that warm years in general were more active in all cyclone size ranges than cold years. The largest cyclones are most affected by warmer conditions and we detect a statistically significant trend in the frequency of large surge events (roughly corresponding to tropical storm size) since 1923. In particular, we estimate that Katrina-magnitude events have been twice as frequent in warm years compared with cold years (P < 0.02).Click here to download the paper and supporting info.
What is Willis missing?
In a strong surge in overconfidence, Willis makes up two charts of the surge indices listed Table S2 in the supporting info (he didn't get the paper itself). He says he sees no trend, and asks:
What am I missing?
The emperor has no clothes...
I wonder how long it will take before someone tells him what he's missing - like he should have seen already if he'd bother to read the supporting info that he got his data from. Or even if anyone goes to the paper and supplementary info that the fourth WUWT commenter kindly links to, and reads it. (So far ignored by the nextHere is what Willis was missing, staring him right in the face in the middle of page 1 of the supporting paper he downloaded, under the heading S2. Events with the Largest Surge Index: (my bold and italics)
...In Table S2 we have also calculated accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) and USACE over the week centered on the date shown. We caution against comparing the relative rank of individual events. The surge index ranking reflects the impact at the specific tide-gauge locations and therefore should not be interpreted as a storm ranking. The purpose of this list is to demonstrate that the surge index truly captures cyclone activity, rather than providing a storm severity ranking.
Still, Willis got what he was looking for...
No worries, Willis got his pseudo-analysis wrong, but he is generating the comments he's looking for - including some completely unrelated to storm surges in the Atlantic: "Arctic ice recovery continues" (huh?), "grant money", "they just make it up", "How can they claim the opposite??", "where's the hockey stick".
Mike M is particularly hot and bothered, demanding the Governments of China, Finland, Sweden and the UK appear before the US Congress and refund his tax dollars, writing "If they are lying on our tax dollars then haul the responsible gov agency in front of Congress and demand they either back up their claim or forfeit anymore funding for 10 years."
Willis shows just how easy it is to fool fake skeptics. (Willis has always suffered from Surges in Overconfidence.)
Update: Apparently Pielke Jr has been taking potshots as usual.
