![ChrisMartzWX's tweet photo. Stronger hurricanes? Longer droughts? Heavier rainfall?
Sounds pretty scary, but these claims are misleading or outright false.
𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐒?
There is very little evidence to support the claim that tropical cyclones (TCs) are becoming measurably stronger. Klotzbach et al. (2022) examined data from 1990–2021 (homogenous satellite monitoring) and found decreases in both global hurricane-strength TC counts and accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) over that period. Also, major hurricane-strength TCs have not increased in frequency since 1990. If global warming were causing an increase in intensity, there'd be more major hurricanes (MHs) and higher ACE. These trends have continued into 2025 (top left charts).
🔗https://t.co/PWeGmQeRpL
🔗https://t.co/MQ9mYK57Er
The IPCC claims, however, that a “greater proportion” of TCs are now reaching MH status.
🔗https://t.co/kF3DUrSi51 (p. 1519, 1586)
This is very deceptive framing, however, because the increase in the ratio of MHs to total hurricanes only exists because the [more common] weaker hurricanes have decreased in frequency while comparatively rarer major hurricanes have remained fairly constant (e.g., Jewson & Lewis, 2020)
🔗https://t.co/uJIpXwzJ1h
What about rapid intensification (RI)? Well, the global number of RI events (defined as a ≥30-kt OR 35 mph increase in the maximum sustained wind speed in ≤24 hours) have been fairly constant since 1990 as well, according to the Supporting Information document in Klotzbach et al. (2022). These trends have continued since the study was published (top right bar chart).
Increases in Atlantic TC activity (especially post-1995) are mainly due to multidecadal variability. NOAA GFDL's Dr. Thom Knutson has a very good webpage detailing that.
🔗https://t.co/wu0ZWtaWj9
𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒?
Changes in drought frequency and intensity over the last several decades are nuanced.
Here's what IPCC AR6 WG1 says on detection,
🗨️ “𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠... 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒖𝒎 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡... 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔... 𝐻𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛-𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙-𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑤, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅-𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔.”
🔗https://t.co/kF3DUrSi51 (p. 1579)
A more recent analysis, Vicente-Serrano et al. (2022), concluded similarly, saying,
🗨️ “𝑨 𝒈𝒍𝒐𝒃𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑠, 𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑎 𝑓𝑒𝑤 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠.”
🔗 https://t.co/IwWv6qObTy
Instrumental data from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) shows that these conclusions hold through at least 2024 (see bottom left area chart).
🔗https://t.co/9dNRQEJ10f
Additionally, changes in hydrological droughts were found not to be due to climate change, but instead were related to other man-made influences such as land use and poor water resource management (Vicente-Serrano et al., 2022),
🗨️ “𝑰𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝒉𝒚𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑠 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 (𝑒.𝑔., 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎, 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐵𝑟𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑙).”
𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋?
The theoretical foundation pushed by alarmists is the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) relation, which essentially states that about 7% more water can evaporate into unsaturated air (relative humidity <100%) for every 1°C increase in air temperature.
This much is true. But this nugget of truth is blindly extrapolated to mean uniformly heavier downpours. The problem, though, is that CC tells us nothing about rainfall rate, much less how much rain falls out of a given cloud. It also does not work very well over land areas where moisture sources are finite and there are topographic influences that can act to enhance or suppress rainfall (e.g., Adam, 2023).
🔗https://t.co/14YgpLQud8
A major study by Simpson et al. published in PNAS in 2024 found that in many arid and semi-arid regions (which cover vast areas of the globe), near-surface water vapor has not increased in recent decades (it has even declined in some places) contrary to nearly all climate model simulations in CMIP6 assuming near-CC scaling.
🔗https://t.co/0ovM0rXuMt
In the U.S., apparent increases in heavy rainfall are heavily contaminated by non-climatic factors. Dr. David Legates has documented how shifts in meteorological instrumentation have created artificial jumps in extreme precipitation records.
Between 1992 and 1995, NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) began a modernization program, switching from hourly precipitation measurements taken manually from rain gauges to using Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS), which sought to provide near-real-time observations automatically without manual labor. They adopted “tipping-bucket” rain gauges which measure rainfall by collecting water in a small bucket that tips and empties once a fixed amount of precipitation has accumulated.
