THIS POST IS A CRITICAL REVIEW OF A YOUTUBE VIDEO THAT PRESENTS THE CASE THAT CLIMATE CHANGE MADE INDIAN OCEAN CYCLONES MORE ITENSE AND MORE DEADLY. THE VIDEO AND ITS TRANSCRIPT ARE PROVIDED BELOW.

TRANSCRIPT

May 23, 2021 was an unusual day for India’s capital Delhi. Delhi sizzles in the month of May with temperatures reaching 40C. But on that windy and rainy day, the temperature plunged to a level unheard of before. was only 24C. This was 16C below normal. Delhi’s pleasant weather happened because of a tragedy unfolding in the western coast of India in Gujarat where an extreme tropical cyclone softly made landfall. Cyclone Yaas soon followed from the Bay of Bengal an made landfall in the Eastern Coast. What is the reason behind these cyclones and what role does climate change play behind all the???poop???. The energy system of the cyclone takes the energy from the sea and distributes it into the atmosphere where the energy dissipates. After pouring a copious amount of rain on the states of Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, and Maharashtra Cyclone Tauktae brought tragedy to Gujarat with wind speeds of 170 to 185 km/hr. This was one of the deadliest storms to emerge out of the Arabian Sea. More than 104 people lost their lives and billions of dollars of property and infrastructure were damaged. Apart from the ferocity of Tauktae, there was another important charactristic that Tauktae displayed and that was Rapid Intensification. Rapid intensification has become common for stroms that have emerged out of the Indian Ocean that includes the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

So what is rapid intensification? Why is it so dangerous? And what are its links to climate change? According to the NOAA of the USA, rapid intensification is defined as an increase of wind speed by 55km/yr within a period of 24 hours. In the case of Cyclone Tauktae, these changes were indeed drastic. Tauktae chaned from a depression to a cyclonic storm in about 48 hours. This is an extreme anomaly in cyclones where this transition normally takes 4 to 5 days. The first Indian Ocean cyclone that rapidly intensified was cyclone Okhi that killed 300 people in Tamil Nadu and Kerala in November and December of 2017. Okhi had changed from a deep depression to a cyclonic storm in just 24 hours. Depressions carry a windspeed of 50 to 60km/hr while a severe cyclonic storm can get up to 170km/hr.

The latest example of a cyclone flexing its muscles was Cyclone Amphanin 2020 which rapidly intensified from 140 to 270km/hrin just 18 hours making it the most powerful cyclone over the Bay of Bengal. Similar rapid intensification is also seen in Cyclone Titli. of 2018 and Cyclone Vayu of 2019.

So why are cyclones intensifying so rapidly? The answer is human induced climate change. The WMO has already warned us that Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) could cross the 1.5C threshhold by 2026 – much earlier than predicted. But most of the heating of the planet is absorbed by the ocean. The WMO “state of the State of the Global Climate 2020 report says that 90% of the heat accumulated on the planet has been absorbed by th ocean. Scientists have also been able to rcord the ???? across all oceans. But the worrying news is that oceans have heated up rapidly at depths of zero to 2000 meters. The WMO report states that the zero to 2000 meter depth of the ocean set a new temperature record preliminary observations show that 2020 wll be even hotter. As the ocean warms, the earth finds more energy and the cyclone goes lower and intensifies faster.

So why does all this matter? What are the links to the barrage of cyclones hitting India? Here is the answer. Cyclones and hurricanes are are becoming more intense and more frequent due to ocean heating. In 2018 and 2019 the Northern Hemisphere had 72 tropical cyclones much higher than the average of 59. They are also more powerful. The Southern Hemisphere had 27 cyclones in 2018-2019 the highest since 2007-2008. The South Indian Ocean had 18 cyclones of which 13 reached Hurricane levels. The North Indian Ocean saw at least 3 cyclones with windspeeds in excess of 100km/hr and set a record. Thee Arabian Sea saw a dramatic rise in cyclones In 2019, 5 of the 8 cyclones that hit India emerged from the Arabian Sea. Th Western Part of the Indian Ocean is warming faster.

CRITICAL COMMENTARY

ITEM#1: Since the NOAA is cited we would like to point out the NOAA position on the measure of the impact of gobal warming on tropical cyclones. This position is spelled out in the now famous paper Knutson etal 2010. The abstract of this research paper is presented below in item#2. In the context of this clearly stated position of climate science and of the NOAA on what constitutes empirical evidence of the impact of global warming on tropical cyclones, what we see in the arguments presented above for “climate change as a driver of the barrage of cyclones hitting India” is that it has violated every requirement in the climate science position in this issue. The arguments presented above as emprical evidence of the impact of global warming on tropical cyclones are rejected on this basis.

