In the Northern Hemisphere, we are in summer, so it is warm and … well, summery.  As we saw in past Catholic Candle[1] analyses, the world has been in a normal, cyclical warming trend beginning roughly 40 years ago.  This warming trend is only one of many that have taken place during the centuries.  The current one began at the end of that period (the 1960s and 70s) during which the leftists had been alarming naïve and gullible people with a scare that we were entering a New Ice Age.[2]

Those who read the mainstream media’s reporting know that this media is currently in full-alarmist mode about a crisis of the so-called “deadly” heat.  We do not deny that heat can be deadly but rather, we know that the earth is like that: there are places where the heat is bad (especially during a warming cycle) and there are places where the cold is bad (especially during the cooling cycle). 

None of that is alarming, surprising, or new.  Below, are some of the recent alarmist headlines (with red underlining added). 

Here (below) is the Washington Post:[3]

Here (below) is the New York Times:

Here (below) is the leftist The Atlantic Magazine:

Here (below) is the UK’s daily newspaper, called The Guardian:

The leftist mainstream media and leftist governments are so “over-the-top” with this “deadly heat” alarmism that they declare that the earth is “boiling”!  For example, the U.S. Government’s worldwide media, Voice of America, amplifies the United Nations’ propaganda, declaring that the “planet is boiling”![4]  Here is one such alarmist declaration:

The mainstream media follows right along, declaring we are boiling!  Here, e.g., is the U.K.’s The Guardian[5]:

We are now in a media landscape where the leftist climate alarmism is parodying itself!  There is nothing more extreme for anyone to use to caricature this mainstream media burlesque!

To mislead the gullible people that we are “boiling”, the mainstream media has been obsessed lately with some local or regional temperature being hotter than usual or setting a heat record, in order to give the false impression that the heat record pertains broadly to the whole country or the whole world.  This summer, the mainstream media especially tries to alarm people about the temperatures in Phoenix, Arizona.

But the mainstream media does not mention the very many other local and regional places which have been below their usual average temperature this summer.  For example, 2023 has been a cooler than usual summer in the U.S. Midwest.  The national mainstream media would never include that perspective in order to provide some balance in their reporting, because they don’t want balanced reporting or the truth.

There are such a large number of places in the U.S. which are currently experiencing cooler than usual temperatures, that the average temperatures in the entire U.S. are very slightly lower than usual despite higher-than-usual temperatures in some places like Phoenix.  Here is data from a University of Oregon climate lab showing a slightly cooler than normal average temperature for the U.S. as a whole[6]:

Let us look at the comparison of high temperatures this summer compared to prior decades.

The U.S. has temperature records for Yosemite National Park which go back more than 120 years.  Here is a record of every occasion on which a temperature over 100°F was recorded there[7]:

In the above graph, we see that the temperatures at Yosemite were certainly hotter in the past, especially in about 1914.  Does that mean we are in a “scary” global cooling now and heading to a New Ice Age?  No.  It just means that temperatures vary over the years and in different locations, and that it happens that in other decades Yosemite reached temperatures much hotter than are currently occurring.

Let us look more broadly at extreme temperatures in the whole U.S. by looking at three things:

1.    The temperature records for the whole nation;

2.    Which show how many locations there were with temperatures above 100°F in 1936; and

3.    Also, those records which show how many places temperatures reached above 110°F that same year. 

After that, let us see how the number of these locations compare to the number of such locations during our current year[8]:

From these maps, we see that there were so many more places with those high temperatures in 1936 compared to the present year.  This matters because it is one of many ways to show that the leftists’ present alarmism is not justified by reality.  Instead, the “climate emergency” that the leftists have declared merely serves the leftist political agenda of the ongoing globalist power grab (as we saw in past Catholic Candle articles.[9]

Even Assuming (Contrary to Fact) that Humans Caused Increased Warming, Would That Extra Warming Be Good?

Above, we saw the alarmist hype about the heat being so extreme that it “tests the limits of survival” (as one mainstream daily newspaper declared).  But we saw that the truth is that dishonest mainstream media “cherry-picks” the places that happened to be hottest at a given time and does not balance its reporting with the essential prospective that there are so many places that are cooler than usual at that same time (as is true every year).  Nor does the mainstream media inform people that the present year is actually a year of (slightly lower than) average temperatures overall (as shown in the Oregon State University Climate Lab data and the other data).

But let us suppose – contrary to fact – that North America or the entire world were really warming beyond the normal cyclical warming which is part of the normal patterns that fluctuate over the course of the centuries, the decades, and the months of a year.  Would such (hypothetical) greater warming be bad?

Catholic Candle readers might already know the answer to that question by remembering from a past article[10] that, in the centuries-long warming cycle called the Medieval Warming Period, the extra warmth was so beneficial that scientists often call this period the Little Climatic Optimum to indicate its advantages. 

The truth is that any increased warming has important advantages.  Among other benefits, this increased warmth saves lives because far more human beings die of cold than of heat.  On every continent cold is more dangerous than heat.

Even the data from the prestigious, leftist medical journal, The Lancet, shows that there are far more deaths from cold than from heat.[11]  Look at this graph:[12]

The Lancet is a leftist medical journal which adheres to the leftist claim that human-caused global warming is a “fact”.  But even The Lancet data[13] shows that (the supposed) “global warming” SAVES about 167,000 lives per year (283,000 minus 116,000).  Look at this graph:[14]

If it were not a lie that “global warming” is caused by man and by the burning of fossil fuels, then we see that it would bring about beneficial changes and would save lives for us to burn more fossil fuels in order to warm the planet to reduce the number of deaths from cold.  Yet, because such burning of fossil fuels does not result in any relevant temperature difference to the world, burning more of those fuels does not make any relevant difference to the climate.

