5 ms·

I thought the warming waters were supposed to increase the number of hurricanes?

Veliladon 4d ago
El Niño sends the jet stream southward. Once the jet stream gets far enough south it tears apart any developing storms in the Gulf and Caribbean Sea before they have a chance to become a problem.
- bearjaws 4d ago
  Also having large waves of Saharan dust which is too dry and inhibits hurricane development.
  - abakker 4d ago
    Where does this dust end up? Into the oceans? Because iron-rich dust entering the oceans helps create nutrition for algae which can absorb CO2
    - joecool1029 4d ago
      Believe it or not at least 40 million tons of it ends up in the Amazon basin each year where it does have an effect on the plants there: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/1/1/014005 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/1/1/014... It goes elsewhere too, as expected.
      - consp 4d ago
        N/Nw Europe also has sand rains. Not seen it this year yet though.
      - consumer451 4d ago
        In South Florida you can sometimes get Sahara dust on your car after a rain.
- HWR_14 4d ago
  It also prevents those storms from dissipating the energy. So once the jet stream moves north again, bigger than otherwise storms will happen.
fhdkweig 4d ago
https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/will-2026-go-down-with-no-atlantic-hurricanes/1932308 https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/will-2026-go-down-w... says: > Given the strong and still-strengthening El Niño, which tends to reduce the number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic basin while boosting numbers in the Pacific, there is some chance that this season could end on Nov. 30 with no hurricanes. But I am not liking this site. Both articles are mostly just restating "this is really rare" in 5+ different ways without explaining why. If anyone has a better site, a link would be most appreciated.
- tito 4d ago
  Stripe's climate scientist Zeke Hausfather built this dashboard: https://dashboard.theclimatebrink.com/#enso https://dashboard.theclimatebrink.com/#enso
yanslookup 4d ago
Overall the expectations are an increase in intensity and inability to predict. There is no expectation around consistency. That is why climate change is going to be such a disaster, it's not acutely predictable and it's death by a thousand cuts for us. The floods in Nepal etc are a good example. Very hard to predict, extremely distructive.
- gwerbin 4d ago
  The Nepal incident is also messy because it's a extremely specific local/regional phenomenon, which was always a threat (and has happened before in other, less-populated areas around the Himalayas), but without consistent warming leading to glacier loss, it would be a random rare tragedy. Now that we know what happened and what causes it, we can pretty well expect that it will happen again... but there are so many similar hanging glacers high above steep V-shaped river valleys that we can't easily monitor or predict, not to mention alert locals and evacuate people in time. How many other similar local phenomena will appear? Impossible to say.
  - deleted 3d ago
    [deleted]
- tito 3d ago
  Well said. Generally speaking, most people I speak to about climate have a mental model for "climate change" as a dimmer switch. The planet gets a little warmer, littler warmer, littler warmer, and we get a bit more uncomfortable each time. But this mental model loses the most important feature of the climate system. It's not a dimmer switch. It's more like an ON / OFF switch. We live in a stable climate today. Things are getting a little warmer. And we see some weird things. But still, even at a little warmer, we are in the same stable climate system, just a little warmer or cooler. However, if we flip to "OFF" on a stable climate by getting a lot warmer, our climate system moves to a chaotic state unlike anything we've ever known in human history.
ChrisMarshallNY 4d ago
My understanding was fewer storms, but the ones that do happen, are stronger.
echelon 4d ago
El Nino decreases Atlantic hurricane activity. Weather patterns in the Americas and Asia change in the summer through winter months. Rainfall changes throughout the Americas, and Asia sees worsening floods and storms. Just because the Atlantic sees fewer hurricanes doesn't mean it's out of the woods - the number of winter storms increases.
WarOnPrivacy 4d ago
> I thought the warming waters were supposed to increase the number of hurricanes? That is a question. I suppose the answer is yes, you thought that. You likely thought that because - Holy cow. Year after year after year of explosively strengthening Cat5 storms is fairly well unprecedented. source: FL coastal resident and repeated hurricane relief worker. Equally unprecedented is the supercharged El Nino that's been interfering with the Atlantic Basin's ability to form storms, in proportion to it's record development.
monster_truck 4d ago
[flagged]
- anonymousiam 4d ago
  Just so I understand you correctly: 1) It's "fucking bad" that we are at a 60-year low for hurricanes this season. 2) It's "fucking bad" that "global warming" will cause more hurricanes in the future. So how does it actually work? Climate "scientists" have been telling us that Earth has severely warmed already, and they've been telling us that the warming will cause more hurricanes. So when is that going to begin exactly?
  - anon7000 4d ago
    The problem with practically every climate denier out there is you only see things from a very narrow local perspective. Skipping horrible weather in one area doesn’t mean the rest of the world is ok. Climate scientists, in fact, predicted that there would be fewer hurricanes than normal this year because of El Niño. (https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/how-does-el-nino-impact-atlantic-hurricane-season/ https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/how-does-el-nino-impact-atlantic-h...) I think it would be fucking foolish to look at a system as complicated as the climate on planet earth and think “hm, I think warming by a couple degrees has barely any impact on the weather.” In fact, El Niño is an amazing example that localized warmth in one specific area can completely halt the hurricane season. But while that’s great, for now, it’d be extremely short sighted to think that a system which can do that is always going to act in your favor. In fact, a complete lack of weather systems at all is a bad thing if it means your region doesn’t get rain anymore. Which is currently happening in Indonesia, because of El Niño, and is devastating (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/el-nino-fuels-wildfires-in-indonesia-sickening-some-100-000-people/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/el-nino-fuels-wil...).
  - monster_truck 3d ago
    You don't seem to understand what you're talking about