🔗https://t.co/bTcShQGr2t
While convenient for automation, “tipping-bucket” gauges are known to introduce systematic biases, particularly during periods of intense rainfall.
1⃣ They are known to lose some rainfall during intense downpours because water continues falling while the bucket is in the process of tipping and resetting.
To compensate, the NWS usually applies increasingly large adjustments as rainfall intensity rises. However, if these correction factors do not accurately represent the behavior of the gauge during extreme events, they may inadvertently exaggerate the magnitude of the heaviest precipitation totals.
2⃣ Newer ASOS gauges also use Alter windshields, which reduce wind-induced undercatch by shielding the gauge opening from airflow. Because wind tends to deflect raindrops away from precipitation gauges, the addition of windshields increases collection efficiency and generally results in higher recorded precipitation amounts than older unshielded manual gauges.
🔗https://t.co/WC2zJ4TJ76
If you examine the number of days with daily rainfall exceeding the 99th percentile (top 1% heaviest events) per year (averaged per station), there is a spurious jump in the early 1990s that coincides with changes in instrumentation to more efficient rain gauges (bottom right graph). If this were purely a climatic artifact, the increase would be steadily upward, not sudden.
It is very likely that this trend exists elsewhere too as automated instrumentation has taken over, although daily data is spatially limited, especially in Africa and much of South America.
Seth needs to do more homework. This wasn't a very good, much less accurate presentation.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HJ7KXsFXwAA55Qp.jpg)
![ChrisMartzWX's tweet photo. Stronger hurricanes? Longer droughts? Heavier rainfall?
Sounds pretty scary, but these claims are misleading or outright false.
𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐒?
There is very little evidence to support the claim that tropical cyclones (TCs) are becoming measurably stronger. Klotzbach et al. (2022) examined data from 1990–2021 (homogenous satellite monitoring) and found decreases in both global hurricane-strength TC counts and accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) over that period. Also, major hurricane-strength TCs have not increased in frequency since 1990. If global warming were causing an increase in intensity, there'd be more major hurricanes (MHs) and higher ACE. These trends have continued into 2025 (top left charts).
🔗https://t.co/PWeGmQeRpL
🔗https://t.co/MQ9mYK57Er
The IPCC claims, however, that a “greater proportion” of TCs are now reaching MH status.
🔗https://t.co/kF3DUrSi51 (p. 1519, 1586)
This is very deceptive framing, however, because the increase in the ratio of MHs to total hurricanes only exists because the [more common] weaker hurricanes have decreased in frequency while comparatively rarer major hurricanes have remained fairly constant (e.g., Jewson & Lewis, 2020)
🔗https://t.co/uJIpXwzJ1h
What about rapid intensification (RI)? Well, the global number of RI events (defined as a ≥30-kt OR 35 mph increase in the maximum sustained wind speed in ≤24 hours) have been fairly constant since 1990 as well, according to the Supporting Information document in Klotzbach et al. (2022). These trends have continued since the study was published (top right bar chart).
Increases in Atlantic TC activity (especially post-1995) are mainly due to multidecadal variability. NOAA GFDL's Dr. Thom Knutson has a very good webpage detailing that.
🔗https://t.co/wu0ZWtaWj9
𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒?
Changes in drought frequency and intensity over the last several decades are nuanced.
Here's what IPCC AR6 WG1 says on detection,
🗨️ “𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠... 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒖𝒎 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡... 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔... 𝐻𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛-𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙-𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑤, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅-𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔.”
🔗https://t.co/kF3DUrSi51 (p. 1579)
A more recent analysis, Vicente-Serrano et al. (2022), concluded similarly, saying,
🗨️ “𝑨 𝒈𝒍𝒐𝒃𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑠, 𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑎 𝑓𝑒𝑤 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠.”
🔗 https://t.co/IwWv6qObTy
Instrumental data from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) shows that these conclusions hold through at least 2024 (see bottom left area chart).
🔗https://t.co/9dNRQEJ10f
Additionally, changes in hydrological droughts were found not to be due to climate change, but instead were related to other man-made influences such as land use and poor water resource management (Vicente-Serrano et al., 2022),
🗨️ “𝑰𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝒉𝒚𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑠 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 (𝑒.𝑔., 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎, 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐵𝑟𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑙).”
𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋?
The theoretical foundation pushed by alarmists is the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) relation, which essentially states that about 7% more water can evaporate into unsaturated air (relative humidity <100%) for every 1°C increase in air temperature.
This much is true. But this nugget of truth is blindly extrapolated to mean uniformly heavier downpours. The problem, though, is that CC tells us nothing about rainfall rate, much less how much rain falls out of a given cloud. It also does not work very well over land areas where moisture sources are finite and there are topographic influences that can act to enhance or suppress rainfall (e.g., Adam, 2023).
🔗https://t.co/14YgpLQud8
A major study by Simpson et al. published in PNAS in 2024 found that in many arid and semi-arid regions (which cover vast areas of the globe), near-surface water vapor has not increased in recent decades (it has even declined in some places) contrary to nearly all climate model simulations in CMIP6 assuming near-CC scaling.
🔗https://t.co/0ovM0rXuMt
In the U.S., apparent increases in heavy rainfall are heavily contaminated by non-climatic factors. Dr. David Legates has documented how shifts in meteorological instrumentation have created artificial jumps in extreme precipitation records.
Between 1992 and 1995, NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) began a modernization program, switching from hourly precipitation measurements taken manually from rain gauges to using Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS), which sought to provide near-real-time observations automatically without manual labor. They adopted “tipping-bucket” rain gauges which measure rainfall by collecting water in a small bucket that tips and empties once a fixed amount of precipitation has accumulated.
🔗https://t.co/bTcShQGr2t
While convenient for automation, “tipping-bucket” gauges are known to introduce systematic biases, particularly during periods of intense rainfall.
1⃣ They are known to lose some rainfall during intense downpours because water continues falling while the bucket is in the process of tipping and resetting.
To compensate, the NWS usually applies increasingly large adjustments as rainfall intensity rises. However, if these correction factors do not accurately represent the behavior of the gauge during extreme events, they may inadvertently exaggerate the magnitude of the heaviest precipitation totals.
2⃣ Newer ASOS gauges also use Alter windshields, which reduce wind-induced undercatch by shielding the gauge opening from airflow. Because wind tends to deflect raindrops away from precipitation gauges, the addition of windshields increases collection efficiency and generally results in higher recorded precipitation amounts than older unshielded manual gauges.
🔗https://t.co/WC2zJ4TJ76
If you examine the number of days with daily rainfall exceeding the 99th percentile (top 1% heaviest events) per year (averaged per station), there is a spurious jump in the early 1990s that coincides with changes in instrumentation to more efficient rain gauges (bottom right graph). If this were purely a climatic artifact, the increase would be steadily upward, not sudden.
It is very likely that this trend exists elsewhere too as automated instrumentation has taken over, although daily data is spatially limited, especially in Africa and much of South America.
Seth needs to do more homework. This wasn't a very good, much less accurate presentation.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HJ7KW6sXMAEf8YM.png)
![ChrisMartzWX's tweet photo. Stronger hurricanes? Longer droughts? Heavier rainfall?
Sounds pretty scary, but these claims are misleading or outright false.
𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐒?
There is very little evidence to support the claim that tropical cyclones (TCs) are becoming measurably stronger. Klotzbach et al. (2022) examined data from 1990–2021 (homogenous satellite monitoring) and found decreases in both global hurricane-strength TC counts and accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) over that period. Also, major hurricane-strength TCs have not increased in frequency since 1990. If global warming were causing an increase in intensity, there'd be more major hurricanes (MHs) and higher ACE. These trends have continued into 2025 (top left charts).
🔗https://t.co/PWeGmQeRpL
🔗https://t.co/MQ9mYK57Er
The IPCC claims, however, that a “greater proportion” of TCs are now reaching MH status.