However, the leftists are not concerned with the truth or with saving lives.  They are concerned with promoting their agenda to grab global power.[15]  Thus, in its 2023 study, Excess mortality attributed to heat and cold: a health impact assessment study of 854 cities in Europe, The Lancet publishes a deceptive graph which manipulates the X axis to represent five times as many heat deaths with the same length X axis as used for cold deaths.

Here is The Lancet graph (below).[16]  Look at the calibration markings on the left and right sides of the X axis (i.e., the horizontal axis).  The heat side represents five times the number of deaths as the cold side does, for the same length.  We added black ovals to this graph to show the location of this deception:  

Now let us reproduce that (above) The Lancet graph again, side-by-side with the same data with a non-deceptive graph, i.e., with the X axis which is calibrated the same way for both cold deaths and heat deaths.  Here is the graph:

We see that some leftists lie about the data.  See, e.g., “Big Data” – a New Version of an Old Danger of Manipulation and Deception: https://catholiccandle.org/2021/12/11/h/ .  Others distort the true data by deceptive graphs, etc.

So again, we see that warming will help save lives now and will benefit the peoples of the world, as the greater warmth did during the Medieval Warming Period, a/k/a the Little Climactic Optimum.

We hope this information makes the truth clearer that there is no human-caused global warming and further, that global warming is nothing to fear.  We hope this is also a salutary warning to not believe or trust the leftist establishment and media.  They do the devil’s work and spread his lies.  They do not serve Our Lord, Who is the Truth.

Let us watch and pray, as Our Lord told us to do.  Let us serve Christ the King bravely and willingly, which is the reason He placed us in these times.

Let us fight together, side-by-side, in the trenches of the Church Militant, for Christ the King and against His enemies.

Catholic Candle note: Below is the second and final part of an article which debunks the claim of the climate alarmists who assert that hurricanes are becoming more numerous and more severe because of man-made (anthropogenic) “climate change”.  The first part of this article is here: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/04/28/the-false-claim-that-global-warming-causes-hurricanes-to-be-more-severe/

In part one of this article, we saw that weather and climate go in cycles and that this applies to hurricanes, too.  We saw that N.O.A.A. (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and various studies conclude that, after adjusting for the pre-1972 hurricane under-count (before the use of weather satellites), there is no upward trend in the number or in the severity of hurricanes.

We saw that there was a deep trough in the hurricane cycle – in approximately 1980 – which would allow a dishonest manipulation of the data by deceptively cutting the data to begin there in order to give a false appearance of an alarming hurricane increase, as the climate alarmists falsely claim. 

Now, in the second and final part of this article, we look at the mainstream media making these false claims based on deceptively cutting the data and answer an objection concerning the increasing cost of hurricane damage.

False media claims of hurricanes increasing in number and intensity because of human-caused climate change.

Before we look at where the mainstream media cut the data, let us look at a few examples of what the mainstream media claims – viz., about major hurricanes supposedly becoming more common:

❖  The New York Times claimed, “strong storms are becoming more common in the Atlantic Ocean.”[1]

❖  A Washington Post headline warned, “climate change is rapidly fueling super hurricanes”, adding in the body of the article that “storms rated Category 4 or stronger … have increased in number in recent decades”.[2]

❖  ABC News declared, “Here’s how climate change intensifies hurricanes.”[3]

As we saw in part one of this article, N.O.A.A. and (the science journal) Nature studies conclude the opposite of what these mainstream media are telling people.  Further, we saw that the media “buried” those studies in silence.  But that media makes a show of using (but really abusing) the N.O.A.A. data.  See, for example:

➢  The New York Times saying that it is relying upon the same NOAA report that we showed in part 1, which concludes the opposite of what the media claims: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/briefing/hurricane-ian-storm-climate-change.html

And similarly:

➢  ABC News claiming to rely on this NOAA report here: https://abc7.com/heres-how-climate-change-intensifies-hurricanes/12277318/

But before we look at where the media cut the data, let us also look at an example of what the mainstream media says about the frequency of all hurricanes:

➢  The Financial Times claimed in an alarmist headline: “hurricane frequency is on the rise.”[4]

Again, N.O.A.A. and the (science journal) Nature studies conclude the opposite of these media claims, “burying” those studies in silence and yet making a show of using (but really abusing) N.O.A.A. data.

The Leftists Deceptively Cut the Data at 1980.

Now let us look at where the New York Times[5] article cut the data.

Notice the above graph begins in 1980.  Why didn’t the media use the longer data set that is readily available?  Because it would have shown the falsity of their claims.

Here (below), e.g., is a N.O.A.A. graph[6] showing the larger data set that the New York Times could have used (but did not use), going back 120 years further, to 1860:    

How different the data looks when we see it in context – when it is not cut deceptively, as the New York Times does!  Reviewing the entire data set, we see it would be absurd to worry about the hurricane cycle upswing beginning in 1980.

As shown in the Catholic Candle articles which are linked to the introduction of part 1 of this present article, when the temperature cycle was on a significant cooling trend, the climate alarmists tried to scare the public about the cooling being permanent and that we were entering a permanent “new ice age”.  Then, when the inevitable warming cycle began after that, they switched their scare tactics to “global warming” – all to promote increased government intrusion in people’s lives, a globalist power grab. 

But notice that the current scare about “stronger and more frequent hurricanes” did not have a predecessor scare when the hurricane cycle was going in the opposite direction.  The reason is obvious: people would not be afraid (in the years preceding roughly 1980) that climate change is causing a reduction in hurricanes.  So, the leftists had to wait to use hurricanes as a scare tactic until hurricanes began to rise out of the 1980’s era “deep minimum”.

