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Comment by scragg | Hacker News Reader

I think the point of bringing up hurricane Dorian is the size/strength. It's not unique by itself but cat 4/5's are at an upward trend[1]. Also take a look at hurricane Barry[2] this year. It's a disturbance that came out of the continental US, became a hurricane in the gulf, and came back to strike the US.

[1] https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/pix/user_images... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Barry_(2019)#/media/...

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Big problem with that chart. Look where it ends. 2006. It looks like an upward trend. If you add the last decade it's missing, that trend won't exist. You know what, let put that together in BI really quick. I want to see if that trend holds true since it's missing the past decade of data.

Here is a larger timescale. Headings link to charts.

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html

Taking a look at the data, it's not that damning. Our upward swing really started in 1995 and hasn't increased since. 2005 was an outlying year, and the rest really aren't that much of a big deal. No real upward swing since 95.

I will say our hurricane floor count is higher on average by 2-3. I have a hard time believing there were zero hurricanes some years. Meteorology and aeronautics really was useless before the 60s (compared to today). So, numbers before then are hard to take seriously and are probably understated.

Our 5 year average of storms is trending down (slightly) since 08 as well. 10 year average peaked in 05 and has dropped since 2012.

My grand point, hurricanes right now don't make good evidence for global warming. There are far better evidence points and general scientific knowledge about greenhouse gases. Using hurricane statistics is only going to lead to ammo for deniers as they don't pay attention to better evidence. Will hurricanes potentially intensify in both volume and strength? It's definitely possible if ocean temperatures rise on average. That's how hurricanes are "fueled". But right now, we don't have good evidence of that being a truth.

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