🔗https://t.co/kF3DUrSi51 (p. 1519, 1586)
This is very deceptive framing, however, because the increase in the ratio of MHs to total hurricanes only exists because the [more common] weaker hurricanes have decreased in frequency while comparatively rarer major hurricanes have remained fairly constant (e.g., Jewson & Lewis, 2020)
🔗https://t.co/uJIpXwzJ1h
What about rapid intensification (RI)? Well, the global number of RI events (defined as a ≥30-kt OR 35 mph increase in the maximum sustained wind speed in ≤24 hours) have been fairly constant since 1990 as well, according to the Supporting Information document in Klotzbach et al. (2022). These trends have continued since the study was published (top right bar chart).
Increases in Atlantic TC activity (especially post-1995) are mainly due to multidecadal variability. NOAA GFDL's Dr. Thom Knutson has a very good webpage detailing that.
🔗https://t.co/wu0ZWtaWj9
𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒?
Changes in drought frequency and intensity over the last several decades are nuanced.
Here's what IPCC AR6 WG1 says on detection,
🗨️ “𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠... 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒖𝒎 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡... 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔... 𝐻𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛-𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙-𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑤, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅-𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔.”
🔗https://t.co/kF3DUrSi51 (p. 1579)
A more recent analysis, Vicente-Serrano et al. (2022), concluded similarly, saying,
🗨️ “𝑨 𝒈𝒍𝒐𝒃𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑠, 𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑎 𝑓𝑒𝑤 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠.”
🔗 https://t.co/IwWv6qObTy
Instrumental data from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) shows that these conclusions hold through at least 2024 (see bottom left area chart).
🔗https://t.co/9dNRQEJ10f
Additionally, changes in hydrological droughts were found not to be due to climate change, but instead were related to other man-made influences such as land use and poor water resource management (Vicente-Serrano et al., 2022),
🗨️ “𝑰𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝒉𝒚𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑠 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 (𝑒.𝑔., 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎, 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐵𝑟𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑙).”
𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋?
The theoretical foundation pushed by alarmists is the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) relation, which essentially states that about 7% more water can evaporate into unsaturated air (relative humidity <100%) for every 1°C increase in air temperature.
This much is true. But this nugget of truth is blindly extrapolated to mean uniformly heavier downpours. The problem, though, is that CC tells us nothing about rainfall rate, much less how much rain falls out of a given cloud. It also does not work very well over land areas where moisture sources are finite and there are topographic influences that can act to enhance or suppress rainfall (e.g., Adam, 2023).
🔗https://t.co/14YgpLQud8
A major study by Simpson et al. published in PNAS in 2024 found that in many arid and semi-arid regions (which cover vast areas of the globe), near-surface water vapor has not increased in recent decades (it has even declined in some places) contrary to nearly all climate model simulations in CMIP6 assuming near-CC scaling.
🔗https://t.co/0ovM0rXuMt
In the U.S., apparent increases in heavy rainfall are heavily contaminated by non-climatic factors. Dr. David Legates has documented how shifts in meteorological instrumentation have created artificial jumps in extreme precipitation records.
Between 1992 and 1995, NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) began a modernization program, switching from hourly precipitation measurements taken manually from rain gauges to using Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS), which sought to provide near-real-time observations automatically without manual labor. They adopted “tipping-bucket” rain gauges which measure rainfall by collecting water in a small bucket that tips and empties once a fixed amount of precipitation has accumulated.
🔗https://t.co/bTcShQGr2t
While convenient for automation, “tipping-bucket” gauges are known to introduce systematic biases, particularly during periods of intense rainfall.
1⃣ They are known to lose some rainfall during intense downpours because water continues falling while the bucket is in the process of tipping and resetting.
To compensate, the NWS usually applies increasingly large adjustments as rainfall intensity rises. However, if these correction factors do not accurately represent the behavior of the gauge during extreme events, they may inadvertently exaggerate the magnitude of the heaviest precipitation totals.
2⃣ Newer ASOS gauges also use Alter windshields, which reduce wind-induced undercatch by shielding the gauge opening from airflow. Because wind tends to deflect raindrops away from precipitation gauges, the addition of windshields increases collection efficiency and generally results in higher recorded precipitation amounts than older unshielded manual gauges.
🔗https://t.co/WC2zJ4TJ76
If you examine the number of days with daily rainfall exceeding the 99th percentile (top 1% heaviest events) per year (averaged per station), there is a spurious jump in the early 1990s that coincides with changes in instrumentation to more efficient rain gauges (bottom right graph). If this were purely a climatic artifact, the increase would be steadily upward, not sudden.
