As Hurricane Dean works its way through Mexico, we are reminded of the debate between those who link Hurricanes with global warming, and those who don't. Scientists Chris Landsea of NOAA and Greg Holland of UCAR find themselves on opposite sides of the debate. Holland has recently claimed that tropical storms have doubled due to global warming in a new paper with Peter Webster. Landsea has also published a recent paper entitled Counting Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Back to 1900. Holland is quoted as saying, "....my sense is that we shall see a stabilization in frequencies for a while, followed by potentially another upward swing if global warming continues unabated." Landsea's response was to call Holland's research "sloppy science."
Roger Pileke Jr, who has several publications on Hurricanes co-authored with Chris Landsea, waded into the debate by asking Webster for his data. Webster told him in no uncertain terms to recreate it himself, so he did.
The storm data set used is divided into halves, each 51 years long:
1905-1955 (51 years) and 1956-2006 (51 years).
The official HURDAT data looks like this:
1905-1955 = 366
1956-2006 = 458
Holland/Webster 2007 looks like this using their storm-count underestimate correction:
1905-1955 = 417
1956-2006 = 458
Landsea also uses a storm-count underestimate correction:
1905-1955 = 529
1956-2006 = 527
It all comes down to which correction is correct.
William Gray has his say here.
Luke
all you have to do is put up the science, and watch it completely ignored, to see what makes up the level mainstream denier debate.
It's Holland and Webster - at least try to familiarise yourself with the very basics.
Read the paper - of course not.
So is Webster claiming to have published "peer reviewed" research? If so, who were these peers? And what sort of credibility can that process have if the core material has not been forthcomming?
Webster's main crime is not being sloppy, the refusal to provide the data is an unambiguous demonstration of a willingness to be selective with the facts. In my days in the headhunting business that was all that would be needed to earn the bum a 8 minute interview and a roaring silence.
PS - we're back to the unfortunate and unnecessary practice of withholding data, which blights climate science.