Western Standard - Does climate change cause hurricanes？

00:00:00.000 Hello everyone, my name is Leah Mashett. I'm a reporter here at the Western Standard and today

00:00:12.180 my guest is Chris Martz. He's a meteorologist and a policy analyst at CFACT. Yeah, so today we are

00:00:19.920 going to talk about hurricanes in light of Hurricane Melissa, which happened this week.

00:00:24.560 Um, there's lots of climate change activists that are talking about this and there's lots

00:00:30.380 of claims that they're making. So kind of wanted to break it down today with Chris since

00:00:34.840 he's an expert. Um, the first question I have for you, Chris. Oh, and thank you for joining

00:00:39.060 by the way. Appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. Okay. So the first question I had for

00:00:45.180 you is why don't you just tell us a little bit about like the science behind hurricanes

00:00:49.220 and how they work? Hurricanes are essentially giant heat engines. They, their, their job

00:00:55.640 technically really from a thermodynamic standpoint is to take heat accumulating in the tropics

00:01:01.140 and transport it poleward. Obviously we have other circulations that do that. Uh, you know,

00:01:06.460 the Hadley circulation, stuff like that on a very large scale. Uh, but hurricanes do this

00:01:11.660 as well. Um, and they, in order for a hurricane to form, you need to have, uh, sea surface temperatures

00:01:19.660 of about 79 degrees Fahrenheit, 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Uh, and that water needs to be really warm down

00:01:28.260 to a depth of about 50 meters. Um, and so in order to, uh, and that's in order to just fuel

00:01:36.100 the hurricane, but really to get a storm, what you need is you need to have a preexisting

00:01:41.560 disturbance such as an African easterly wave that comes off Africa and it traverses across

00:01:47.280 the Atlantic ocean and then it gets development and what's called the main development region

00:01:51.580 or in the Caribbean. Um, sometimes they can form in the Gulf of Mexico from a, just a, uh,

00:01:56.420 just a preexisting disturbance. Um, and that tropical depression can then grow to a tropical

00:02:01.540 storm. And sometimes you have these mesoscale convective systems, these, these,

00:02:06.100 this complex of thunderstorms that form over, uh, the great plains down in Dixie. And then

00:02:11.380 if they go down, if they get down into the, uh, uh, Gulf of, uh, Mexico or America, I guess

00:02:16.600 as, as it's called now, um, they, uh, can then organize and get rotation to them, um, and form

00:02:25.200 these, uh, tropical, tropical cyclones. Um, and so then, um, obviously when you have, uh, all

00:02:31.280 this warm, moist air, uh, you had, you had this warm air, uh, and it's in even warmer

00:02:36.560 waters. And so you get this, um, you know, steep lapse rate, the atmosphere, atmosphere

00:02:42.100 comes, becomes unstable. So the air that's near the water surface rises really rapidly forms

00:02:48.040 these clouds. And if there's rotation, they can form into these, these cyclones. And then

00:02:52.240 as the air rises and cools, condensation is a, is a, is a warming process. Um, because

00:02:58.020 in order for the droplets to, uh, condense, um, they must, um, uh, release heat into the

00:03:05.220 air because in order to vapor, the vapor, the droplets to form, you know, during condensation,

00:03:10.000 uh, because it goes from gas to liquid. That's what condensation is. That gas needs to cool

00:03:15.500 in order for the liquid, you know, for the vapor to condense and it really releases heat into

00:03:19.960 the atmosphere. So this creates even more instability. Um, this creates more positive

00:03:24.580 buoyancy, which causes air rise and strengthens the storm. Um, but you also need to have light

00:03:29.180 wind shear. Wind shear is a change in wind speed or direction with increasing height. And so

00:03:33.480 there's a lot of wind shear. It doesn't matter how warm or how I'm on the water is or how

00:03:37.600 unstable the air is. You're not going to get a storm. Um, but the Caribbean, for example,

00:03:43.080 in the case of Hurricane Melissa, the Caribbean is warm enough at this time every year. And it

00:03:48.160 always has been, uh, for there to be a major hurricane, even a category five. Um, and so

00:03:54.840 when we start looking at sea surface temperature anomalies, how far above or below average they

00:03:58.980 are, there's really not much of a correlation. Um, we've had major hurricanes. We've had category

00:04:03.900 five hurricanes in the Caribbean sea. Um, when there's been below average sea surface temperatures,

00:04:10.780 it's just because they're warm enough at this time every year. So if there, if you test a degree

00:04:15.360 or even a degree above or below the mean, it's not going to make all that much of a difference.

