1/ @RyanMaue and
@BjornLomborg challenge Guardian article theguardian.com/weather/ng-int… claiming that Atlantic hurricanes getting worse. In 2006-7, I observed that entire increase in observed hurricane-days occurred in mid-Atlantic climateaudit.info/pdf/agu07_hurr…
@BjornLomborg challenge Guardian article theguardian.com/weather/ng-int… claiming that Atlantic hurricanes getting worse. In 2006-7, I observed that entire increase in observed hurricane-days occurred in mid-Atlantic climateaudit.info/pdf/agu07_hurr…
2/ I analysed entire HURDAT database (39,125 records) from 1851-2007 stratifying data by longitude quartile to see if trends different in longitude quartile 
3/ median longitude of hurricane records had shifted 10 degrees east (towards mid-Atlantic) since start of aircraft reconnaissance
4/ entire increase in hurricane count had taken place in mid-Atlantic (east of 69W). No increase west of 69W.
5/ it was then well-known that there had been no long-term increase in US landfalling hurricanes or in normalized US losses due to hurricanes (Pielke Jr)
6/ Kerry Emanuel had argued that the apparent inconsistency between his claims of increased hurricane activity and non-trend in landfall statistics was due to "ten times" greater "signal-to-noise ratio" in basinwide data. But it wasn't.
7/ Emanuel was totally wrong. Landfall statistics linked almost exactly to hurricane-day data in WESTERN QUARTILE, but had very poor correlation to hurricane-day data in easternmost quartile.
8/ Landsea had already compared active 1933 and 2005 hurricane seasons, pointing out lack of mid-Atlantic observations in 1933 relative to 2005
9/ data on storm genesis showed much earlier and more easterly observation of hurricane-days in last half of record than in first half of record
10/ storm count and storm-days increased in mid-Atlantic in second half of hurricane record relative to first half of record, while decreasing in Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico
11/ commented that mid-Atlantic increase could be technological artifact (building on Landsea comments). If effect real - not artifact- then it implied that entire increase came from hurricanes forming earlier and re-curving earlier - out in mid-Atlantic remote from impact
12/ conclusions were as below:
13/ PielkeJr and I submitted an article on these results to GRL where it was handled by James Famiglietti, with whom I'd had previous conflict after he'd replaced the GRL editor who'd accepted our critique of MBH98 - in order to "plug the leak" at GRL.
14/ one reviewer said that the statistical analysis was "fraudulent" and recommended rejection. The other reviewer said that the results were already "well known" in the literature and also recommended rejection. Based on the consensus, Famiglietti rejected outright.
15/ nonetheless, the results remain valid against the alarmism promulgated by the Guardian and so many in the climate "community". It's too bad that they were uninterested in even listening to the analysis.
