This man co-founded the inspiring bipartisan climate solutions caucus: yet he still feels the need to reject the science showing that hurricanes are intensifying faster in a warmer world. @RepCurbelo, I’m @citizensclimate’s sci advisor + happy to talk if you want an update!
Those who reject—or who must be perceived as rejecting—climate science have a standard line when it comes to hurricanes: “Those alarmist scientists said they‘d be more frequent, but they aren’t. We’ve always had hurricanes, and always will.” Here’s why that’s a strawman (thread):
It all started during the record-breaking 2005 hurricane season, when scientists naturally asked: are hurricanes getting more frequent? At that time, we didn't know the answer. I remember attending an @ametsoc session where it was being hotly debated. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Atla…
So our community did what scientists do: we studied it. The physics of hurricane formation, historical records of landfall (including sediment records dating back 100s and even 1000s of years), high-resolution climate modeling, the whole enchilada. And here's what we found:
1/ While 2005 was definitely unusual, there had been peaks in hurricane activity before. Around 1000AD, for example. See: nature.com/articles/natur… and sciencedirect.com/science/articl… (just two examples of many that use paleoclimate data to study landfalling hurricane frequencies) 
2/ Even more interesting, looking to the future, it could be that global warming means *less* hurricanes. Hurricane formation is a complex process involving multiple factors. A warmer world acts to reduce some of those. Note the 1st sentence here: nature.com/articles/ngeo2…
(Let me pause a moment here and say that I am using the "we" collectively. I don't do hurricane research myself. But I've had the honour to work with and learn from experts like Tom Knutson, Kerry Emanuel, Gabe Vecchi, Jim Kossin, Michael Wehner, and many more.)
So: while there were q's after 2005 as to whether climate change was increasing the # of storms, scientific studies rapidly examined + dismissed that claim. And that's why it's a strawman to argue, using *obs evidence that we scientists collected,* that we're still saying that.
But hang on - are you saying that climate change doesn't affect hurricanes at all? No! It does, in at least 5 ways: they're intensifying faster, getting stronger, moving slower, have more rain associated 2 them, and stronger storm surge due to SLR. Watch:
And for a comprehensive summary of the latest science on what we know about hurricanes and climate change, including all the references, see: science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/9/