Conclusion of this Section about Mainstream Media Reporting

The mainstream media ignore the key hurricane data in order to falsely claim that hurricanes are increasing in number and severity because of human-caused climate change.

Climate change alarmism based on the increased number and severity of hurricanes is deceptive and false and is aimed at a globalist power grab because of the supposed need for the government to regulate everything to “save us” from disaster.

This is a further reminder that the mainstream media lie to us.  They are not misguided bumblers who don’t succeed in their attempt to publish the truth.  Rather they are leftist liars who use every opportunity to indoctrinate us to promote the false globalist narrative and ongoing power grab.[7]  

The Increasing Cost of Hurricanes

Q.      Is it true that hurricanes are becoming more expensive? 

A.      Yes, but not because of climate change.

There has been a dramatic increase of persons and property in “harm’s way” in hurricane-prone coastal areas because the great increase in property development of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts (as well as because of inflation) – all these circumstances are used by the leftists to make hurricanes appear worse than 100 years ago.

This is one more way for the climate scare-mongers to alarm people and promote their globalist power-grab agenda.  They declare that the increasing cost of hurricanes – both the number and severity – show that climate crisis is a “fact”.

It is true that the cost of hurricanes is increasing, even when adjusted for inflation.  See, e.g., a graph (below) courtesy of Munich Re, a very large global property insurer with a huge loss database used for this graph.

This graph is available courtesy of Roger Pielke, Jr., in his article entitled: Disasters Cost More Than Ever — But Not Because of Climate Change, available here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/disasters-cost-more-than-ever-but-not-because-of-climate-change/

Although in this graph (above) we see the increasing cost of natural disasters, that is only half of the picture.  In fact, the upward trend in the cost of natural disasters is because we are getting richer and have more goods and property which can be destroyed in a disaster.  In other words, even adjusting for inflation, there is an increasing value of the property that is “in harm’s way”.

Look at the graph below, also courtesy of Munich Re.  It shows that natural disasters do destroy a higher value of property now but that value is proportional to our increase in wealth.  Owning more things means people have more things “in harm’s way” and available to be damaged.

This graph is available courtesy of Roger Pielke, Jr., in his article entitled: Disasters Cost More Than Ever — But Not Because of Climate Change, available here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/disasters-cost-more-than-ever-but-not-because-of-climate-change/

Taking greater wealth into account, the same level of storm frequency and severity does more harm.  You can see this is common sense.  If a person 100 years ago owned a dingy (row boat) docked on the Gulf Coast, he would be exposed to much less property damage potential than his grandson who keeps a large yacht in the same location during an equivalent storm.

It is especially striking how more people are moving into places which expose them to adverse natural occurrences (hurricanes, mudslides, etc.).

Consider how much more developed Miami Beach is today compared to a century ago. See below.

For this reason, if equal storms hit Miami Beach, Florida in 1925 and in 2017, the damage from the 2017 storm would be much greater because there are so many more people and so much more property “in harm’s way”.

Similarly, look at the Houston, Texas skyline in 1927 (below) and today (further below).

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/slideshow/Old-Houston-photos-159668.php

Current picture of the Houston skyline:

https://www.skylinescenes.com/products/downtown-houston-texas-v50010

Because people are richer now than 100 years ago and because they (perhaps imprudently) place more valuable property at risk in attractive but hazardous locations, it is no wonder that a storm now would cause much more damage that an equal storm 100 years ago.

Leaving aside the upward trend (“correction”) from the “deep minimum” in the hurricane cycle which occurred in about the 1980s, there is no increase in the number and the severity of hurricanes; yet the same severity and number of hurricanes now often do more damage because there is more property “in harm’s way”.

In fact, the coastal urban areas are actually safer than ever, when computed as the number of persons killed by hurricanes, as a percentage of persons who are located in those hurricane-prone areas.  Here is how one recent study explained this:

Abstract: … Here, [i.e., in this study] we report on impacts of global coastal storm surge events since the year 1900, based on a compilation of events and data on loss of life.  We find that over the past, more than eight thousand people are killed and 1.5 million people are affected annually by storm surges [throughout the world].  The occurrence of very substantial loss of life (>10 000 persons) from single events has, however, decreased over time.  Moreover, there is a consistent decrease in event mortality, measured by the fraction of exposed people that are killed, for all global regions, except South East Asia.  Average mortality for storm surges is slightly higher than for river floods, but lower than for flash floods.  We also find that for the same coastal surge water level, mortality has decreased over time.  This indicates that risk reduction efforts have been successful, but need to be continued with projected climate change, increased rates of sea-level rise and urbanisation in coastal zones.[8]

For example, Miami Beach had a population of 28,012 in 1940[9] and has a population of 80,671[10] now.  Because the city of Miami Beach has about three times as many people as it did 60 years ago, there are so many more people “in harm’s way” even though each person who is there is safer than he would have been in earlier decades.