00:04:19.880 Hmm. Okay. Um, well then let's talk about the actual, in light of the Melissa, uh, hurricane

00:04:28.960 in Jamaica, you wrote on X that, um, lots of people are claiming eight of the top 15 strongest

00:04:35.920 hurricanes in the North Atlantic happened in the last 20 years. Um, and then you were kind

00:04:41.920 of like listing facts as why that's not necessarily evidence that, um, only, well, stronger hurricanes

00:04:50.060 are only happening now. So why don't you just tell us like why that claim is not necessarily

00:04:56.720 true as well?

00:04:58.480 Yeah. So you mentioned that, um, that I posted and yeah, it is true just based on a raw number

00:05:03.840 standpoint, but just look at the data as is that eight of the top 15 strongest hurricanes.

00:05:09.360 So, uh, hurricanes used to be rated more commonly by the barometric pressure. That's how extra

00:05:15.800 tropical cyclones, the nor'easters that go up the East coast and form, um, uh, these

00:05:21.180 blizzards that you see in Boston, uh, they're rated by pressure. That's how the intensity used

00:05:26.140 to be measured. And it's a more accurate measure because it's more precise. We measure pressure

00:05:29.940 by the millibar, which is equivalent to hectopascal. Um, and then wind speeds are averaged to the

00:05:35.200 nearest, you know, they're, they're averaged from a bunch of different measurements and they are then,

00:05:39.720 um, rounded to the nearest five mile per hour or five kilometer per hour of those that use the

00:05:46.160 metric system. And so it's, it's not a very precise, precise metric at all. Um, and the way that

00:05:52.960 they've done wind speed data over the last century is, is different today. The standard methodology that

00:05:58.940 the hurricane center uses when they rate a hurricane based on its intensity, uh, by the maximum

00:06:04.060 sustained wind speed. Now, if you look at the definition of maximum sustained wind speed, it's

00:06:08.800 the maximum, it's the highest one minute average sustained wind speed that's measured in a hurricane

00:06:14.060 or a tropical cyclone in general, it can be a tropical storm, um, as well that is measured 10 meters

00:06:21.340 above the ground. So you will reduce the frictional effects of the surface. However, uh, today their

00:06:27.460 intensities are usually taken from flight level, uh, radio sign data or drops on data rather,

00:06:33.220 uh, that's dropped, you know, the, the airport aircraft, uh, fly in the hurricane hunters and

00:06:38.080 they drop these drop signs in there that get, um, temperature, humidity, wind profiles of the

00:06:43.220 storm. And then the hurricane center, what they typically do is they do about a 20% reduction of

00:06:49.000 that wind speed that they measure to account for increased frictional, um, and viscous forces at

00:06:55.560 the surface that, uh, slow the winds down. And they estimate the hurricane intensity based on that.

00:07:00.200 But if you go back to the 1920s and 1930s, the hurricanes that we had, the wind speeds that they,

00:07:06.600 that we, they've estimated those to be, because we didn't have satellites. We didn't have these

00:07:10.400 aircraft missions, uh, from the hurricane hunters, um, the reconnaissance missions. What

00:07:15.100 happens now is what happened then was that the winds were based on surface measurements. Uh,

00:07:21.180 but the most observationally consistent metric we have is the central pressure at this, and within,

00:07:25.900 you know, the center of the storm. And, um, so it is true that if you look at the wrong

00:07:32.180 measurements, the eight of the top 15 have been in the last 20 years. Wilmot 2005 and Gilbert 1988,

00:07:38.000 uh, were both sub eight, 90 millibars. And in labor day, 1935 tied with Melissa, uh, this, 0.99

