Does climate change cause hurricanes？
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Summary
In this episode, we talk with Chris Martz, a meteorologist and policy analyst at CFACT. We discuss the science behind hurricanes and how they form. We also talk about the correlation between hurricanes and climate change.
Transcript
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Hello everyone, my name is Leah Mashett. I'm a reporter here at the Western Standard and today
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my guest is Chris Martz. He's a meteorologist and a policy analyst at CFACT. Yeah, so today we are
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going to talk about hurricanes in light of Hurricane Melissa, which happened this week.
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Um, there's lots of climate change activists that are talking about this and there's lots
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of claims that they're making. So kind of wanted to break it down today with Chris since
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he's an expert. Um, the first question I have for you, Chris. Oh, and thank you for joining
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by the way. Appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. Okay. So the first question I had for
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you is why don't you just tell us a little bit about like the science behind hurricanes
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and how they work? Hurricanes are essentially giant heat engines. They, their, their job
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technically really from a thermodynamic standpoint is to take heat accumulating in the tropics
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and transport it poleward. Obviously we have other circulations that do that. Uh, you know,
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the Hadley circulation, stuff like that on a very large scale. Uh, but hurricanes do this
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as well. Um, and they, in order for a hurricane to form, you need to have, uh, sea surface temperatures
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of about 79 degrees Fahrenheit, 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Uh, and that water needs to be really warm down
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to a depth of about 50 meters. Um, and so in order to, uh, and that's in order to just fuel
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the hurricane, but really to get a storm, what you need is you need to have a preexisting
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disturbance such as an African easterly wave that comes off Africa and it traverses across
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the Atlantic ocean and then it gets development and what's called the main development region
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or in the Caribbean. Um, sometimes they can form in the Gulf of Mexico from a, just a, uh,
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just a preexisting disturbance. Um, and that tropical depression can then grow to a tropical
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storm. And sometimes you have these mesoscale convective systems, these, these,
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this complex of thunderstorms that form over, uh, the great plains down in Dixie. And then
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if they go down, if they get down into the, uh, uh, Gulf of, uh, Mexico or America, I guess
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as, as it's called now, um, they, uh, can then organize and get rotation to them, um, and form
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these, uh, tropical, tropical cyclones. Um, and so then, um, obviously when you have, uh, all
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this warm, moist air, uh, you had, you had this warm air, uh, and it's in even warmer
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waters. And so you get this, um, you know, steep lapse rate, the atmosphere, atmosphere
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comes, becomes unstable. So the air that's near the water surface rises really rapidly forms
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these clouds. And if there's rotation, they can form into these, these cyclones. And then
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as the air rises and cools, condensation is a, is a, is a warming process. Um, because
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in order for the droplets to, uh, condense, um, they must, um, uh, release heat into the
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air because in order to vapor, the vapor, the droplets to form, you know, during condensation,
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uh, because it goes from gas to liquid. That's what condensation is. That gas needs to cool
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in order for the liquid, you know, for the vapor to condense and it really releases heat into
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the atmosphere. So this creates even more instability. Um, this creates more positive
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buoyancy, which causes air rise and strengthens the storm. Um, but you also need to have light
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wind shear. Wind shear is a change in wind speed or direction with increasing height. And so
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there's a lot of wind shear. It doesn't matter how warm or how I'm on the water is or how
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unstable the air is. You're not going to get a storm. Um, but the Caribbean, for example,
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in the case of Hurricane Melissa, the Caribbean is warm enough at this time every year. And it
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always has been, uh, for there to be a major hurricane, even a category five. Um, and so
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when we start looking at sea surface temperature anomalies, how far above or below average they
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are, there's really not much of a correlation. Um, we've had major hurricanes. We've had category
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five hurricanes in the Caribbean sea. Um, when there's been below average sea surface temperatures,
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it's just because they're warm enough at this time every year. So if there, if you test a degree
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or even a degree above or below the mean, it's not going to make all that much of a difference.
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Hmm. Okay. Um, well then let's talk about the actual, in light of the Melissa, uh, hurricane
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in Jamaica, you wrote on X that, um, lots of people are claiming eight of the top 15 strongest
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hurricanes in the North Atlantic happened in the last 20 years. Um, and then you were kind
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of like listing facts as why that's not necessarily evidence that, um, only, well, stronger hurricanes
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are only happening now. So why don't you just tell us like why that claim is not necessarily
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Yeah. So you mentioned that, um, that I posted and yeah, it is true just based on a raw number
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standpoint, but just look at the data as is that eight of the top 15 strongest hurricanes.
