Dan Chavas
USA Today op-ed ignores evidence to claim climate change had no role in Hurricane Florence
This op-ed in USA Today makes the claim that Hurricane Florence has no appreciable contribution from human-caused climate change.
Scientists who reviewed the article found that it ignores the evidence for trends in tropical cyclone behavior, including slower movement speed and more intense rainfall. Additionally, sea level rise raised the storm surge of the landfalling tropical cyclone above the level it would have reached a century ago. The article cherry-picks data in misleading way to claim that recent storms are no different from past tropical cyclones…
National Geographic accurately covers research pointing to slower-moving hurricanes
“This is an important topic and the article explains the new research findings clearly… Highlighting how this result about slowing storms is consistent across two studies that employ very different methodologies further helps convey to the public how we try to use multiple lines of evidence to understand how our world works and how it may chance in the future.”
Climate change likely helped increase Hurricane Harvey’s rainfall, but too early to say exactly by how much
Claim:
[climate scientists] say that aspects of the case of Hurricane Harvey suggest global warming is making a bad situation worse.
The Atlantic accurately explores climate context for Tropical Storm Harvey
“A well written article that captures the essence of our understanding that under climate change storms will likely bring more rainfall. In the case of Harvey, all we can say is that it is consistent with those ideas. But we cannot say that it is the direct consequence of climate change.”
Analysis of "Why are climate-change models so flawed? Because climate science is so incomplete"
“The facts given by the author regarding the skills of climate models and the state of the art are mostly wrong. The most important processes are not understood by the author and his logic is flawed.”
Analysis of “How Hurricane Patricia became the strongest hurricane on record so quickly”
“A well written and balanced article that draws on a range of scientific opinion from well-established climate scientists, hurricane specialists and forecasters. The article provides a nice summary of the major physical factors at play, while also highlighting the issues and challenges to do with detection and attribution of extreme events such as this.”
Analysis of "Vanuatu's president makes a leap in tying Cyclone Pam to climate change"
“… well-written article that hits most of the key points regarding the complex question of how global warming may affect tropical cyclones.”
Analysis of "The Alarming Thing About Climate Alarmism"
“Tries and fails to make a convincing case for why humans need to worry about climate change less than they currently do.”