00:07:44.820 this year tied with labor day, 1935, um, for third place, 892 millibars. Um, but the problem with this

00:07:53.060 is, is that, um, the intensities of us landfall and hurricanes, uh, uh, if you look at the intensities

00:08:00.360 of those, uh, of the top 15 most intense hurricanes hit the United States, it turns out that 11 of the

00:08:07.220 15 occurred before 1995 and 10 of them occurred, uh, before 1970. Uh, so we see a very much different

00:08:15.400 pattern there. And when you look at the landfalls in Cuba, you see a very similar thing or other

00:08:19.360 islands, you see a very similar pattern. And a lot of the most intense hurricanes hit land

00:08:23.420 occurred before the 1970s. And so what this tells us is that we don't really know what the, if these

00:08:30.060 hurricanes that made landfall, uh, we don't know what their intensities were while they were out over

00:08:34.100 open water, they could have been much stronger than hurricane Melissa labor day, 1935 could have

00:08:38.780 been much stronger for it, hit the keys, uh, than, than we know. And we didn't even have satellites.

00:08:44.300 We didn't have aircraft. Uh, there was very low, you know, the ship traffic wasn't that dense at the

00:08:48.860 time. Um, and then the Islanders know that if it's some of those islands that have populations that

00:08:54.200 may landfall, uh, they might not have reported it. Uh, the data they collected might not have been good.

00:08:59.960 So there's a lot of uncertainties as you go back, which is why if you look at the landfall

00:09:03.100 data for the United States, you know, it shows that, uh, there's not really much of a trend. If

00:09:07.960 you, uh, look at that or you make some assumptions and adjust for past observational, um, uncertainties.

00:09:16.220 Okay. Also, you mentioned the ones that hit the, um, surface, uh, like land. So how many,

00:09:23.600 would you happen to know how many like hurricanes are just like, you know, stuck in the air and don't

00:09:27.500 actually hit the ground on average? Well, there's a lot of hurricanes that don't make

00:09:33.020 landfall. I don't know. I don't remember. I don't know the exact percentage that don't

00:09:36.420 off the top of my head. Um, a lot of the major hurricanes tend to make landfall, uh, but not

00:09:42.740 all of them. There's plenty that were missed and it's likely that between 1851, which is

00:09:47.580 when observational records begin for the Atlantic. And probably, um, I would say, let's see,

00:09:54.340 the 19, the 1966 is when the satellites began really being used to monitor hurricanes. That's

00:10:00.580 when NASA launched ESSA one and ESSA two, uh, to monitor hurricanes. Um, there's a good chance

00:10:07.440 at least two dozen hurricanes, if not more were category fives that, uh, were either underrated

00:10:14.020 and we know about them or they, we, they just simply stayed out to sea. Um, or if they hit

00:10:18.360 somewhere, they were at a very low populated area. I mean, Florida, for example, uh, modern day

00:10:23.600 Florida was, uh, largely unpopulated, uh, in Florida, you know, it became a state obviously

00:10:29.520 before 1900, but it, but it was not, uh, largely populated, um, until after, after the turn of

00:10:36.700 the century. Uh, so it's very likely between 1851 and 1900, that if a hurricane, a category

00:10:41.860 five hurricane hit present day, Miami, um, or hit, you know, um, the keys that very few people

00:10:49.300 would have known about it, they might not have reported it, you know, they might not

00:10:52.440 have survived. Um, and so there's a, there's a lot of uncertainties there. Um, so that's

00:10:59.860 why if you adjust, it was one 2021 study did, it was a follow-up to a 2008 paper that was

00:11:05.920 published in AMS journals. Uh, this was published, I think in geophysical research letters, uh, it

00:11:11.000 was national hurricane center scientists. They adjusted for those, the, those missing storms

00:11:16.200 that didn't hit land. Um, and if you do that, there was really high, we, we just see oscillations

00:11:21.700 between high, uh, periods of high activity and periods of low activity. Hmm. Um, so from what

00:11:27.700 you've said so far, to me, it sounds like, uh, there's just, yeah, like you said, fluctuations

00:11:32.960 and they're just, yeah. And so this just happens to be one of the periods where there