ITEM#2: KNUTSON ETAL 2010: Tropical cyclones and climate change.” Nature geoscience 3.3 (2010): 157-163. In the paper, Tom Knutson spells out exactly what climate science claims in terms of the impact of AGW climate change on tropical cyclones with climate model predictions of the effect of rising SST on tropical cyclones. His main points are as follows: (1) Globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones will rise as AGW increases SST. Models predict globally averaged intensity increase of 2% to 11% by 2100. (2). Models predict falling globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones with frequency decreasing 6%-34% by 2100. (3). The globally averaged frequency of “most intense tropical cyclones” should increase as a result of AGW. The intensity of tropical cyclones is measured as the ACE (Accumulated Cyclone Energy). (4). Models predict increase in precipitation within a 100 km radius of the storm center. A precipitation rise of 20% is projected for the year 2100. (5) Extremely high variance in tropical cyclone data at an annual time scale suggests longer, perhaps a decadal time scale which in turn greatly reduces statistical power. (6) Model projections for individual cyclone basins show large differences and conflicting results. Thus, no testable implication can be derived for studies of individual basins.

ITEM#3: In our list of tropical cyclones of the pre-industrial era: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/04/1737/ We note spcifically that The Hooghly River Cyclone of 1737 in India is recorded as one of deadliest natural disasters of all time. The cyclone did widespread damage to the low lying areas in the region. Early in the morning on October 11, 1737, a large cyclone made landfall inside the Ganges River Delta, located just south of Calcutta, West Bengal, India. The cyclone caused a storm surge 10-13 m (30-40 ft) in the Ganges with a reported 381 mm (15 in) of rain falling in a 6-hour period. The storm tracked 330 km (200 mi) inland before dissipating. In the city of Calcutta, the majority of structures, which were mostly made of mud with straw roofs, were destroyed, with many brick structures also damaged beyond repair. A spire on the St. Anne’s church reportedly sunk and listed to side, and was not approved for repair until 1751. The East India Company’s records report 3,000 deaths occurring in Calcutta alone. In the Ganges, 8 out of 9 boats were lost along with most of their crews, and 3 out of 4 Dutch ships also went down. Overall the cyclone reportedly destroyed 20,000 water going vessels, ranging from ocean worthy ships to canoes, and killed 300,000 to 350,000 individuals, likely including ships’ crews as well as the local populations in low-lying Bengal. India’s Ganges River Delta is prone to tropical cyclones. Additional cyclones with death tolls reported over 10,000 people struck again in 1787, 1789, 1822, 1833, 1839, 1864, 1876, and later.

ITEM#4: LIST OF POSTS ON TROPICAL CYCLONES: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/01/30/list-of-posts-on-tropical-cyclones/ Other famous tropical cyclones in India that far outdoes anything in the climate change era are the Coringa Cyclone of 1839 and the Bhola cyclone of 1970. The Coringa Cyclone of 1839: Coringa, India is a small village situated near the mouth of the Godavari River on the southeastern coast of India. It was once a bustling port city. In 1789, it was hit by a brutal cyclone that left some 20,000 dead. Though devastated, the port city was still able to function. On November 25, 1839, Coringa was slammed by a disastrous cyclone that delivered terrible winds and a giant 40 ft storm surge. The port was destroyed (some 20,000 vessels were lost) and 300,000 people were killed. The town was abandoned and never fully rebuilt. Today, Coringa remains a simple village. This storm caused the third largest loss of life from any tropical cyclone worldwide, tied with Vietnam’s 1881 Haiphong typhoon which also caused 300,000 fatalities. Storms in the Bay of Bengal actually account for seven of the 10 deadliest tropical cyclones in recorded history. The Bhola Cyclone of 1970: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/04/agwcyclones/ came during the 1970s global cooling period. The Bhola Cyclone of 1970:  The strongest and most destructive tropical cyclone of the post industrial era was the monster Bhola Cyclone [LINK][LINK]that killed half a million people in Bangladesh and it was in fact the storm that created the nation we now know as Bangladesh. It occurred in 1970 right in the middle of the 1970s cooling period[LINK]that had sparked fears of a return to Little Ice Age conditions[LINK] .

Other posts on tropical cyclones [LINK] [LINK] [LINK]

ITEM#5: In light of the data presented in items #3 and #4 we do not find the cyclone data presented above to present the kind of extraordinary strength and destructiveness implied in the presentation. That the author had to resort to variables like rapid intensification and how cold it was likely derives from the absence of substance in the claim of extreme tropical cyclone events.

The case made in the article reviewed here that there is a kind of climate change alarm in terms of the data for extreme tropical cyclone activity in the Indian Ocean, is not credible.

HUMAN CAUSE: THE REAL ISSUE HERE IS HUMAN CAUSE BECAUSE WITHOUT EVIDENCE OF HUMAN CAUSE OF THE WARMING TREND, WHATEVER IMPACTS THE WARMING MAY HAVE ARE ALL NATURAL.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/11/09/the-issue-is-human-cause/