It is very likely that this trend exists elsewhere too as automated instrumentation has taken over, although daily data is spatially limited, especially in Africa and much of South America.
Seth needs to do more homework. This wasn't a very good, much less accurate presentation.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HJ7KVzmXoAAlMz7.png)
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Stronger hurricanes? Longer droughts? Heavier rainfall?
Sounds pretty scary, but these claims are misleading or outright false.
𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐒?
There is very little evidence to support the claim that tropical cyclones (TCs) are becoming measurably stronger. Klotzbach et al. (2022) examined data from 1990–2021 (homogenous satellite monitoring) and found decreases in both global hurricane-strength TC counts and accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) over that period. Also, major hurricane-strength TCs have not increased in frequency since 1990. If global warming were causing an increase in intensity, there'd be more major hurricanes (MHs) and higher ACE. These trends have continued into 2025 (top left charts).
🔗https://t.co/PWeGmQeRpL
🔗https://t.co/MQ9mYK57Er
The IPCC claims, however, that a “greater proportion” of TCs are now reaching MH status.
🔗https://t.co/kF3DUrSi51 (p. 1519, 1586)
This is very deceptive framing, however, because the increase in the ratio of MHs to total hurricanes only exists because the [more common] weaker hurricanes have decreased in frequency while comparatively rarer major hurricanes have remained fairly constant (e.g., Jewson & Lewis, 2020)
🔗https://t.co/uJIpXwzJ1h
What about rapid intensification (RI)? Well, the global number of RI events (defined as a ≥30-kt OR 35 mph increase in the maximum sustained wind speed in ≤24 hours) have been fairly constant since 1990 as well, according to the Supporting Information document in Klotzbach et al. (2022). These trends have continued since the study was published (top right bar chart).
Increases in Atlantic TC activity (especially post-1995) are mainly due to multidecadal variability. NOAA GFDL's Dr. Thom Knutson has a very good webpage detailing that.
🔗https://t.co/wu0ZWtaWj9
𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒?
Changes in drought frequency and intensity over the last several decades are nuanced.
Here's what IPCC AR6 WG1 says on detection,
🗨️ “𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠... 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒖𝒎 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡... 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔... 𝐻𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛-𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙-𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑤, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅-𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔.”
🔗https://t.co/kF3DUrSi51 (p. 1579)
A more recent analysis, Vicente-Serrano et al. (2022), concluded similarly, saying,
🗨️ “𝑨 𝒈𝒍𝒐𝒃𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑠, 𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑎 𝑓𝑒𝑤 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠.”
🔗 https://t.co/IwWv6qObTy
Instrumental data from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) shows that these conclusions hold through at least 2024 (see bottom left area chart).
🔗https://t.co/9dNRQEJ10f
Additionally, changes in hydrological droughts were found not to be due to climate change, but instead were related to other man-made influences such as land use and poor water resource management (Vicente-Serrano et al., 2022),
🗨️ “𝑰𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝒉𝒚𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑠 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 (𝑒.𝑔., 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎, 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐵𝑟𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑙).”
𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋?
The theoretical foundation pushed by alarmists is the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) relation, which essentially states that about 7% more water can evaporate into unsaturated air (relative humidity <100%) for every 1°C increase in air temperature.
This much is true. But this nugget of truth is blindly extrapolated to mean uniformly heavier downpours. The problem, though, is that CC tells us nothing about rainfall rate, much less how much rain falls out of a given cloud. It also does not work very well over land areas where moisture sources are finite and there are topographic influences that can act to enhance or suppress rainfall (e.g., Adam, 2023).
🔗https://t.co/14YgpLQud8
A major study by Simpson et al. published in PNAS in 2024 found that in many arid and semi-arid regions (which cover vast areas of the globe), near-surface water vapor has not increased in recent decades (it has even declined in some places) contrary to nearly all climate model simulations in CMIP6 assuming near-CC scaling.
🔗https://t.co/0ovM0rXuMt
In the U.S., apparent increases in heavy rainfall are heavily contaminated by non-climatic factors. Dr. David Legates has documented how shifts in meteorological instrumentation have created artificial jumps in extreme precipitation records.