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So, uh, hurricanes used to be rated more commonly by the barometric pressure. That's how extra
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tropical cyclones, the nor'easters that go up the East coast and form, um, uh, these
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blizzards that you see in Boston, uh, they're rated by pressure. That's how the intensity used
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to be measured. And it's a more accurate measure because it's more precise. We measure pressure
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by the millibar, which is equivalent to hectopascal. Um, and then wind speeds are averaged to the
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nearest, you know, they're, they're averaged from a bunch of different measurements and they are then,
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um, rounded to the nearest five mile per hour or five kilometer per hour of those that use the
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metric system. And so it's, it's not a very precise, precise metric at all. Um, and the way that
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they've done wind speed data over the last century is, is different today. The standard methodology that
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the hurricane center uses when they rate a hurricane based on its intensity, uh, by the maximum
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sustained wind speed. Now, if you look at the definition of maximum sustained wind speed, it's
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the maximum, it's the highest one minute average sustained wind speed that's measured in a hurricane
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or a tropical cyclone in general, it can be a tropical storm, um, as well that is measured 10 meters
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above the ground. So you will reduce the frictional effects of the surface. However, uh, today their
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intensities are usually taken from flight level, uh, radio sign data or drops on data rather,
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uh, that's dropped, you know, the, the airport aircraft, uh, fly in the hurricane hunters and
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they drop these drop signs in there that get, um, temperature, humidity, wind profiles of the
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storm. And then the hurricane center, what they typically do is they do about a 20% reduction of
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that wind speed that they measure to account for increased frictional, um, and viscous forces at
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the surface that, uh, slow the winds down. And they estimate the hurricane intensity based on that.
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But if you go back to the 1920s and 1930s, the hurricanes that we had, the wind speeds that they,
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that we, they've estimated those to be, because we didn't have satellites. We didn't have these
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aircraft missions, uh, from the hurricane hunters, um, the reconnaissance missions. What
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happens now is what happened then was that the winds were based on surface measurements. Uh,
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but the most observationally consistent metric we have is the central pressure at this, and within,
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you know, the center of the storm. And, um, so it is true that if you look at the wrong
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measurements, the eight of the top 15 have been in the last 20 years. Wilmot 2005 and Gilbert 1988,
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uh, were both sub eight, 90 millibars. And in labor day, 1935 tied with Melissa, uh, this,
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this year tied with labor day, 1935, um, for third place, 892 millibars. Um, but the problem with this
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is, is that, um, the intensities of us landfall and hurricanes, uh, uh, if you look at the intensities
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of those, uh, of the top 15 most intense hurricanes hit the United States, it turns out that 11 of the
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15 occurred before 1995 and 10 of them occurred, uh, before 1970. Uh, so we see a very much different
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pattern there. And when you look at the landfalls in Cuba, you see a very similar thing or other
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islands, you see a very similar pattern. And a lot of the most intense hurricanes hit land
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occurred before the 1970s. And so what this tells us is that we don't really know what the, if these
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hurricanes that made landfall, uh, we don't know what their intensities were while they were out over
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open water, they could have been much stronger than hurricane Melissa labor day, 1935 could have
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been much stronger for it, hit the keys, uh, than, than we know. And we didn't even have satellites.
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We didn't have aircraft. Uh, there was very low, you know, the ship traffic wasn't that dense at the
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time. Um, and then the Islanders know that if it's some of those islands that have populations that
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may landfall, uh, they might not have reported it. Uh, the data they collected might not have been good.
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So there's a lot of uncertainties as you go back, which is why if you look at the landfall
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data for the United States, you know, it shows that, uh, there's not really much of a trend. If
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you, uh, look at that or you make some assumptions and adjust for past observational, um, uncertainties.