Further, just as hurricane fatalities are not increasing as a percentage of the people who are living “in harm’s way”, likewise, the studies show that the amount of damage that hurricanes cause is not increasing when we take into account that people are bringing greater wealth into hurricane zones.  Here is how one study explained this fact:

In recent years claims have been made in venues including the authoritative reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and in testimony before the US Congress that economic losses from weather events have been increasing beyond that which can be explained by societal change, based on loss data from the reinsurance industry and aggregated since 1980 at the global level.  Such claims imply a contradiction with a large set of peer-reviewed studies focused on regional losses, typically over a much longer time period, which concludes that loss trends are explained entirely by societal change.  To address this implied mismatch, we disaggregate global losses from a widely utilized reinsurance dataset into regional components and compare this disaggregation directly to the findings from the literature at the regional scale, most of which reach back much further in time.  We find that global losses increased at a rate of $3.1 billion/year (2008 USD) from 1980–2008 and losses from North American, Asian, European, and Australian storms and floods account for 97% of the increase.  In particular, North American storms, of which U.S. hurricane losses compose the bulk, account for 57% of global economic losses.  Longer-term loss trends in these regions can be explained entirely by socioeconomic factors in each region such as increasing wealth, population growth, and increasing development in vulnerable areas.  The remaining 3% of the global increase 1980 to 2008 is the result of losses for which regionally based studies have not yet been completed.  On climate time scales, societal change is sufficient to explain the increasing costs of disasters at the global level and claims to the contrary are not supported by aggregate loss data from the reinsurance industry.[11]

Here is the summary of a study where the researchers examined 106 years of hurricane data to compare the cost of hurricane losses, after adjusting them for inflation and for the amount of property “in harm’s way”:

Abstract: After more than two decades of relatively little Atlantic hurricane activity, the past decade saw heightened hurricane activity and more than $150 billion in damage in 2004 and 2005.  This paper normalizes mainland U.S. hurricane damage from 1900–2005 to 2005 values using two methodologies.  A normalization provides an estimate of the damage that would occur if storms from the past made landfall under another year’s societal conditions.  Our methods use changes in inflation and wealth at the national level and changes in population and housing units at the coastal county level.  Across both normalization methods, there is no remaining trend of increasing absolute damage in the data set, which follows the lack of trends in landfall frequency or intensity observed over the twentieth century. The 1970s and 1980s were notable because of the extremely low amounts of damage compared to other decades. The decade 1996–2005 has the second most damage among the past 11 decades, with only the decade 1926–1935 surpassing its costs. Over the 106 years of record, the average annual normalized damage in the continental United States is about $10 billion under both methods.  The most damaging single storm is the 1926 Great Miami storm, with $140–157 billion of normalized damage: the most damaging years are 1926 and 2005.  Of the total damage, about 85% is accounted for by the intense hurricanes Saffir-Simpson Categories 3, 4, and 5, yet these have comprised only 24% of the U.S. landfalling tropical cyclones.[12]

This last study predicts that hurricane damage will continue to trend upward because more and more people and property are moving into the hurricane-prone areas.  Here is how the study concludes this:

Unless action is taken to address the growing concentration of people and properties in coastal areas where hurricanes strike, damage will increase, and by a great deal, as more and wealthier people increasingly inhabit these coastal locations.[13]

Conclusion of the Entire Article

We see that:

➢  The climate goes in cycles of various sizes from daily cycles to centuries-long cycles, with other cycles in between.

➢  Hurricanes go in cycles too – annual cycles and decades-long cycles.  Perhaps hurricanes also follow multi-year cycles and multi-century cycles but we will leave those inquiries aside for now.

➢  NOAA and its studies conclude that there is no trend toward increasing numbers or severity of hurricanes, although these conclusions are buried and not publicized.

➢  In about the 1980s, there was a “deep minimum” of hurricane activity, which the leftists use as the beginning of their data set to make the hurricane cycle’s returning to normalcy falsely appear (to the gullible) as an alarming upward trend.

➢  The leftist media and climate alarmists in the popular press falsely promote a supposed climate emergency to worry people and attempt to grab power and take the people’s freedom because this is “necessary” in order for mankind to survive.

➢  During the last hundred years, there has been a dramatic increase in people and property being located in hurricane-prone coastal areas.  If we adjust for the large increase in people in “harm’s way”, these coastal areas have become much safer and there has been a dramatic decrease in the percentage of people killed in the areas where hurricanes strike.  Likewise, if we adjust for inflation and for the increase in the value of property that people choose to bring into those areas, hurricanes destroy a decreasing percentage of the property which is exposed to storm hazards.

➢  Don’t be deceived by the claim that man-caused climate change is causing an increase in the number and severity of hurricanes.

Catholic Candle note: The globalists are seeking to grab power by frightening gullible people that there is a climate emergency that requires the globalists to save us by wielding totalitarian power for our own good.  https://catholiccandle.org/2019/12/22/the-baseless-climate-change/

These globalists falsify and deceptively use climate data as part of their scheme to alarm people with a supposed global-warming emergency.  In roughly the 1970s, the globalists tried (and largely succeeded) in alarming people by the scare of global cooling and the (supposed) coming of a “new ice age”.  https://catholiccandle.org/2022/10/25/recalling-a-1970s-climate-change-hoax/

The globalists use cyclical climate trends to alarm the people, as if the climate cycle was going to continue without end in the same direction.  In an earlier article, we examined the fact that the climate is naturally cyclical.  There are daily cycles, yearly cycles, decades-long cycles and centuries-long cycles.  Read this article: Climate Alarmists Abuse Data from Natural Weather Cycles: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/02/24/climate-alarmists-abuse-data-from-natural-weather-cycles/

The article below treats of a related topic, debunking the claims of the climate alarmists who assert that hurricanes are becoming more numerous and more severe because of man-made (anthropogenic) “climate change”. 

Part 1

The leftists seek to alarm gullible people (especially the young) by claiming that the current warming cycle (which the leftists call “global warming”) is harmful because this warming causes hurricanes to be more numerous and more severe.  This alarmism is false as we will see.

