February 02, 2007 Follow Up: IPCC and Hurricanes Posted to
Author: Pielke Jr., R. | Climate Change | Disasters | Science +
Politics The IPCC report is out (PDF) and here is what it says
about hurricanes (tropical cyclones). Kudos to the scientists
involved. Despite the pressures, on tropical cyclones they
figured out a way to maintain consistency with the actual
balance of opinion(s) in the community of relevant experts. Here
is the discussion of observed changes: There is observational
evidence for an increase of intense tropical cyclone activity in
the North Atlantic since about 1970, correlated with increases
of tropical sea surface temperatures. There are also suggestions
of increased intense tropical cyclone activity in some other
regions where concerns over data quality are greater. Multi-
decadal variability and the quality of the tropical cyclone
records prior to routine satellite observations in about 1970
complicate the detection of long-term trends in tropical cyclone
activity. There is no clear tre