Warming Biases in The Wires

I was intrigued about a new study which was reported on yesterday, that warming oceans may actually sap hurricane intensity, which is in contrast to the IPCC's opinion on the relationship between global warming and hurricanes. That bit of news wasn't all that surprising, considering the effects that El Niño had on last year's hurricane season. But what I found more interesting were the different takes the AP (linked above) with the Reuters version.

The Reuters story plays the story much straighter than the AP. Reuters quotes one of the co-authors on the findings of the new study, says that only "some scientists" think that warming oceans would increase hurricane intensity (as opposed to the IPCC's assertion that it is likely that human-induced greenhouse warming actually does impact hurricanes), and lets us know that "hurricane researchers" believe that we are in a natural cycle of heightened hurricane activity not related to global warming. Note that last part: when media outlets do not qualify a group of scientists with "some" or "most" or "many," the public can be assured that whatever scientific concept is being discussed, that concept is a prevailing and accepted theory in their field.

However, the AP report is all over the place. First, the headline makes it seem as if hurricane researchers are fighting among themselves about the effects of warming on hurricanes. This is not so. Something hurricane researchers agree on, in absolute opposition to the IPCC, is that global warming will have little to no effect on hurricane strength. It is a bit jarring to see Chris Landsea quoted in the AP article, when he is one of the most public scientists to break with the whole IPCC endeavor. The reason why he chose to leave the IPCC, and to have nothing to do with them whatsoever, is that in the lead-up to the Fourth Assessment, one of the lead authors claimed, without any research backing him, the concept that greenhouse warming would make hurricanes stronger. And after Landsea, a tower in the hurricane research community, asked for a correction to the record, his concerns were dismissed. Up until that point, the modeling showed, even with the worst case scenarios, that by the end of the 21st century, warming may, as an improbable event, increase hurricane intensity by 5 percent. With no retractions forthcoming, Chris Landsea quit the IPCC.

Notice, too, in the AP story, the co-authors seem to couch their language as an apology that warming may weaken hurricanes. Vecchi:

Which one of the two — warming oceans or increasing shear — will be the dominant factor? Will they cancel out? We and others are currently exploring those very questions, and we hope to have a better grasp on that answer in the near future.
What we can say is that the magnitude of the shear change is large enough that it cannot be ignored.

And Soden, quoted in the Reuters piece only on the merits of their findings, has to offer another apology, to make sure the grant money keeps coming in: "This study does not in any way undermine the widespread consensus in the scientific community about the reality of global warming." Of course, the AP had to find someone to placate the "consensus" that warming causes all the bad things in the world, including stronger hurricanes. So, who do they find? Kerry Emanuel, who was the first guy to go against prevailing theory, and argue that increased hurricane activity in the last 30 years was due to global warming. I wonder if he's on speed-dial for whenever the AP needs a quote on big bad hurricanes.

Still, since this is a story about hurricanes, I'm thankfully surprised the AP contacted Chris Landsea, and even mentioned hurricane forecaster William Gray, whose opinions on the IPCC and Kerry Emanuel, are no secret.