Just as the temperature goes in long and in short-term cycles, it would not surprise any thinking person that hurricanes go in cycles too.  There is an obvious annual hurricane cycle, because of which part of the year is called the “hurricane season”, especially in places such as the Gulf of Mexico.  Here is a NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) graph of the annual hurricane cycle:

In addition to those annual cycles, hurricanes also follow decades-long cycles.  Below are some graphs showing such decades-long cycles.  The first one[1] is averaged to make the graph less “spikey”.  The second one[2] (the one from the U.S. E.P.A. i.e., the Environmental Protection Agency) is the non-averaged, “spikier” version of the first graph.  We see that both of them display a cyclical pattern that takes decades to repeat itself.

It would seem plausible that there would also be hurricane cycles that take centuries to repeat, just as there are centuries-long temperature cycles.[3]  But we have no information on that question, one way or the other.

Regarding these hurricane cycle graphs (above), notice that the U.S. E.P.A. graph refers to the pre-1972 data being “adjusted”.  The U.S. government began wide-spread use of weather satellites that year.  The U.S. government and academic researchers all adjust the pre-1972 data and they all agree that an upward adjustment is necessary because the pre-1972 data for hurricanes missed all hurricanes that did not reach landfall unless a ship at sea happened to see the hurricane.  It is reasonable and obvious to everybody that this pre-1972 tracking system missed many hurricanes and so the data is adjusted upward to account for this under-count in both government and academic records. 

Because hurricanes occur in cycles (like the weather more generally), this enables climate alarmists to manipulate the hurricane data to have it “prove” what they want.  So, e.g., “cutting” the data (i.e., starting their graph) at a low point allows the climate alarmists to claim that the upward slope of the normal hurricane cycle “proves” that there is an “alarming” hurricane increase (which they blame on a global warming emergency).

Although the government weather and climate services, as well as academia (university researchers) are controlled by the leftists, they cannot entirely avoid the truth that the climate data does not support climate alarmism.  So, when government or university reports dispel alarmist myths, those reports are “buried” and de-emphasized, all the while the leftist media, academia, and government agencies continue to insist on dire climate danger and the need for drastic reductions in human-caused carbon emissions.

One example of the truth coming out recently – but being “buried” – is a NOAA hurricane study that came out in October 2022.  Immediately below are NOAA’s conclusions regarding no trend in the strengthening of storms which would cause them to become major hurricanes:

After adjusting for changes in observing capabilities (limited ship observations) in the pre-satellite era, there is no significant long-term trend (since the 1880s) in the proportion of hurricanes that become major hurricanes.  We conclude that the historical Atlantic hurricane data at this stage do not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced century-scale increase in frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, or major hurricanes, or in the proportion of hurricanes that become major.[4]

NOAA provides the graph (below) of 160 years of data, adjusted to account for inferior sighting and tracking ability before 1972.  This graph, is called “figure 4” in the NOAA report.  The graph not only does not show an increasing proportion of hurricanes becoming major, but rather it shows greater proportions of hurricanes being major in the 1960s hurricane cycle (compared to now) and an even-greater proportion of major storms in the 1910-1930s cycle.  See below.[5]    

NOAA is telling us that the evidence shows cycles but shows no “significant long-term trend (since the 1880s) in the proportion of hurricanes that become major hurricanes”.  NOAA adds (in the quote above) that there is no “compelling evidence” that greenhouse gases cause more storms to become major hurricanes – although the climate alarmists insist the opposite. 

NOAA (despite being controlled by leftists) admits that the data does not support the supposition that there is an increase in the severity of hurricanes, once a person adjusts (as all the studies do) for the obvious under-count which occurred when hurricanes were counted by chance ship observations rather than by ever-“watching” satellites, as occurred beginning about 1972.

Let us look again at the graph above.  We see from graphs such as this one that in roughly 1980, there was the bottom (trough) of a down cycle.  In fact, here is a lengthy study, Changes in Atlantic major hurricane frequency since the late-19th century, which observes on this issue:

Nevertheless, the recent increase in the proportion of NA HUs [i.e., North American Hurricanes] becoming MHs [i.e., major hurricanes], after adjustment, which is also reflected in the results of ref. 14, [which is a data source on which this report relies] is not a continuation or acceleration of a long-term trend, but rather is a rebound from a deep minimum in the decades surrounding the 1980s ….

We find that recorded century-scale increases in Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency, and associated decrease in USA hurricanes strike fraction, are consistent with changes in observing practices and not likely a true climate trend. After homogenization, increases in basin-wide hurricane and major hurricane activity since the 1970s are not part of a century-scale increase, but a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s–1980s. …

Our results indicate that the recent increase in NA basin-wide MH/HU ratio or MH frequency is not part of a century-scale increase.  Rather it is a rebound from a deep local minimum in the 1960s–1980s.  …

[T]he inactive period in the late 20th century may have been the most inactive period in recent centuries.[6]

Notice in the graph above that a person could cut the graph at roughly 1980 if he wanted to fool gullible people into believing that hurricanes are becoming more intense.  This is because graphs or data sets that begin in roughly 1980 lack the context of the fact that 1980 is the trough of a prior cycle.  Such a graph misleadingly shows an increase in hurricanes and major hurricanes which make the graph or data look as if there is an alarming acceleration in these storms, as the climate extremists falsely claim.  This same hurricane study remarks about this false appearance in these words:

Furthermore, the 1980–2019 increases in basin-wide HU [i.e., hurricanes] and MH [i.e., major hurricanes] frequency are not a continuation of a longer-term trend, but reflect a recovery from a strong minimum in the 1970s and 1980s ….[7]

Now let us look at the leftists’ other alarmist hurricane assertion, viz., that anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse gases are causing a greater number of hurricanes. 

