms observed in the United States, coming in at 12. The previous record was nine.
On the bright side, the northern Pacific did not measure a record amount of storm formation. However, meteorologists observed the record breaking phenomenon of Super Typhoon Goni, which was the strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall in the history and led to the evacuation of almost one million people in the Philippines, the report showed. Goni had at one point maximum sustained winds of 180 mph.
While on land the storm maintained winds just under 140 mph, according to NASA. About 25 people were reported dead, nearly 400 people were injured and six people were missing as of January, according to a report by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent.
The record tropical season was observed as scientists also recorded 2020 as among the three warmest years on the global surface ever recorded since the mid-1800s, according to the report. Perhaps more alarming, 2020 was among the seven warmest years on record, which all took place in the last seven years. Last year’s heat record was accomplished without the presence of the warming effects of El Niño. The only years to beat out 2020 for the warmest record were 2016 and 2019; both of which observed the presence of El Niño.
“New high temperature records were set across the globe,” according to the report, which “found that the major indicators of climate change continued to reflect trends consistent with a warming planet.”
Another concerning aspect, sea-surface temperature hit a near-record in spite of 2020 having a cooling La Niña influence in the second half of the year.
“The largest anomalies occupied the western and portions of the central North Atlantic, where numerous tropical storms and hurricanes tracked across this region,” the report stated.
Sea-surface temperatures are an important indicator for many global phenomenon including hurricane formation. It was one of the factors the NOAA used last year to predict an above-average hurricane season. The NOAA made a similar prediction regarding the 2021 season citing a forecast of high sea-surface temperatures during the peak of season. However, prior to August, temperatures have been recorded at near normal, said Lauren Gaches, an NOAA spokeswoman.
“It’s been varying from week to week, though generally near-normal over any two-week period,” she said.
Still hurricane season is ahead of the game in storm production and falling in line with the NOAA’s “above-average” prediction as hurricane specialists prepare for the ninth named storm of the season—that’s unusual as letter “I” storms don’t typically form before Oct. 4, according to the NOAA records.
The report also addressed other concerning data including broken records of higher sea levels and permafrost. The former was measured as the ninth consecutive year the global average sea level rose to a new record high.
“Global sea level is rising at an average rate of 1.2 in (3.0 cm) per decade due to changes in climate,” the report showed. “Melting of glaciers and ice sheets, along with warming oceans, account for the trend in rising global mean sea level.”
See more here: phys.org
Header image: BBC
Editor’s note: This is pure alarmism, ‘proven’ by highly-suspect or fabricated data. A warming planet benefits life. Cold kills fifteen times as many people as heat. Increasing CO2 benefits plant & crop growth. Data previously shown by PSI shows no increase in the number and intensity of storms. There has been no global increase in the rate of sea-level rise for over a hundred years.
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Pierre-D Bernier
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102 tropical storms ? 1981–2010 average of 85 ?
Meaningless without the standard deviation !
Just another case of obfuscation to scare people !
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Alan
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A simple point that applies to most views on climate extremes, but of course we only hear about the years that are higher than the average and not the ones that are lower. It really shows the poor education of the majority and how easily it is to use propaganda to influence them.
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Andy
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Good point Alan.
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richard
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Tornadoes-
“With increased National Doppler radar coverage, increasing population, and greater attention to tornado reporting, there has been an increase in the number of tornado reports over the past several decades. This can create a misleading appearance of an increasing trend in tornado frequency. To better understand the variability and trend in tornado frequency in the United States, the total number of EF-1 and stronger, as well as strong to violent tornadoes (EF-3 to EF-5 category on the Enhanced Fujita scale) can be analyzed. These tornadoes would have likely been reported even during the decades before Doppler radar use became widespread and practices resulted in increasing tornado reports. The bar charts below indicate there has been little trend in the frequency of the stronger tornadoes over the past 55 years”
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology/trends
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richard
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Hurricanes-
“NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dyamics Laboratory (GFDL): “Leaders in Climate Model Development and Research.” See their website.
For about a decade (or even longer), GFDL has annually updated their statement on hurricanes and climate change. This excerpt from their 15 August 2019 update lists some of their negative findings about current hurricane activity.
“We find that, after adjusting for such an estimated number of missing storms, there remains just a small nominally positive upward trend in tropical storm occurrence from 1878-2006. Statistical tests indicate that this trend is not significantly distinguishable from zero. In addition, Landsea et al. (2010) note that the rising trend in Atlantic tropical storm counts is almost entirely due to increases in short-duration (<2 day) storms alone. Such short does not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced long-term increase.“-lived storms were particularly likely to have been overlooked in the earlier parts of the record, as they would have had less opportunity for chance encounters with ship traffic. …
“The evidence for an upward trend is even weaker if we look at U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which even show a slight negative trend beginning from 1900 or from the late 1800s. …
“While major hurricanes show more evidence of a rising trend from the late 1800s, the major hurricane data are considered even less reliable than the other two records in “In short, the historical Atlantic hurricane frequency record does not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced long-term increase.“
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Francis Nadspal
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And yet a new report has come out that Artic and Antartic ice has increased in volume. That in addition to the fact the sun will be lessening the heating the earth for a cycle.
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Andy
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Nice one Richard for both comments!
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very old white guy
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Nothing is any different than it has ever been. The only difference is the ability to record and report and the increase in the population.
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