00:11:38.020 is more at this moment, more hurricanes. Yeah, we are an active period and we, we primarily

00:11:46.240 have been for the last 30 years, although there was a period between about 2006 and 2017. That's

00:11:53.540 when we had obviously hurricanes Irma and, um, um, and was the other one that hit, I'm trying

00:11:59.060 to think, um, Harvey, uh, hit Houston, obviously, uh, we're very devastated, but during that 10 to

00:12:05.920 the 12 year period, there was really not a whole lot of tropical side flood activity

00:12:09.920 in the Atlantic. Uh, but generally the last 30 years has been active just as it was active

00:12:14.540 between the 1930s and early 1960s. It was also very active in the early, in the late 19th

00:12:21.240 century. Uh, we had very active hurricane seasons in the 1870s, 80s and, uh, early 1890s

00:12:27.920 that were particularly devastating, um, that were very similar in activity today. Um, and we

00:12:33.960 saw low periods of activity in the early 20th century. We saw in the late 20th century

00:12:38.660 up until about 19, between about 1970 and 1995, it was very quiet activity with the exception

00:12:45.460 of obviously hurricanes Hugo in 89 and Andrew in 92. Um, but, um, if you look at the last,

00:12:54.500 and this is, this is, if you look at the last 30 years, it's been active, especially in the

00:12:57.860 last, last 20, um, or sorry, last, last 10 or so, especially since about 2017, it's last

00:13:05.160 eight years. But the reason for a lot of these swings is due to this thing called Atlantic

00:13:10.660 multi-decadal variability, AMV. And this has to do with the Atlantic meridional mode and

00:13:15.960 Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation. And there's about a 50 to 80 year cycle of high activity,

00:13:21.300 so low activity. And this correlates well with, um, sea surface temperature patterns and wind

00:13:26.360 shear patterns over the tropical and subtropical Atlantic ocean. And so, uh, that period in

00:13:33.340 the gap between hurricanes Wilma and, and, um, Harvey, uh, there was a period of a really

00:13:40.660 depressed activity. And that was because the AMV was in its predominantly negative phase for

00:13:46.620 a little bit. Um, and then all of a sudden, you know, last, since 2017, we've had a pretty

00:13:51.820 active season. This hurricane season has actually been the first near average hurricane season

00:13:56.540 since, uh, 2016, 20, 2015 to 2016. Um, and so despite the fact that we had hurricane Melissa,

00:14:03.720 uh, which was tied for the third most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic, it's really

00:14:09.160 been otherwise a pretty average season.

00:14:11.800 Hmm. Uh, okay. So yeah, let's talk a little bit more about the Atlantic multi, uh, what's

00:14:18.420 it called? My multi-decadal variability. Oh, okay. Yes. Um, that one. Wait, so you're talking

00:14:24.780 about the 50 to 80 year period. Like, tell me more about how that works again, just so I

00:14:30.520 can get a better idea. Well, there's a 50 to 80 year, uh, cycle. So it oscillates between

00:14:35.000 its low, high, low point and high point. And what really drives this is actually not really

00:14:40.900 known. There's a lot of hypotheses and theories has to do with ocean circulation and where

00:14:46.600 that warm water is transported and stored and distributed and all of that. Uh, but really,

00:14:52.680 really causes it to be honest with you. There's a lot of debate in the scientific literature

00:14:56.900 about it, uh, of the papers that are out there. And it's not something that has really been

00:15:00.940 studied as much as, as it should have. Uh, all we do know is that it operates on that cycle

00:15:06.300 with it, and it matches well with sea surface temperature patterns in the Atlantic wind shear

00:15:11.440 activity, which is also tied to the Pacific and the Walker circulation, um, and Al Nino

00:15:16.600 La Nina cycles, uh, which a lot of people know about how that affects it. Um, you know, that

00:15:21.460 correlation there and how the trade winds affect it. Um, but you also have that AMV affecting

00:15:28.000 wind shear patterns over the Caribbean, especially in the, in the, in the Gulf, um, where we see period

