Timed for the Katrina anniversary, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has put out a short report on the hurricane-climate issue (PDF). Without taking a premature stand on who is or isn't winning the scientific debate at the present moment, I'd like to point out how CEI misrepresents the state of that debate. The chief technique seems to be to debunk strawman arguments that no one is actually making. Consider the following:
Claims of a definite link between hurricanes and global warming rely on the simple hypothesis that, as waters warm, storms get stronger. In fact, some storms may get stronger, but others may get weaker. There are two main types of storms: hurricanes (tropical cyclones) and winter (frontal) storms. Global warming is likely to affect each type differently....Winter storms draw their energy from the collision between cold and warm air fronts. If, as climate models predict, higher northern latitudes warm more than do lower tropical latitudes, the temperature differential between colliding air masses should decrease, reducing the intensity of some winter storms.
Voila: Strawman number one. The central debate that CEI presumably wants to address, and which was greatly amplified by Hurricane Katrina, involves hurricanes and climate, not extratropical cyclones (winter storms) and climate. So CEI"s above comment is completely off topic, especially in a report tied to Katrina. Katrina wasn't directly caused by global warming, but it also wasn't a snowstorm.
[Moreover, whence this idea that there are "two main types of storms"? Where do ordinary thunderstorms fit into this dichotomy? And what about tornadoes? CEI is practicing pretty bad meteorology here, it seems to me.]
Pretty soon CEI finds another strawman to attack:
Alarmists often claim that Japan has seen an increase in typhoon activity due to global warming. Figure 4 shows the number of tropical storms and typhoons (Tropical Cyclones) over the Western North Pacific, from 1950 through 2005. The data simply do not reveal a linear trend corresponding to the gradual increase in atmospheric CO2 levels. Further, whether a particular storm "hits" Japan--its trajectory--depends on local meteorological factors, not on average global temperatures.
There are multiple ploys here. First, the hurricane-climate debate of the present moment centrally turns on whether storms are intensifying, not on whether they are increasing in number. Yet here CEI is talking about numbers rather than intensity. Let's call it strawman number two.
Second, who is arguing that global warming affects the "trajectory" of "particular" storms? No one that I'm aware of, because that would be ridiculous. Yet by debunking this silly concept, CEI implies that some unspecified group of "alarmists" actually hold the position. Call it strawman number three.
Finally, although such individuals may exist, I am not myself aware of anyone who has explicitly stated that Japan's really bad 2004 typhoon season was a direct result of global warming. Sure, the season broke records with 10 typhoon strikes on the islands of Japan. So it naturally gets pulled into the discussion by Al Gore and others who are highlighting weird weather phenomena. But I suspect that if you asked him, Gore would admit that he was not implying a direct causal connection. (Granted, anyone discussing the 2004 typhoon season in a climate change context ought to be sure to draw distinctions about what he/she is or is not saying.)
Meanwhile, here's CEI again:
Another alarmist rhetorical gambit is to point out that during the 2005 hurricane season, there were so many storms that NOAA ran out of assigned names for them.
Well, there were so many storms that NOAA ran out of assigned names for them. Does this directly prove the hand of global warming? Of course it doesn't--but who said it did?
Once again, tropical cyclones Alpha through Zeta inevitably come up when hurricane anomalies are being discussed. But I'd be surprised if we could find an academic scientist who thinks these storms directly prove a climate influence. Let's call it strawman number four.
Granted, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that CEI may be able to dredge up a few bloggers or pundits who, not really understanding the issues, have erroneously made statements of the sort that the CEI report endeavors to debunk. But I'm confident that no one seriously engaged in, or seriously following, the hurricane-climate debate embraces these positions. And as for people like Al Gore--presumably one of the central targets of the CEI report--I have seen his movie, and he does not explicitly make these arguments. (Again, Gore could have been more clear about what he was and wasn't saying.)
Finally, I'd like to add that I am very tired of the use of this word "alarmists," which appears throughout the CEI report with a frequency that appears deliberate. The hurricane-climate debate is a serious one with serious people on both sides of it. The scientists who detect a hurricane-climate influence today are not "alarmists," and those who question it are not "deniers." CEI's report could have used a lot more nuance--and a lot fewer attacks on positions that nobody actually holds.
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Both tropical and extra-tropical cyclones contain thunderstorms. As a rule of thumb, more thunderstorms == stronger cyclone, less thunderstorms == weaker cyclone. (For both tropical and extra-tropical cyclones.) Among other things, thunderstorms convert some of the latent heat of water vapor into wind (kinetic) energy. That process is the primary energy source of a tropical cyclone, and a secondary energy source for an extra-tropical cyclone. So a thunderstorm is a storm, but on a much smaller scale then a tropical or extra-tropical cyclone. Tornadoes, as far as I know, only occur as part of a strong thunderstorm. (Although thunderstorms can and do occur separately from cyclones, most severe thunderstorms are associated with a cyclone.) So 'two main types of storms' is a simplification, but in many contexts an easily justifiable simplification. The problem here is not the simplification itself; it is the use to which it is put. This is the classic Lindzen stunt of mentioning extra-tropical solely for the purpose of conflating them with tropical cyclones, taking advantage of the similarity of the terms, and the average reader's unfamiliarity with the relevant meteorological aspects.
Finally, I'd like to add that I am very tired of the use of this word "alarmists," which appears throughout the CEI report with a frequency that appears deliberate.
Sure it's deliberate. It evokes emotion.
I, personally, am not tired of it. A paper using marginalization words such as 'alarmist' helps me with understanding the context of the paper.
And a good post, Chris.
Best,
D
I'm sure that the constant use of the word "alarmist" is deliberate. The CEI is using the old PR trick, one the far right loves, to influence and change the language used which allows them to control and influence the debate.
Maybe we should never write or say CEI without adding the "extremist public relations firm that represents polluting industries".
Perhaps we need to remind people of the staffer who was dispatched by the CIA to Crawford, TX, in August 2001 to deliver the Presidential Daily Briefing that Bin Laden was determined to strike in the U.S.
Bush clearly considered him an alarmist when he sent him home after saying something like, "Okay, you've covered your ass."
When we hear that word "alarmist," we need to respond that people who sound warnings usually know exactly what they are doing.
In the case of global warming, we know the negative consequences of a false alarm, yet we still choose to warn about an urgent planetary problem and suggest ways to mitigate it.
We're not shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. We are turning up the house lights and announcing in an urgent but calm tone, "We have a problem, and this is what we need to do about it."
Alarmist ass-covering? Hardly!
What gets me is the paragraph quoted about typhoons near Japan. I had to reread it several times just to make sure I understood it due to that wonderful non-sequiter in the middle of it. A paragraph about typhoon frequency with a sentence on CO2 levels in the middle of it? Meteorologists, am I missing something here? This paragraph wouldn't pass muster with my 6th grade English class.