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Okay. Also, you mentioned the ones that hit the, um, surface, uh, like land. So how many,
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would you happen to know how many like hurricanes are just like, you know, stuck in the air and don't
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actually hit the ground on average? Well, there's a lot of hurricanes that don't make
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landfall. I don't know. I don't remember. I don't know the exact percentage that don't
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off the top of my head. Um, a lot of the major hurricanes tend to make landfall, uh, but not
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all of them. There's plenty that were missed and it's likely that between 1851, which is
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when observational records begin for the Atlantic. And probably, um, I would say, let's see,
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the 19, the 1966 is when the satellites began really being used to monitor hurricanes. That's
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when NASA launched ESSA one and ESSA two, uh, to monitor hurricanes. Um, there's a good chance
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at least two dozen hurricanes, if not more were category fives that, uh, were either underrated
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and we know about them or they, we, they just simply stayed out to sea. Um, or if they hit
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somewhere, they were at a very low populated area. I mean, Florida, for example, uh, modern day
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Florida was, uh, largely unpopulated, uh, in Florida, you know, it became a state obviously
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before 1900, but it, but it was not, uh, largely populated, um, until after, after the turn of
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the century. Uh, so it's very likely between 1851 and 1900, that if a hurricane, a category
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five hurricane hit present day, Miami, um, or hit, you know, um, the keys that very few people
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would have known about it, they might not have reported it, you know, they might not
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have survived. Um, and so there's a, there's a lot of uncertainties there. Um, so that's
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why if you adjust, it was one 2021 study did, it was a follow-up to a 2008 paper that was
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published in AMS journals. Uh, this was published, I think in geophysical research letters, uh, it
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was national hurricane center scientists. They adjusted for those, the, those missing storms
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that didn't hit land. Um, and if you do that, there was really high, we, we just see oscillations
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between high, uh, periods of high activity and periods of low activity. Hmm. Um, so from what
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you've said so far, to me, it sounds like, uh, there's just, yeah, like you said, fluctuations
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and they're just, yeah. And so this just happens to be one of the periods where there
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is more at this moment, more hurricanes. Yeah, we are an active period and we, we primarily
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have been for the last 30 years, although there was a period between about 2006 and 2017. That's
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when we had obviously hurricanes Irma and, um, um, and was the other one that hit, I'm trying
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to think, um, Harvey, uh, hit Houston, obviously, uh, we're very devastated, but during that 10 to
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the 12 year period, there was really not a whole lot of tropical side flood activity
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in the Atlantic. Uh, but generally the last 30 years has been active just as it was active
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between the 1930s and early 1960s. It was also very active in the early, in the late 19th
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century. Uh, we had very active hurricane seasons in the 1870s, 80s and, uh, early 1890s
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that were particularly devastating, um, that were very similar in activity today. Um, and we
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saw low periods of activity in the early 20th century. We saw in the late 20th century
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up until about 19, between about 1970 and 1995, it was very quiet activity with the exception
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of obviously hurricanes Hugo in 89 and Andrew in 92. Um, but, um, if you look at the last,
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and this is, this is, if you look at the last 30 years, it's been active, especially in the
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last, last 20, um, or sorry, last, last 10 or so, especially since about 2017, it's last
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eight years. But the reason for a lot of these swings is due to this thing called Atlantic
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multi-decadal variability, AMV. And this has to do with the Atlantic meridional mode and
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Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation. And there's about a 50 to 80 year cycle of high activity,
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so low activity. And this correlates well with, um, sea surface temperature patterns and wind
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shear patterns over the tropical and subtropical Atlantic ocean. And so, uh, that period in
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the gap between hurricanes Wilma and, and, um, Harvey, uh, there was a period of a really
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depressed activity. And that was because the AMV was in its predominantly negative phase for
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a little bit. Um, and then all of a sudden, you know, last, since 2017, we've had a pretty
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active season. This hurricane season has actually been the first near average hurricane season
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since, uh, 2016, 20, 2015 to 2016. Um, and so despite the fact that we had hurricane Melissa,
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uh, which was tied for the third most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic, it's really
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Hmm. Uh, okay. So yeah, let's talk a little bit more about the Atlantic multi, uh, what's
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it called? My multi-decadal variability. Oh, okay. Yes. Um, that one. Wait, so you're talking
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about the 50 to 80 year period. Like, tell me more about how that works again, just so I
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can get a better idea. Well, there's a 50 to 80 year, uh, cycle. So it oscillates between
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its low, high, low point and high point. And what really drives this is actually not really
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known. There's a lot of hypotheses and theories has to do with ocean circulation and where
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that warm water is transported and stored and distributed and all of that. Uh, but really,
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really causes it to be honest with you. There's a lot of debate in the scientific literature
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about it, uh, of the papers that are out there. And it's not something that has really been
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studied as much as, as it should have. Uh, all we do know is that it operates on that cycle
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with it, and it matches well with sea surface temperature patterns in the Atlantic wind shear
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activity, which is also tied to the Pacific and the Walker circulation, um, and Al Nino
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La Nina cycles, uh, which a lot of people know about how that affects it. Um, you know, that
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correlation there and how the trade winds affect it. Um, but you also have that AMV affecting
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wind shear patterns over the Caribbean, especially in the, in the, in the Gulf, um, where we see period
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with low a, with, uh, the Atlantic meridional mode and it's negative phase, uh, corresponds
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with cooler waters, um, much cooler waters. So it's not gonna, you're not gonna get as if
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you, if you have a preexisting disturbance, it's not gonna be fueled. Um, if you look at,
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um, the wind shear patterns, there's higher wind shear, wind speeds changing, uh, or directions
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changing with height. And so it disrupts the organizational structure of these storms. It prevents
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them from intensify. Um, but what really drives this, this, this cycle between high and low
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periods, um, really, I said, but it's an active area of research, but not one that's been
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explored as much as it should be. Hmm. Okay. That's kind of interesting. So, um, you would
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say right now, what period would we be in since you said that, although this was like, uh, the
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Melissa one was obviously very above average, like, but the other ones.
