About The 2022 Hurricane Season

The experts told us that the 2022 hurricane season would involve many severe storms due to global warming. Actually that didn’t happen. The Global Warming Policy Foundation has released its report on that season.

This is the executive summary:

It is widely believed that hurricanes are getting worse as a consequence of climate change. This belief is fuelled by the media and some politicians, particularly when a bad storm occurs. This belief is reinforced because the damage caused by hurricanes is much greater nowadays, thanks to increasing populations in vulnerable coastal areas and greater wealth more generally. But is this belief correct, or is it a misconception? This study has carefully analysed official data and assessments by hurricane scientists, and finds:

2021 and 2022 recorded the lowest number of both hurricanes and major hurricanes globally for any two year period since 1980.

The apparent long-term increase in the number of hurricanes since the 19th century has been due to changes in observational practices over the years, rather than a real increase.

Data show no long-term trends in US landfalling hurricanes since the mid-19th century, when systematic records began, either in terms of frequency or intensity.

Similarly, after allowing for the fact that many hurricanes were not spotted prior to the satellite era, there are no such trends in Atlantic hurricanes either.

Globally there are also no trends in hurricanes since reliable records began in the 1970s.

Evidence is also presented that wind speeds of the most powerful hurricanes may now be overestimated in comparison to pre-satellite era ones, because of changing methods of measurement.

The increase in Atlantic hurricanes in the last fifty years is not part of a long-term trend, but is simply a recovery from a deep minimum in hurricane activity in the 1970s, associated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

These findings are in line with those of hurricane scientists generally, as well as official bodies such as NOAA and the IPCC.

So go ahead and plan that beach vacation and enjoy life. Hurricanes have always been with us. They can do considerable damage, but we can predict them and take precautions. We are also fortunate to live in a country where charitable organizations show up after a hurricane to help clean up and provide food and water for those who need it.