Official Data Disproves Climate Hurricane ‘Supercharging’ Claims
The mainstream media (MSM) has long amplified the narrative that hurricanes are becoming more powerful and more frequent due to climate change, fueled by rising sea surface temperatures.
Recent headlines have linked storms like Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton directly to global warming. For example, CNN reported that Helene’s rainfall was increased by up to 500X due to climate change.
Meanwhile, NPR reports that storms like Helene and Milton are “supercharged” by climate change, intensifying their destructive power.
These claims support a broader alarmist agenda that climate change is driving a dramatic increase in hurricane frequency and intensity, making them deadlier than ever before. But the actual data tells a very different story.
The Decline in Hurricane and Cyclone Deaths
One of the most significant but often overlooked aspects of modern hurricane activity is the remarkable decrease in deaths associated with these storms, despite the media’s fixation on their supposed increasing intensity.
If climate change were truly causing more destructive and deadly hurricanes, we would expect to see an increase in fatalities. Yet, the opposite is true.
According to the Wikipedia list of the deadliest tropical cyclones over time, the vast majority of the deadliest storms occurred in the early and mid-20th century, long before global warming became a prevalent concern.
For instance, the 1970 Bhola Cyclone claimed between 300,000 to 500,000 lives in Bangladesh. Compare this to modern hurricanes: the technological advances in forecasting, infrastructure, and emergency response have led to a significant reduction in deaths.
The media fixation on extreme events ignores the fact that human resilience has outpaced the supposed climate risks. Improved preparation and infrastructure mean that today, we’re better equipped than ever to handle hurricanes, even as their frequency and intensity fluctuate.
This decline in fatalities further undermines the media’s alarmist narrative, showing that humans are not more vulnerable to these storms than before, in fact, we’re better prepared than ever.
Why Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) is a Strong Metric for Understanding Hurricane Trends
When it comes to evaluating the true trends in hurricane activity, Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) is one of the most comprehensive and reliable metrics available.
Unlike other measurements that might focus on the intensity of individual storms or annual storm counts, ACE encapsulates both the frequency and strength of tropical cyclones over a given period, making it a robust measure of the total energy in the cyclone system.
ACE is calculated by summing the square of the maximum sustained wind speeds at six-hour intervals for each storm that reaches tropical storm strength or higher (wind speeds of at least 34 knots).
This formula allows ACE to account for both the duration and intensity of each storm, providing a holistic view of how much energy is being produced by tropical cyclones over time.
Because it factors in both how long a storm lasts and how powerful it is, ACE is an ideal metric for assessing the cumulative impact of all tropical cyclones in a season, year, or even decades.
By considering multiple aspects of storm activity, ACE avoids the pitfalls of focusing only on a few extreme storms, which can be misleading when assessing long-term trends.
For example, while some individual storms might seem more intense, the overall energy in the hurricane system might be lower due to fewer storms or less intense storms throughout the season.
Therefore, ACE provides a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of trends than simply counting storms or focusing on a single, powerful hurricane.
Furthermore, ACE captures tropical cyclone activity across different ocean basins, offering a global perspective rather than limiting the analysis to one region.
This makes it especially useful for testing broader claims, like those often made by the MSM, that global warming is making hurricanes universally more frequent and powerful.
Instead of relying on cherry-picked storms or short-term variability, ACE enables a more accurate and systematic evaluation of trends over time.
What the IPCC Says About Hurricanes
Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the self-proclaimed authority on climate science, takes a more measured approach than the MSM. While the IPCC acknowledges that climate change may lead to stronger hurricanes in certain regions, they also stress that natural variability and local conditions play a major role in shaping cyclone behavior.
In its 6th Assessment Report, the IPCC indicates that while some future hurricanes could be more intense due to changing atmospheric conditions, there is still high uncertainty around these projections, particularly when looking at global trends.
The report shows no clear evidence of a global increase in hurricane frequency over the past century. This contrasts sharply with the confident declarations from some scientists and media outlets, who use storms like Helene and Milton to claim that climate change is already wreaking havoc.
In reality, the IPCC’s findings call for nuance and caution, showing that while some aspects of hurricane dynamics might change, the data does not support the idea that climate change is making hurricanes universally stronger or more frequent.
The Graphic That Tells the Truth
The chart below, derived from the studies published in Geophysical Research Letters and Nature, visually captures the discrepancy between rising sea temperatures and declining hurricane energy:
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