You’re sure right about heat transfer. One could see systems evolving suddenly into new regimes of energy allocation. We can even suppose that climate micro states evolve that way. The visual analogy is striking.

Imagine if heat transfer was involved. A small change in one aspect would create a huge change in energy movement, something that would be unexpected and unexplained.

They are likely worldwide and rely on elevated sensing (satellites or recon aircraft) for detection. Obviously, prior to modern satellites and routine recon flights, they went undetected.

One of the neat images of the tropics, a product of the satellite and computer era, is Earth moisture animation provided via Ryan. Click on the animation box. The red areas are those which have very high moisture content and are where tropical cyclones form (assuming other things are favorable). This type of technology has to have greatly helped forecasting in the tropics.

Regarding the animation, it’s important to note that the type of projection used greatly exaggerates the size of the polar regions. The tropics are considerably larger than the image indicates.

One other note on the animation – the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is the irregular string of red (high moisture, thunderstorms) which moves east to west near the equator. I’ve wondered what happens if, for some reason, the ITCZ has a net shift southward, such that more ITCZ moisture passes into the Amazon Basin and towards the Andes. Perhaps orographic lift and the daytime heating cycle wring more moisture (heat) from the ITCZ. That would cause warming of the troposphere but also remove heat from the ocean, similar to El Nino. Perhaps that enhanced cooling of the ocean slowly, ultimately cools the planet, as in an ice age.

Looks like a monster by Atlantic standards.

http://nationalhysteriacenter.blogspot.com/2008/01/ts-watch-alma.html

Home grown near Hawaii? Check.
Achieving closed form? Check.
Becoming convection driven? Check.
Likely to result in sustained 40 KT winds? Check.
Major rain maker? Check.

So, what would happen if this were in NATL instead of NEPAC? You know it baby, name it and claim it.

That I find amazing – but not surprising.

Me too.

Maybe we should try to organize all of these different “slices and dices” of the data into one document, lest we (I) forget. I’ll get with you and Bob offline about this.

Re #69

Bob K politely noted offline that I may have screwed up the data he sent to me, probably because I was watching American football at the time

I’ll be checking the graphs of #69 (probably while I again watch football) and may need to make changes.

David, since I have been using your original criterion of landfall/near landfall and duration of at least 24 hours for my Easy Detect storm category, I wanted to see how it compared to your criterion that was the same for landfall/near landfall criterion but used ACE greater than 1.0. I found a few years have slightly different numbers and usually differing by 1 count up or down. Using either criteria gives a very flat trend line of 0 TC count increase per century for the period 1900-2007 while the unadjusted total counts show an increasing trend between 5 and 6 counts per century over the same time period.

Your differences between storm counts of ACE less than 1.0 and equal to or greater than 1.0 shows a gradual trend upward much the same as when I plotted total counts minus Easy Detect counts over the same time period. I believe I have only seen Landsea address this issue of recent year sensitivity increases to naming TCs, but that has to be a significant part of the recent trend.

I also think that the gradually trending upward of total TC counts due to what apparently are increasing detection capabilities and/or sensitivity to naming TCs is what allows it to be more easily confounded with SST increases, but nonetheless I should do more analyses in that direction.

Combining these count analyses with the Bob Koss analyses of ACE indexes (showing at Post # 138 in the thread “YTD Hurricane Activity” that for the ACE index in two categories of storms from Land-300 miles and 301 miles-1100 miles for the time periods 1851-1902; 1903-1954 and 1955-2006 one can readily see that the Land-300 mile storms which should more readily detectable show a nearly zero trend over all time periods while the more distance storms show an increasing trend and in post #230 in the same thread, Bob Koss shows an ACE index split for -60 degrees longitude with the west side showing little or no trend and the east side an increasing trend) provides strong evidence that increasing detection capabilities and naming sensitivities leave little room for increasing SST having effects on storm counts, durations and intensities in the NATL over the past 100 plus years.

What I find puzzling is the lack of recognition of any of this evidence by those climate scientists who would appear to be attempting to make a connection between these TC properties and SST. Mann and Sabbatelli can call the evidence of a flat trend line for landfall TC events for changing detection capabilities “tenuous” while at the same time with straight faces use the dumb ships theory to rationalize against any significant changes in detection and naming sensitivities. That I find amazing – but not surprising.