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Yeah. Um, but otherwise, and otherwise a near active average season. Um, last time I checked,
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I think the, uh, AMM, the Atlantic meridional mode, which is part of this Atlantic multidecadal
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variability includes the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. A lot of that, uh, AMM effects
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positive right now. So it's been, um, at least as a, at least in the last few years, it's been
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positive, which has corresponded to a warmer than average Atlantic ocean. And that's also been
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a, uh, reason that we've seen a lot of activity, especially since 2017 after we came out of a kind
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of a deep minimum there. Um, where, what, what happens in the future? I don't know. I suspect
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here in the next 10 to 20 years, um, probably sooner than that, probably in the lower end of
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that, it should go back into its negative phase. And if I had to make a prediction, although I don't
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really like making those kinds of predictions because anything can happen. I would say that
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we're probably going into a period of fairly low activity and apart from hurricane Melissa,
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all the other storms this year, and we had a couple, we have had, you know, we had, I think
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we've had three category fives and a category four. So we've had, I think six hurricanes, um, no,
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five hurricanes and four, four of them have been major hurricanes, one cap four, three cap fives.
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Uh, the most we've seen since 2005. However, other than that, there's been very little activity.
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So overall averages out to a near average season. Um, but, but in general, apart from Melissa,
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in particular, um, it's been a fairly average season. And I suspect that this season, although
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with weaker storms is probably something we could expect to see more of in the future as this pattern
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of multi-decadal variability, uh, statistically speaking, will shift into its negative phase.
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Hmm. Okay. That's good to know. I had literally no idea about any of this. Also. Okay. One last
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question that I got for you. Um, I think you were responding to someone who was talking about how
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CO2 might contribute to, uh, the increase in hurricanes that they were claiming there is.
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Yeah. So why don't you, if you can debunk that claim?
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Uh, I just, there's the problem with a lot of climate science today is that they blame climate
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change in which they claim as due to entirely due to CO2. Um, and there's probably some, some
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truth to the, the warming part of that argument. Um, but the idea that, uh, this is causing all
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these bad things to happen, you know, people, academics and all fields will stand in line with
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their hand held out for a grant, uh, and they'll try and figure out a way to tie climate change to,
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you know, a poor apple harvest in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, or they'll try and,
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you know, they'll, they'll blame it on, um, you know, I, I, they just blame it on stupid things.
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There were, I saw a article, uh, it was a study published recently that climate change is contributing
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to brain, uh, Alzheimer's like brain damage and dolphins. Now I don't know how they would study
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that. Um, but it's just getting ridiculous and these are actual scientific papers. Um,
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and so there's, there's papers that are going to try and link climate change. It'll say, well,
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CO2 is making the atmosphere warmer and it's making the oceans even hotter and, and that's causing,
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you know, that's fueling these hurricanes in the Atlantic. And so I asked, well, why is that, you
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know, why, why isn't that happening in the West Pacific? Because, um, obviously the Atlantic
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tropical siphoning activity has increased. If you start in the 1960s or 70s, when it was a low period
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and interest variability, but they'll blame that on global warming. Okay. If you want to take that
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argument, why isn't it happening in the West Pacific typhoon activity, which typhoons are equivalent to
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hurricanes, they just have a different name and the West Pacific are decreasing significantly in
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frequency and intensity. Um, the East Pacific, you know, where they have hurricanes in East Pacific
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are decreasing. South Indian ocean, they're decreasing. The North Indian ocean, there's
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been a little bit of an increase, but not much. Um, the South Pacific, there's been a decrease. So,
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so why would the magic CO2 molecule, um, you know, wave its wand and increase the hurricanes in
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the Atlantic and not elsewhere. It makes no sense. Well, one of their arguments is, and they'll say
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this in the papers is that, um, and it is true that the reason for this trend has to do again,
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Atlantic variability. And also we've had increased La Nina frequency in recent years, which is cooler
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waters and the equatorial Pacific. Um, and so we have this uploading of cooler water off the coast of
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South America, out into the central equatorial Pacific and how that affects things. Is it, is it
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obviously cooler waters in the Pacific mean less hurricane activity in the Pacific. And so that
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drives the hurricane activity down. That's why we seem to decrease in West Pacific typhoon activity
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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.
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And, um, and that's due to La Nina, as well as again, the positive AM, uh, positive
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those of the Atlantic multi decadal, uh, variability, um, or meridioma. Now they blame this on CO2.
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They say somehow the greenhouse effect enhancement of it is weakening, you know, um, it's weakening
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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
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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
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activity and more in the Pacific? And overall, because the Pacific has more hurricanes and tropical
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cyclones in general, we'd see more activity in the Pacific. So their argument is backwards. They're just
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like, they're just trying to fit whatever it is to match their theory. But clearly there's a disconnect
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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
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ways. Hmm. Hmm. Okay. Well, interesting. I didn't know a lot of it. Wait, so Aluminio again,
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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
00:23:19.360
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