Between 1992 and 1995, NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) began a modernization program, switching from hourly precipitation measurements taken manually from rain gauges to using Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS), which sought to provide near-real-time observations automatically without manual labor. They adopted “tipping-bucket” rain gauges which measure rainfall by collecting water in a small bucket that tips and empties once a fixed amount of precipitation has accumulated.
🔗https://t.co/bTcShQGr2t
While convenient for automation, “tipping-bucket” gauges are known to introduce systematic biases, particularly during periods of intense rainfall.
1⃣ They are known to lose some rainfall during intense downpours because water continues falling while the bucket is in the process of tipping and resetting.
To compensate, the NWS usually applies increasingly large adjustments as rainfall intensity rises. However, if these correction factors do not accurately represent the behavior of the gauge during extreme events, they may inadvertently exaggerate the magnitude of the heaviest precipitation totals.
2⃣ Newer ASOS gauges also use Alter windshields, which reduce wind-induced undercatch by shielding the gauge opening from airflow. Because wind tends to deflect raindrops away from precipitation gauges, the addition of windshields increases collection efficiency and generally results in higher recorded precipitation amounts than older unshielded manual gauges.
🔗https://t.co/WC2zJ4TJ76
If you examine the number of days with daily rainfall exceeding the 99th percentile (top 1% heaviest events) per year (averaged per station), there is a spurious jump in the early 1990s that coincides with changes in instrumentation to more efficient rain gauges (bottom right graph). If this were purely a climatic artifact, the increase would be steadily upward, not sudden.
It is very likely that this trend exists elsewhere too as automated instrumentation has taken over, although daily data is spatially limited, especially in Africa and much of South America.
Seth needs to do more homework. This wasn't a very good, much less accurate presentation.
![ChrisMartzWX's tweet photo. Stronger hurricanes? Longer droughts? Heavier rainfall?
Sounds pretty scary, but these claims are misleading or outright false.
𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐒?
There is very little evidence to support the claim that tropical cyclones (TCs) are becoming measurably stronger. Klotzbach et al. (2022) examined data from 1990–2021 (homogenous satellite monitoring) and found decreases in both global hurricane-strength TC counts and accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) over that period. Also, major hurricane-strength TCs have not increased in frequency since 1990. If global warming were causing an increase in intensity, there'd be more major hurricanes (MHs) and higher ACE. These trends have continued into 2025 (top left charts).
🔗https://t.co/PWeGmQeRpL
🔗https://t.co/MQ9mYK57Er
The IPCC claims, however, that a “greater proportion” of TCs are now reaching MH status.
🔗https://t.co/kF3DUrSi51 (p. 1519, 1586)
This is very deceptive framing, however, because the increase in the ratio of MHs to total hurricanes only exists because the [more common] weaker hurricanes have decreased in frequency while comparatively rarer major hurricanes have remained fairly constant (e.g., Jewson & Lewis, 2020)
🔗https://t.co/uJIpXwzJ1h
What about rapid intensification (RI)? Well, the global number of RI events (defined as a ≥30-kt OR 35 mph increase in the maximum sustained wind speed in ≤24 hours) have been fairly constant since 1990 as well, according to the Supporting Information document in Klotzbach et al. (2022). These trends have continued since the study was published (top right bar chart).
Increases in Atlantic TC activity (especially post-1995) are mainly due to multidecadal variability. NOAA GFDL's Dr. Thom Knutson has a very good webpage detailing that.
🔗https://t.co/wu0ZWtaWj9
𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒?
Changes in drought frequency and intensity over the last several decades are nuanced.
Here's what IPCC AR6 WG1 says on detection,
🗨️ “𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠... 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒖𝒎 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡... 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔... 𝐻𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛-𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙-𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑤, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅-𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔.”
🔗https://t.co/kF3DUrSi51 (p. 1579)
A more recent analysis, Vicente-Serrano et al. (2022), concluded similarly, saying,
🗨️ “𝑨 𝒈𝒍𝒐𝒃𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑠, 𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑎 𝑓𝑒𝑤 𝑟𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠.”
🔗 https://t.co/IwWv6qObTy
Instrumental data from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) shows that these conclusions hold through at least 2024 (see bottom left area chart).