NOAA’s report concludes that, aside from the usual hurricane cycles, there is no trend toward an increasing number of hurricanes – after adjusting for under-counting in the pre-satellite data.  Here are NOAA’s conclusions:

After adjusting for a likely under-count of hurricanes in the pre-satellite era, there is essentially no long-term trend in hurricane counts.  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.[8]

NOAA’s report combines and summarizes its findings as follows:

We conclude that the historical Atlantic hurricane data at this stage do not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced century-scale increase in frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, or major hurricanes, or in the proportion of hurricanes that become major hurricanes.[9]

We see that even the leftist-controlled NOAA is admitting that it is false to say that greenhouse gases are causing a greater number of hurricanes or a larger number of major hurricanes.  But these truths do not change what the leftists are claiming in the mainstream media, academia, and government because the leftists are not seeking the truth (as Karl Marx did not seek the truth).  Instead, the leftists seek to complete their globalist power grab. 

The leftists would be embarrassed by reports such as the NOAA, Vecchi, and Nature reports above, if those reports became well-known to the public.  But the leftist know that few people will ever know the truth because their comrades in the media will “bury” these reports in silence and their comrades in the universities will continue to lie to their students that hurricane frequency and severity “prove” that there is an anthropogenic climate crisis.

Conclusion of Part 1 of this Article

We see that weather and climate go in cycles and that this applies to hurricanes, too.  We see that NOAA (and the studies it relies on) conclude that, after adjusting for the pre-1972 hurricane under-count, there is no upward trend in the number or in the severity of hurricanes. 

We see that there was a deep trough in the hurricane cycle – in approximately 1980 – which would allow a dishonest manipulation of the data by deceptively cutting the data there in order to give a false appearance of an alarming hurricane increase, as the climate alarmists fraudulently claim. 

Remember this trough in 1980 because next month we will look at deceptive alarmist graphs beginning then.

To be continued

The goal of climate alarmism is not to protect the environment but is a global power grab for a New World Order.  Read the evidence here: https://catholiccandle.org/2019/12/22/the-baseless-climate-change/

Climate alarmists begin their global warming graphs at about 1960-1970 because that is the bottom of a cooling trend after which the climate began the next warming cycle. 

Before that, the leftists promoted a “new ice age” scare involving climate alarmism making deceptive use of a cyclical cooling trend that was occurring until about the early 1970s.  Read about this phony “emergency” here: https://catholiccandle.org/2022/10/25/recalling-a-1970s-climate-change-hoax/

Below, is a government climate graph to which Catholic Candle added the blue box (the left box, toward the center) showing the part of the data used to scare gullible people with a “new ice age” as the climate was undergoing one of its cooling cycles. 

We added a red box (on the right side) to show the type of data used subsequently to scare naïve people that a catastrophic global warming will ruin the earth, as the climate began its next warming cycle.

This government graph is found here: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/6/ (red and blue boxes added)

Below, is a different, similar graph of the weather data.  Fraudsters selectively pulled data from this sort of graph to scare people by purportedly showing that a “new ice age” was coming.  These fraudsters used this scare until about 1970 or so, and then shifted to sounding the alarm that a (purported) global warming crisis was coming – because the climate cycle began to head in the other direction during the next warming trend of the cycle.

This 1999 NASA graph on page 37 of 47 of the report found here: https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1999/1999_Hansen_ha03200f.pdf  The red box (on the right side) and the blue box (toward the center), have been superimposed.

The climate-scare fraudsters cut the data wherever it suits the goal they have at the time.  They cut it at the low point of the cooling cycle when they wanted to scare people by a claim of global warming.  They cut the data at the high point when they wished to scare people by claiming a “new ice age”.  It is all in the service of the globalist power grab, seeking to control people on the pretense of “saving the planet”.[1]

Temperatures go in short and long cycles

It is clear to everybody that temperatures go in cycles.  There are daily cycles, (e.g., from day to night, then back to day), and annual cycles (the seasons).  What might be less clear to some people is that there are longer climate cycles too.  There are cycles that span decades.  For example, look at the cyclical fluctuations in the three graphs below, published by the U.S. government, which cover 120 years of climate data. 

There are also cycles that span hundreds of years, such as the spans of time called The Medieval Warming Period, The Little Ice Age, and The Roman Warming Period.  These centuries-long climate fluctuations are long-recognized and are well-researched. 

The daily climate cycles, the annual cycles, the decades-long cycles, and the centuries-long cycles are all occurring simultaneously. 

Decades-long temperature cycles

First let us look at the decades-long temperature cycles below, using the government’s data spanning 120 years.

This government graph is found here: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/6/

This government graph is found here: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/6/

This government graph is found here: https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1999/1999_Hansen_ha03200f.pdf

During the “new ice age” hoax of the 1960s-1970s, the leftists sounded the alarm about the cooling trend which they warned could continue forever in that direction.[2]  Gullible people were alarmed with warnings such as a 1970s-era prediction that ice buildup would be permanent and would be so excessive that it would close many of the world’s crucial and busy shipping lanes even in the summer.  (A member of the Catholic Candle Team specifically remembers this 1970s-era prediction.)

When that cooling cycle was over and the next warming cycle then began, those “climate experts” (viz., those leftist alarmists) and their dupes did not admit they were wrong.   They merely re-structured their alarmism to predict global warming instead of cooling.

However, their dire climate predictions (although in opposite directions) share the pattern that the climate alarmists cut the data to fit their claims.  The alarmists also focus people’s attention on pity stories (anecdotes) about harms that people suffered in various places.  It is not necessarily true that such pity stories are false.  But those stories selectively and deceptively illustrated in concrete terms the lie that the effects resulting from the climate cycle are all negative – although the truth is that there are advantages in some places and disadvantages in other places.  Of course, those climate “Chicken Littles” (the alarmists) also falsely assert that the temperature trend (in whichever direction it happened to be at the time) was actually caused by human activities.