00:15:33.720 with low a, with, uh, the Atlantic meridional mode and it's negative phase, uh, corresponds

00:15:39.960 with cooler waters, um, much cooler waters. So it's not gonna, you're not gonna get as if

00:15:44.960 you, if you have a preexisting disturbance, it's not gonna be fueled. Um, if you look at,

00:15:49.960 um, the wind shear patterns, there's higher wind shear, wind speeds changing, uh, or directions

00:15:55.100 changing with height. And so it disrupts the organizational structure of these storms. It prevents

00:15:59.060 them from intensify. Um, but what really drives this, this, this cycle between high and low

00:16:04.440 periods, um, really, I said, but it's an active area of research, but not one that's been

00:16:09.020 explored as much as it should be. Hmm. Okay. That's kind of interesting. So, um, you would

00:16:15.460 say right now, what period would we be in since you said that, although this was like, uh, the

00:16:22.480 Melissa one was obviously very above average, like, but the other ones.

00:16:27.520 Yeah. Um, but otherwise, and otherwise a near active average season. Um, last time I checked,

00:16:34.900 I think the, uh, AMM, the Atlantic meridional mode, which is part of this Atlantic multidecadal

00:16:39.180 variability includes the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. A lot of that, uh, AMM effects

00:16:44.240 positive right now. So it's been, um, at least as a, at least in the last few years, it's been

00:16:49.360 positive, which has corresponded to a warmer than average Atlantic ocean. And that's also been

00:16:55.400 a, uh, reason that we've seen a lot of activity, especially since 2017 after we came out of a kind

00:17:01.240 of a deep minimum there. Um, where, what, what happens in the future? I don't know. I suspect

00:17:06.240 here in the next 10 to 20 years, um, probably sooner than that, probably in the lower end of

00:17:11.560 that, it should go back into its negative phase. And if I had to make a prediction, although I don't

00:17:16.360 really like making those kinds of predictions because anything can happen. I would say that

00:17:21.280 we're probably going into a period of fairly low activity and apart from hurricane Melissa,

00:17:26.400 all the other storms this year, and we had a couple, we have had, you know, we had, I think

00:17:29.440 we've had three category fives and a category four. So we've had, I think six hurricanes, um, no,

00:17:34.960 five hurricanes and four, four of them have been major hurricanes, one cap four, three cap fives.

00:17:40.720 Uh, the most we've seen since 2005. However, other than that, there's been very little activity.

00:17:46.400 So overall averages out to a near average season. Um, but, but in general, apart from Melissa,

00:17:52.480 in particular, um, it's been a fairly average season. And I suspect that this season, although

00:17:58.880 with weaker storms is probably something we could expect to see more of in the future as this pattern

00:18:04.320 of multi-decadal variability, uh, statistically speaking, will shift into its negative phase.

00:18:10.160 Hmm. Okay. That's good to know. I had literally no idea about any of this. Also. Okay. One last

00:18:18.240 question that I got for you. Um, I think you were responding to someone who was talking about how

00:18:23.920 CO2 might contribute to, uh, the increase in hurricanes that they were claiming there is.

00:18:29.360 Yeah. So why don't you, if you can debunk that claim?

00:18:33.600 Uh, I just, there's the problem with a lot of climate science today is that they blame climate

00:18:42.320 change in which they claim as due to entirely due to CO2. Um, and there's probably some, some

00:18:48.720 truth to the, the warming part of that argument. Um, but the idea that, uh, this is causing all

00:18:56.080 these bad things to happen, you know, people, academics and all fields will stand in line with

00:19:01.680 their hand held out for a grant, uh, and they'll try and figure out a way to tie climate change to,

00:19:06.960 you know, a poor apple harvest in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, or they'll try and, 0.98

00:19:13.760 you know, they'll, they'll blame it on, um, you know, I, I, they just blame it on stupid things. 0.66

00:19:19.440 There were, I saw a article, uh, it was a study published recently that climate change is contributing 0.96

00:19:25.440 to brain, uh, Alzheimer's like brain damage and dolphins. Now I don't know how they would study

00:19:32.000 that. Um, but it's just getting ridiculous and these are actual scientific papers. Um,

