At the CU World Affairs Conference Kerry Emanuel showed this graph of climate model hurricane intensity forecasts out to the year 2100. Some models predicted intensity going down, others predicted it going up a lot. But he said not to confuse uncertainty with ignorance, and then gave one of the standard 70% of doctors say blah blah blah …. BS arguments. Intensity may go up, or it may go down – i.e. settled science.
So I asked him about his 2005 forecast that major hurricanes would increase, and subsequent record low number of major hurricanes since 2005. He agreed that it has been very low, but said “(he) was talking about the whole world, not just the US or the Atlantic.“
After the event was over, I asked him about reports that Southern Hemisphere cyclones have been declining for 20 years and are at a record low. He responded with “some models predicted that.“
So basically, he was talking about the whole world except for the Southern Hemisphere, the Atlantic or the US. Then I told him that I was good friends with Bill Gray, who had a very different point of view. He said he missed Bill and they agreed on some things. Emanuel was very pleasant and cordial, and we left it at that.
US hurricanes peaked in 1886 at below 300 PPM CO2, and have been declining ever since.