What the climate alarmists say is a lie.  Although their lie fools gullible people, the leftist leaders know it is a lie.  They are the ones that cut the data to only use the portion of the climate graphs that supports their lie. 

Centuries-long temperature cycles

In examining the decades-long temperature cycles (above), we use government temperature graphs which often start in about 1880. 

The reason why the 1880s has long been a common beginning point for many longer-term climate graphs of U.S. weather patterns: it is because this is the beginning of widespread exact temperature measurements across the U.S.  In most of the rest of the world the beginning of exact temperature measurements occurs later – often much later.

Because roughly 140 years of these exact temperatures exist in the U.S., this is enough data to enable us to clearly see those decades-long climate cycles. 

But there are longer climate cycles than those decades-long ones: there are centuries-long climate cycles too.  And many researchers have studied them.  But to study those climate cycles which occurred before we had widespread exact temperature measurements, the scientists had to be more resourceful.  They used the best proxies they had in lieu of those widespread exact temperature measurements that we have had for the last 140 years.  They have been using these proxies for many decades when studying the pre-1880 climate.  There are hundreds of studies using such proxy data.

Everyone recognizes that those proxies are not as good as having many exact temperature measurements.  Those proxies are things such as changes in crops grown in various places, over time.  For example, in Medieval England, the climate had warmed enough for grapes to be successfully grown there to sustain a thriving wine industry.[3]  But after hundreds of years of growing grapes, England’s climate then cooled enough so that this indigenous industry waned and essentially disappeared.  As another example, for hundreds of years during this same Medieval period, China cultivated citrus trees much further north than was possible before that or afterwards.[4]  The northward extension of the range of these citrus trees reached its maximum extent in the 13th century.  Id.

These climate researchers used many other proxies to estimate the prevailing temperatures before 1880.  For example, they used data showing: 1) how far north the northern margin of boreal forests in Canada went; 2) how far up the Rocky Mountains the tree lines went.  Further, they used 3) tree-ring measurements; 4) ice core samples (including in Antarctica); 5) ocean bed core samples; 6) glaciers advancing and retreating; 7) Alpine Mountain passes opening for a time but being impassible before and after that; 8) the doubling of the size of the Anasazi Indian’s land under cultivation on the northern Colorado Plateau (in America), compared to what is currently possible; and many other proxies for actual temperature measurements.[5]

The fruit of these studies was the evidence that there are centuries-long climate cycles.  There was a Roman Warm Period (~250 B.C. to A.D. 400), a Medieval Warm Period (~A.D. 950–1250), and a subsequent 400-year cold period called the Little Ice Age.  The proxy data certainly seems to show these centuries-long cycles occurred even though there are no exact temperature measurements.  Further, these cycles were worldwide[6] but (as could be expected) were not to the same extent everywhere in the world.

The Medieval Warm Period had a largely beneficial impact on the earth’s plant and animal life.  In fact, the environmental conditions of this time period were so favorable that it was often referred to as the Little Climatic Optimum.  By contrast, the 400 year-long “Little Ice Age” (cooling cycle) brought a wide range of food shortages and famines.[7]

Overview of the temperature cycles

From the above article, we see that the temperatures go in daily cycles, annual cycles, decades-long cycles, and centuries-long cycles.  Temperature cycles, like other cycles, return to their base normal.  So, e.g., any warming cycle arises out of a cooling cycle and ends in one.

When there is a warming cycle, this greater warmth benefits some places and not other places.  So, during a long-term warming trend, places such as Alaska, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Greenland, and Russia benefit far more than tropical countries.  The reverse is true in cooling cycles.

During a warming trend, places farther from the equator enjoy longer growing seasons and increased food production.  This is like the analogous situation where (hypothetically) the entire planet undergoes a rainy cycle in which, e.g,, the planet has a 5% increase in precipitation.  The cycle would tremendously help some places, e.g., the fertile but dry farmland of the Central Valley of California.  But this extra rain would be unhelpful to places such as Lloro, Colombia (in the Pacific lowlands) where the long-term average annual precipitation is already over 43 feet of water![8]

Although our purpose is not to dive deeply into the causes of these temperature cycles, we note that those cycles correspond nicely with different phases of solar activity, such as fluctuating cycles of solar winds, solar storms, etc.[9]

So, in any temperature or precipitation cycles, there are places where a change in either particular direction is welcome and places where that same trend is unwelcome.  But either way, those cycles are natural, inevitable, and last only until the cycle swings back in the other direction. 

When a temperature cycle is favorable, like the current modest warming trend, we should thank God for it.  If the temperature trend is unfavorable, we must offer up this Cross (suffering) given to us and thank God for it.[10]  Either way, we must just continue living our lives knowing that every such cycle will reverse course.  These cycles are not manmade and are not a cause for alarm.  We must have a spiritual outlook and see that they are God’s Will for us.

Let us not be fooled and alarmed by the ongoing climate scare!  Instead, let us fight the global power grab which is the real motive for this climate change lie!

Catholic Candle note: The article below looks back upon the global cooling and new ice age scares of the 1970s.

The purpose of this 1970s climate-change hoax and also the one which is now on-going, is a global power-grab.  These climate-change hoaxes aim at destroying what remains of freedom and destroying national sovereignty in the world, to pave the way for a New World Order — i.e., global governance.  Ultimately, this power-grab is anti-Catholic and anti-God.