00:19:37.840 and so there's, there's papers that are going to try and link climate change. It'll say, well,

00:19:44.560 CO2 is making the atmosphere warmer and it's making the oceans even hotter and, and that's causing,

00:19:50.960 you know, that's fueling these hurricanes in the Atlantic. And so I asked, well, why is that, you

00:19:56.960 know, why, why isn't that happening in the West Pacific? Because, um, obviously the Atlantic

00:20:02.560 tropical siphoning activity has increased. If you start in the 1960s or 70s, when it was a low period

00:20:09.280 and interest variability, but they'll blame that on global warming. Okay. If you want to take that

00:20:13.360 argument, why isn't it happening in the West Pacific typhoon activity, which typhoons are equivalent to

00:20:18.320 hurricanes, they just have a different name and the West Pacific are decreasing significantly in

00:20:24.400 frequency and intensity. Um, the East Pacific, you know, where they have hurricanes in East Pacific

00:20:30.080 are decreasing. South Indian ocean, they're decreasing. The North Indian ocean, there's

00:20:33.920 been a little bit of an increase, but not much. Um, the South Pacific, there's been a decrease. So,

00:20:38.480 so why would the magic CO2 molecule, um, you know, wave its wand and increase the hurricanes in

00:20:44.720 the Atlantic and not elsewhere. It makes no sense. Well, one of their arguments is, and they'll say

00:20:48.960 this in the papers is that, um, and it is true that the reason for this trend has to do again,

00:20:55.600 Atlantic variability. And also we've had increased La Nina frequency in recent years, which is cooler

00:21:01.040 waters and the equatorial Pacific. Um, and so we have this uploading of cooler water off the coast of

00:21:07.760 South America, out into the central equatorial Pacific and how that affects things. Is it, is it

00:21:12.960 obviously cooler waters in the Pacific mean less hurricane activity in the Pacific. And so that

00:21:17.920 drives the hurricane activity down. That's why we seem to decrease in West Pacific typhoon activity

00:21:23.200 and East Pacific hurricane activity over the last 35 years. And, and that leads to reduced wind shear

00:21:29.200 over the Atlantic, which allows the storms to develop. So we get more hurricane activity in the Atlantic.

00:21:34.800 And, um, and that's due to La Nina, as well as again, the positive AM, uh, positive

00:21:40.320 those of the Atlantic multi decadal, uh, variability, um, or meridioma. Now they blame this on CO2.

00:21:49.280 They say somehow the greenhouse effect enhancement of it is weakening, you know, um, it's weakening

00:21:55.280 the Walker circulation. So it's allowing for more La Nina events to occur. Well, that's not what a lot

00:22:00.880 of climate models predicted, uh, 20 years ago. That's not what a lot of papers, but it said physically

00:22:07.360 what happened 20 or 10 years ago, uh, all the scientific consensus, as they want to call it,

00:22:14.720 was that we would see more El Nino frequency. And where do we see reduced Atlantic hurricane

00:22:19.600 activity and more in the Pacific? And overall, because the Pacific has more hurricanes and tropical

00:22:24.400 cyclones in general, we'd see more activity in the Pacific. So their argument is backwards. They're just

00:22:28.800 like, they're just trying to fit whatever it is to match their theory. But clearly there's a disconnect

00:22:34.080 between the modeling global warming theory mandates that we have more El Nino events, um, and therefore

00:22:40.560 more global tropical cyclone activity, some reduced in the Atlantic, but yet the exact opposite is

00:22:46.560 happening, but they're trying to now blame that on global warming as well, but you can't have it both

00:22:50.800 ways. Hmm. Hmm. Okay. Well, interesting. I didn't know a lot of it. Wait, so Aluminio again,

00:22:58.640 just one more time. That's when the water gets colder, correct? At La Nina. El Nino is when the

00:23:04.800 water gets cold. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Good. Good to know. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Chris. I

00:23:11.200 appreciate you coming on today and sharing lots of cool info with us. Yeah. Um, okay. Well, if you guys

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Western Standard - November 15, 2025

Does climate change cause hurricanes？

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