You Don't Really Know If Climate Change Increases Hurricane Power (But You Do)

When I came back from my summer holidays, my editor asked me to write about the relation between hurricanes and climate change. I didn't have much time and couldn't really work out a full set of interviews, so I decided to dig up the available research and write a review. I was expecting a lot of published work, such as what we find for heatwaves or droughts, but I was in for a surprise: There's virtually none.

My editor almost killed me when I told her I couldn't find empirical evidence of a relation between stronger hurricanes and global warming. The theoretical facts are undisputed, I told her, there isn't data to work with. I ended up writing a reflection about this uncertainty.

Still some of the strongest tropical storms ever recorded in the Atlantic ocean have crowded this month. From Harvey to Katia, if it feels like there are more large hurricanes than before, that's because it's true:

September 2017 is already the most energetic month for hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean ever recorded, even though the month is not yet over.

So, if we have the theory, and we have an increase in hurricane power, why can't we connect the dots? Because we can't rely on the old data as much as we can on the new.

Technology such as weather satellites and hurricane-hunting aircraft weren't available decades ago, not to say in the 19th century (when hurricane measuring began). Back then, they used ships who got caught in the storms to observe the weather conditions. This makes for an interesting geopolitical point: Before the Panama Canal was inaugurated in 1914, there was no point for vessels to sail the Caribbean. This means there is almost no data prior to that year.

This isn’t to say that there hasn’t been an increase in storms over the last century, only that you can’t find it in the data. At the same time, the satellite record shows a clear increase in hurricane activity since 1980.

This is a great angle to understand the power of theory and the importance of science funding and innovation.