Letter to the Editor of Cayman News Online,
by Dr. Tad Murty, Meterologist, Professor, University of Ottawa, Canada
Dear Sir,
I just now returned from Mexico City to my city of residence, Ottawa, Canada after spending three days at an international conference sponsored by the United Nations on developing early warning systems for cyclone generated storm surges and tsunamis generated by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
At this conference I represented the Royal Society of Canada, which is among the foremost scientific societies in the world. I noted the article on your web site about the possible increase in hurricanes due to human anthropogenic activities. I would like to state a few observational facts, which can be easily verified and here I am not using any computer model projections. Undoubtedly the most impacted region on the globe by tropical storms is South Asia in terms of socio-economic perspective.
In the 20th century the total number of cyclones here are about half of those in the 19th century. Even in the Atlantic and Caribbean, the storm activity is nothing unusual. There were times earlier when there were more hurricanes than now. The hurricane activity is not static, it varies all the time, but what is happening now is with in the normal range of variation. If indeed human anthropogenic activities are increasing the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, it is not at all obvious in the observational records (the only place where it is obvious are unrealistic computer model simulations).
If the hypothesis in your article is correct, then each year there should be more hurricanes than in the previous year, that is a monotonic increase, which certainly is not happening. I examined some twenty different atmospheric and oceanographic parameters associated with hurricanes on the globe using all available historical data I could find up to December 31st 2004.
Not a single record was set after October 1979. In other words, as far as global hurricane activity is concerned, there has been no record set in the past 25 years. I ask you sir, if indeed hurricane activity is increasing globally due to human anthropogenic activity, please show me the observational data to support it.
Please do not quote my computer model results, I have been involved with them for the past 45 years, and I can show you whatever you want, if you want I can produce global warming, on the other hand, if you want an ice age, I can produce that too, with a very slight tweaking of one single parameter (low cloud amount) in the model.
What are my credentials to make these statements? I have a PH.D. in Meteorology and Oceanography from the University of Chicago, USA. I worked as a senior research scientist with the Canadian Oceanographic Service for 27 years and I did the official climate change review for the service for the Pacific and Arctic coasts of Canada. I was the director of Australia's National Tidal Facility for three years. Now I am an Adjunct Professor in the University of Ottawa, Canada. I am also the editor of the international scientific journal Natural Hazards published by Springer in Germany and Netherlands.
In the more than 1,800 scientific manuscripts that passed through the editorial desk in the past and until now, not a single manuscript based upon actual observations ever claimed that human anthropogenic activities have anything to do with the ever increasing economic impact of natural hazards such as hurricanes. No one doubts that the economic impact is increasing all the time, not because the hurricane frequency or intensity is increasing, but because the population is increasing and the coastal infrastructure is increasing. For example, the coastal infrastructure worldwide has increased some 13.5 fold between the 19th and 20th centuries.
Thank you very much.
Dr. Tad Murty
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Published with the permission of the author
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