🔗https://t.co/9dNRQEJ10f
Additionally, changes in hydrological droughts were found not to be due to climate change, but instead were related to other man-made influences such as land use and poor water resource management (Vicente-Serrano et al., 2022),
🗨️ “𝑰𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝒉𝒚𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑠 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 (𝑒.𝑔., 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎, 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐵𝑟𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑙).”
𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋?
The theoretical foundation pushed by alarmists is the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) relation, which essentially states that about 7% more water can evaporate into unsaturated air (relative humidity <100%) for every 1°C increase in air temperature.
This much is true. But this nugget of truth is blindly extrapolated to mean uniformly heavier downpours. The problem, though, is that CC tells us nothing about rainfall rate, much less how much rain falls out of a given cloud. It also does not work very well over land areas where moisture sources are finite and there are topographic influences that can act to enhance or suppress rainfall (e.g., Adam, 2023).
🔗https://t.co/14YgpLQud8
A major study by Simpson et al. published in PNAS in 2024 found that in many arid and semi-arid regions (which cover vast areas of the globe), near-surface water vapor has not increased in recent decades (it has even declined in some places) contrary to nearly all climate model simulations in CMIP6 assuming near-CC scaling.
🔗https://t.co/0ovM0rXuMt
In the U.S., apparent increases in heavy rainfall are heavily contaminated by non-climatic factors. Dr. David Legates has documented how shifts in meteorological instrumentation have created artificial jumps in extreme precipitation records.
Between 1992 and 1995, NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) began a modernization program, switching from hourly precipitation measurements taken manually from rain gauges to using Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS), which sought to provide near-real-time observations automatically without manual labor. They adopted “tipping-bucket” rain gauges which measure rainfall by collecting water in a small bucket that tips and empties once a fixed amount of precipitation has accumulated.
🔗https://t.co/bTcShQGr2t
While convenient for automation, “tipping-bucket” gauges are known to introduce systematic biases, particularly during periods of intense rainfall.
1⃣ They are known to lose some rainfall during intense downpours because water continues falling while the bucket is in the process of tipping and resetting.
To compensate, the NWS usually applies increasingly large adjustments as rainfall intensity rises. However, if these correction factors do not accurately represent the behavior of the gauge during extreme events, they may inadvertently exaggerate the magnitude of the heaviest precipitation totals.
2⃣ Newer ASOS gauges also use Alter windshields, which reduce wind-induced undercatch by shielding the gauge opening from airflow. Because wind tends to deflect raindrops away from precipitation gauges, the addition of windshields increases collection efficiency and generally results in higher recorded precipitation amounts than older unshielded manual gauges.
🔗https://t.co/WC2zJ4TJ76
If you examine the number of days with daily rainfall exceeding the 99th percentile (top 1% heaviest events) per year (averaged per station), there is a spurious jump in the early 1990s that coincides with changes in instrumentation to more efficient rain gauges (bottom right graph). If this were purely a climatic artifact, the increase would be steadily upward, not sudden.
It is very likely that this trend exists elsewhere too as automated instrumentation has taken over, although daily data is spatially limited, especially in Africa and much of South America.
Seth needs to do more homework. This wasn't a very good, much less accurate presentation.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HJ7KYjQWAAAZhAg.jpg)
There is documented evidence of animal abuse by homeless people in Los Angeles. What has @KarenBassLA Mayor actually DONE ABOUT IT?
To this precious angel that was found in a trash can on Skid Row last year, so far 150,000 people in your city is shouting your story out from the rooftops and saying enough is fucking enough.
@SenSanders https://t.co/tYlPDfVqp9
Since the 1980s, the Sahara has shrunk by roughly 8%. Satellite data show widespread greening, a pattern that is playing out across the planet.
Around 50% of Earth's vegetated land has become significantly greener, an area roughly three times the size of the United States.
The dominant driver is not rainfall or land use change, it is rising atmospheric CO2.
Higher CO2 lets plants photosynthesize more efficiently, they lose less water, they tolerate heat and dryness better.
The effect is strongest along desert margins, across the Sahel, the Middle East, Australia's interior and the southern edge of the Sahara.
