Capozzola's "Hurricane Drought" examined (climatechangedispatch)

The depth of Republican power politics driven deception is mind-boggling.  By happenstance I’ve been introduced to Steven Capozzola, another appalling example of the base hostility and dishonesty towards constructively learning about what the experts have to share about our changing global climate system.  

Capozzola wrote an article about a New York Times Op-ed (7/15/16) written by Professor Adam Sobel, a bona fide climate scientist.  After his op-ed's bumpy start, which played right into the contrarian’s ruthless opportunism, Sobel did an admirable job of explaining what climate scientists have learned these past decades.  At least to those who were actually reading it with an eye to understanding what was written.  

Capozzola’s article however provided a fundamentally dishonest portrayal of, not just Sobel’s op-ed, but the scientific understanding in general.  In this review I will demonstrate why and how.

To me it remains flabbergasting that fraud like this is accepted as part of adult dialogue.  Constructive, it certainly is not.  Education, it has nothing to do with.  Sick entertainment for folks who hate our planet and other people, perhaps.  In any event, it’s this sort of attack on rationality, learning and decent experts that drives me to keep dogging these artful liars and traitors (toward our children’s future wellbeing.).

In this post I have copied Capozzola’s complete article not changing a word.  I will intersperse my own comments along with paragraphs from Adam Sobel’s maliciously defamed op-ed, and of course a few links to further legitimate information for your own edification.  

Climatologist Tries to Justify 11-year Hurricane Drought in New York Times Op-Ed

Written by Steven Capozzola, Guest Post on July 15, 2016, ClimateChangeDispatch

Capozzola:  The New York Times ran an op-ed today by Adam Sobel, an “atmospheric scientist at Columbia.” The gist of Sobel’s article: Since 2005, the United States has been experiencing a hurricane “drought” (i.e., no category 3 or higher hurricane has made landfall in 11 years.) 

But don’t worry, Sobel says, there will be more hurricanes soon, and the fact that they will be coming is proof of man-made climate change.

Yes, that’s what he’s saying.

The question is whether Sobel is writing the op-ed to buck himself up, or hoping to cheerlead the rest of the alarmist crowd. 

This delusionals call an 11 year Hurricane Drought?

I’m mulling over another atrocious piece of Climate Science Contrarian Fraud, this time by one Steven Capozzola a corporate public relations guy turned self-styled smarter-than-the-experts pundit.  His article “Climatologist Tries to Justify 11-year Hurricane Drought in New York Times Op-Ed” , July 15, 2016, ClimateChangeDispatch has been another parade of crafty disinformation intent on dumbing down its readers, you can read about it in my next posting.

In any event, the following paragraphs got me to looking into this supposed hurricane drought and here's a list of Atlantic and East Pacific ocean hurricanes and tropical storms since 2005, followed by a look at  2015 Northern Hemisphere category 4 and 5 hurricanes.  This information put the lie to Capozzola's spin fest.

Capozzola writes: It’s interesting to note that Sobel couches his statements with a series of disclaimers. Of hurricanes and climate, he says the “knowledge is far from perfect.” And he cites the arguments of his opponents to make a few safe caveats—he blames “natural variability” for the current hurricane drought.

Steven is the one couching his deceptive claim that simply because our coast has, sort of, been spared major hurricane damage in the past few years that somehow means we shouldn't be listening to the actual experts.

I know these weren’t category 3 or above, but seems to me they were pretty good lessons in what global warming enhanced storms will be doing to our coast, but then some refuse to learn:

Hurricane Ike - September 2008

Although it was classified as a category 2 storm, Ike remains the third costliest hurricane in U.S. history after Katrina and 1992’s Andrew. Total damage: $25 billion, mostly in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

Hurricane Sandy - October 29, 2012

Summary: Hurricane Sandy was the 18th named tropical cyclone of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season (June 1 - November 30). Sandy formed in the central Caribbean on October 22nd and intensified into a hurricane as it tracked north across Jamaica, eastern Cuba and the Bahamas. Sandy moved northeast of the United States until turning west toward the mid Atlantic coast on the 28th. Sandy transitioned into a post-tropical cyclone just prior to moving onshore near Atlantic City, NJ. For a complete summary of Sandy, view the National Hurricane Center Sandy Tropical Cyclone Report

Hurricane Patricia - landfall near Playa Cuixmala in Jalisco state of southwest Mexico on October 23rd, 2015 had sustained winds topping out at 215 MPH and the atmospheric pressure dropped to 872 millibars (lowest on record in the Western Hemisphere and second lowest ever recorded in the world.) https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-patricia-mexico-coast

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Capozzola writes: Again, it’s somewhat embarrassing that the New York Times would publish an op-ed that essentially says: ‘We haven’t seen any major hurricanes for 11 years, we don’t really know why, our climate science is uncertain, our predictive computer models are limited, but we’re certain we’ll see more frequent and intense hurricanes soon because of increased CO2 emissions.’

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What’s embarrassing is that adults embrace such a cartoonish perception of our global heat and moisture distribution system, aka the climate system we depend on for everything.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/index.php?season=2005&basin=atl