All hell breaks loose

Ethon flew in from Boulder and dove straight into the hurricane shelter. Ms. Rabett went downstairs with some leberknoedel to try and coax him out of the corner. Reaching out with fearful claw he stammered that it started innocently at Real Climate with Bob Ward asking

Gavin, I know this is only tangential to this thread but do you have any comment on the new paper by Vecchi and Soden in GRL, which Chris Landsea is promoting as evidence both that the recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity is due to the AMO, and that global warming should reduce activity (because it increases windshear)?

Mike Mann was having none of it

I have no knowledge of (or frankly, interest in) what Chris Landsea may be saying about the paper, but I don't see this paper as changing the picture significantly. . . .(reasons inserted here). . .In short, the Emanuel (2005) study continues to stand on its merit, and I don't see where this paper puts even a dent in it. We may have more to say about this paper in the near future

Now you might ask why he was having none of it, and of course the reason was what Chris Landsea was pushing up the hill at the other place.

One implication to me is that this further provides evidence that the busy period we've seen in the Atlantic hurricanes since 1995 is due to natural cycles, rather than manmade causes. We've seen a big reduction in wind shear in the last thirteen hurricane seasons, which is OPPOSITE to the signal that Vecchi and Soden have linked to manmade global warming changes. Another implication is that this paper reconfirms earlier work that suggests that global warming will cause very small changes to Atlantic hurricanes, even several decades from now.

Chip Knappenberger poured oil on the fire at Real Climate,

I think we can surmise that driven by changes in anthropogenic forcings alone, the models simulations of the past 30 years would be trending in a similar direction as the model projections for the future, that is, vertical stability and wind shear should be increasing, at least over the tropical Atlantic. Adding non-anthropogenic forcings to the mix may, or may not, overwhelm these trends (they will if the models are getting things right, they wont if things in the models are still amiss). But assuming the case that the models aren't horribly wrong, non-anthropogenic influences must be largely responsible for the observed trends being in the direction that they area which is towards producing a more hospitable environment (that works along with SST increases) for tropical cyclone development and intensification.

Mike was showing signs of impatience

Chip, we'll permit this one comment, but since this is obviously not supposed to be the topic of this thread, we'll limit it at that. You seem to have missed the central point here. Emanuel (2005) shows that the warming SSTs are behind the increased TC intensity in the Atlantic. . . Future predictions of shear changes are interesting, but they have no bearing on this fairly simple logic

Which Chip went running back to the snack shop with

As far as I am concerned, Chris's comments re: Vecchi and Soden are right on the mark. We have detailed similar thoughts in depth a bit more at our usual spot Apparently, the boys over at RC aren't so inclined.

And, of course, our hero hied hisself over to RC to add

You are simply incorrect when you assert: "Emanuel (2005) shows that the warming SSTs are behind the increased TC intensity in the Atlantic. No impartial reading of that paper could come to any other conclusion."

[edited]

Comment by Roger Pielke, Jr. — 19 Apr 2007 @ 7:03 pm

Which, as they say, was the last piece of foie gras

Roger, we're not about cherry-picking sentences and out of context quotations here at RC, so you should take that somewhere else. Anybody who has studied the scientific issues involved well knows that SSTs in this context are a proxy for a more complex set of interconnected atmospheric environmental variables which tend to covary with it. We hardly need you to quote Emanuel for us. Figure 1 in Emanuel (2005) comparing SST and TC Power Dissipation in the tropical Atlantic speaks for itself, you might want to take another look. If we do an article on Hurricanes in the near future, you're free to engage in the discussion. But that's not the topic of this post, so we're going to close it out with this. -mike]

Looks like RC has adopted Kevin Drum's comment policy as amended.

If I or my bunnies get sufficiently annoyed with you, we will delete your comments. If you don't like it, tough.

Pass the popcorn.

UPDATE: Well, as Ethon feared Roger is playing little brother, you know the one, having picked, picked picked, is crying that someone slammed the door of their room and included him out. Pretty much the same stuff as in this post, with the addition of the ""censored material""(double scare quotes) and with an interesting comment

I don't much read RealClimate anymore

Considering that Technorati has the other place at 15,000 or so, and Real Climate at 800, Eli doth see the glint of envy, considering that Roger pretty much invented the climate blogging business. Ethon and Eli enjoyed the reaction of Roger and the gang. Maybe he will go and start his own blog? Roger could guest over here at the 71000 most popular place. . . . . . Nah