Rising CO2 is making the deserts, and the planet as a whole, greener.
@SenSanders CUT THE B S
You’re seeking political leverage with this issue just like Al Gore has.
You guys, since the 1970’s, have said we’re a decade, or so, away from doom
https://t.co/Zqvr6aC6Yd
@cwebbonline Believe here in Merit coming from either party
Voted for:
Hilton (R) Governor
Tubbs (D) Lt. Governor
Huffman (N. Bay Area) (D) Congress
Lucan (Marin Co.) (D) State Assembly
Gates (R) Attorney General
Howell (R) Insurance Commissioner
Santa Ynez Reservoir still empty 18 months after the Palisades Fire
Mayor Karen Bass doesn’t care
#LosAngeles
@XavierBecerra 👎 👎 I feel it in my Bones
Seven properties, a Mercedes G-Wagon, sneakers worn by Kobe Bryant and a Mickey Mantle rookie card worth $1.5 million. All of these things were bought with taxpayer money.
Paul Randall pleaded guilty in one of the largest Medicaid fraud schemes in the California history – diverting more than $270 million in tax dollars.
@XavierBecerra @miabonta is complicit in Fraud activities by attempting to deny @nickshirleyy his right to act as a public citizen and journalist exposing theft of public resources
The 1st amendment clearly protects the rights of those who speak out
https://t.co/91Fs6AMRhB
TOM STEYER CHEERS BIOLOGICAL BOY STEALING GIRLS TRACK TITLES IN CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR RACE
Tom Steyer is proudly standing with a biological male dominating girls high school track and field as he runs for California governor.
In a video he shared on X, Steyer praised AB Hernandez, a senior biological boy at Jurupa Valley High School who won two girls state titles last year in high jump and triple jump.
“I’m so proud of you for what you’re doing,” Steyer told the athlete. “So proud of you for succeeding. So proud of you for competing. That’s really the point. And I’m going to hope like heck that you don’t just make state but you do really well there. Deal?”
Steyer framed it as protecting Californians, saying the governor’s job is “to stand between danger and Californians” and that he takes it “very, very seriously, particularly when it comes to trans youth.”
Hernandez competed again at this year’s state finals while Steyer released the supportive video the same morning.
This comes as biological males continue taking podium spots from female athletes under California’s 2013 law that lets students compete based on gender identity. Female competitors get bumped down as a result.
Meanwhile Republican candidate Steve Hilton has taken the opposite stand, appearing at a “Save Girls Sports” rally to fight back against the unfairness.
Steyer’s full-throated endorsement highlights the extreme position Democrats are doubling down on even as parents and female athletes demand fairness in sports.
@CARBTruckStop @AirResources Testing and Compliance is automatically emphasized without due consideration of the Scientific and Legal foundations for underlying regulations
The Federal EPA repealed the endangerment finding for good reason
The actual economic & environmental impacts deserve consideration
@CAgovernor @JenSiebelNewsom CITIZEN @nickshirleyy uncovered Fraud like this.
DEMOCRATS FIRST REACTION
IS TO TRY TO SILENCE HIM
@CAgovernor @JenSiebelNewsom CITIZEN @nickshirleyy uncovered Fraud like this.
DEMOCRATS FIRST REACTION
IS TO TRY TO SILENCE HIM
Seven properties, a Mercedes G-Wagon, sneakers worn by Kobe Bryant and a Mickey Mantle rookie card worth $1.5 million. All of these things were bought with taxpayer money.
Paul Randall pleaded guilty in one of the largest Medicaid fraud schemes in the California history – diverting more than $270 million in tax dollars.
@KarenBassLA In order to Lead effectively you have to
Set Priorities, Public Safety is primary
Define Tasks, create an Action Plan
Measure Results according to completed Tasks over time
YOUR meet and greet management style has FAILED
Every other state manages to count its votes in a somewhat timely manner. California's inability to competently handle the basic administration of democracy is embarrassing. It's also indicative of why our state has so many other problems.
@Jamesjonesik8 Wouldn’t rule out that this person is a good Engineer
There is no place for any hiring preferences or discrimination either
Also no place for anyone born male and having gone through puberty to compete against Females in any athletic event
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