For more analysis of these “green” frauds to achieve this global power-grab, read this article: https://catholiccandle.org/2019/12/22/the-baseless-climate-change/

Several members of the Catholic Candle Team lived through the global cooling scare of the 1970s.  That manufactured “crisis” gives a person additional perspective on the present supposed “climate crisis” – a perspective which the younger generation does not have on its own, at least as fully.

During the 1970s, year after year, the liberals and mainstream media screamed out the alarm of impending environmental disaster because of global cooling.  This crisis was (supposedly) certain to come very soon and was (supposedly) backed by “irrefutable” data.  They constantly declared that global cooling was a “fact”.  The policymakers were told that they must act immediately, before it was too late. 

People were told that the new ice age was an existential crisis and that the fate of mankind would be determined during the next small number of years.  People were told that mankind’s survival depended upon everyone working together to fight the global cooling emergency as their highest priority.

The mainstream media, the politicians, and liberal academics solemnly assured the public that, in the new colder climate which is (supposedly) quickly coming, the crops would fail or the crop yields would plunge and that there would be widespread famine.

The global cooling alarmism was every bit as much of a broad societal scare as is the current global warming/climate change boogeyman.  One member of the Catholic Candle Team distinctly remembers that, when he was in elementary school, he read an article at school about the new ice age which (supposedly) was coming.  The article included a drawing aimed at scaring children, depicting a family wearing their winter coats and hats in their living room, with icicles hanging from their noses, their exhalations of breath visible in the room because it was so cold. 

Another such recollection about this global cooling scare is that academics, scientists, politicians, and media figures solemnly declared that people can expect that the new ice age “might” include year-round glaciers which descend from the north deep into the U.S. Midwestern States.  They published scientific-looking maps of the U.S. which showed how far south the “data showed” people could expect the glaciers to travel.

Of course, no year’s weather is identical to any other year’s weather, nor is any century’s weather identical to any other century’s weather.  Natural fluctuations have always occurred and always will occur.  There are long-term cycles and short-term cycles.  That is how God created the world. 

So global cooling alarmism, like other frauds, is a half-truth – which, of course, means it is a lie.  The “half-truth” was that, during the 1970s, the climate was going through the cooling phase of one of those natural cycles.

Here is a U.S. government graph showing the cooling phase that the climate was in then:

Get this U.S. government graph on the government’s website: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/6/

Here is another government weather graph showing the same basic point and the same natural temperature cycles which were at a low point in the 1970s, before the subsequent warming part of the cycle:

This graph is found on the U.S. government’s website here: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/6/

But in the 1970s, this cooling phase of the weather cycle was used dishonestly to perpetuate a hoax that we were entering a new ice age.  From the government, the media, and academia, people heard an incessant drum beat of an alarming global cooling – just like we hear now about global warming/climate–change.

Here is an example of the global cooling alarmism published in 1971 by the Washington Post.[1]  This article – and the entire climate-scare campaign occurring then – promote the opinions of “experts” and “scientists” who are government climate researchers and academics at a prestigious university, who warn about the (supposed) new ice age:

Notice the dire warning about the flooding of the world’s coastal cities (just like the alarmists predict now) and also notice the warning that “huge areas” of the earth will be covered by new glaciers.  The solution the 1970s leftists promoted to respond to this “crisis” is to stop the global cooling by greatly reducing all burning of fossil fuels and also increase the government’s control over people’s lives – so that the government can force us (for our own supposed good) to live in a way contrary to the way we would choose to live.

Here is another example of the global cooling scaremongering in 1970, this time in Boston’s daily newspaper called the Boston Globe[2]:

Notice that the media (in this case, the Boston Globe), cites an “expert” and “scientist” who was a government researcher, who warns that pollution is causing this crisis, resulting in a new ice age.  The “solutions” they always advocated then are the same ones that they also advocate in the present climate fraud, viz., population reduction and to have the government increasingly control people’s lives.  This control forces them to live in a way that will not (supposedly) destroy the world through a climate emergency and for the government to force people to adopt (unwillingly) a “less wasteful standard of living” (as this article phrases it).  Although we are currently further along on the path to a globalist totalitarian government, we were on that same path then.

Notice this “expert’s” absurd prediction that all rivers and streams in the U.S. will dry up.

Below is a “new ice age coming fast” scare from 1974, published by the well-known London daily newspaper, the Guardian[3]:

Here is another 1974 article – this one from Time magazine,[4] promoting the scare of “another ice age” and a “global climatic upheaval” with increasing thickness of arctic ice packs and other (supposedly) frightening signs.

Here is the New York Times[5] promoting a book by a government climate researcher who is explaining the “consensus of the climatological community” that the world will soon experience a global cooling crisis.  This “consensus” is the same type of fraud as the current “scientific consensus” saying that we are now heading toward the opposite catastrophe (global warming) which will (supposedly) occur in the near future.

Below is another global cooling scare article from the New York Times, based on the data analyzed by an international group of scientists:[6]

Just like today regarding the global warming/climate-change scam, there were countless news articles and “scholarly” studies which declared that the “science is settled”, the “data proves”, and the “experts have reached a consensus” that global cooling is a fact and a new ice age is coming unless we make fighting it our top priority. 

It is easy to ridicule all of these false and absurd predictions from the 1970s – such as that all rivers and streams in the U.S. will dry up and that we will have year-round glaciers in the U.S. Midwest (and in other “huge areas” of the world).

But for anyone who now thinks that he would have scoffed at that glacier nonsense then, here is a good test: does he scoff at the current global warming/climate–change hoax now?  If a person does not discern that the present climate scare is simple nonsense even though “everyone else” believes in it, there is little chance such a person would have discerned this past global cooling scare was a hoax when “everyone else” believed it back then.

We must be thinkers, not gullible sheep following the globalist climate change alarmists!