El Niño sends the jet stream southward. Once the jet stream gets far enough south it tears apart any developing storms in the Gulf and Caribbean Sea before they have a chance to become a problem.

bearjaws 4d ago
Also having large waves of Saharan dust which is too dry and inhibits hurricane development.
- abakker 4d ago
  Where does this dust end up? Into the oceans? Because iron-rich dust entering the oceans helps create nutrition for algae which can absorb CO2
  - joecool1029 4d ago
    Believe it or not at least 40 million tons of it ends up in the Amazon basin each year where it does have an effect on the plants there: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/1/1/014005 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/1/1/014... It goes elsewhere too, as expected.
    - consp 4d ago
      N/Nw Europe also has sand rains. Not seen it this year yet though.
    - consumer451 4d ago
      In South Florida you can sometimes get Sahara dust on your car after a rain.
HWR_14 4d ago
It also prevents those storms from dissipating the energy. So once the jet stream moves north again, bigger than otherwise storms will happen.

fhdkweig 4d ago

https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/will-2026-go-down-with-no-atlantic-hurricanes/1932308 https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/will-2026-go-down-w... says: > Given the strong and still-strengthening El Niño, which tends to reduce the number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic basin while boosting numbers in the Pacific, there is some chance that this season could end on Nov. 30 with no hurricanes. But I am not liking this site. Both articles are mostly just restating "this is really rare" in 5+ different ways without explaining why. If anyone has a better site, a link would be most appreciated.

tito 4d ago
Stripe's climate scientist Zeke Hausfather built this dashboard: https://dashboard.theclimatebrink.com/#enso https://dashboard.theclimatebrink.com/#enso

yanslookup 4d ago

Overall the expectations are an increase in intensity and inability to predict. There is no expectation around consistency. That is why climate change is going to be such a disaster, it's not acutely predictable and it's death by a thousand cuts for us. The floods in Nepal etc are a good example. Very hard to predict, extremely distructive.

gwerbin 4d ago
The Nepal incident is also messy because it's a extremely specific local/regional phenomenon, which was always a threat (and has happened before in other, less-populated areas around the Himalayas), but without consistent warming leading to glacier loss, it would be a random rare tragedy. Now that we know what happened and what causes it, we can pretty well expect that it will happen again... but there are so many similar hanging glacers high above steep V-shaped river valleys that we can't easily monitor or predict, not to mention alert locals and evacuate people in time. How many other similar local phenomena will appear? Impossible to say.
- deleted 3d ago
  [deleted]
tito 3d ago
Well said. Generally speaking, most people I speak to about climate have a mental model for "climate change" as a dimmer switch. The planet gets a little warmer, littler warmer, littler warmer, and we get a bit more uncomfortable each time. But this mental model loses the most important feature of the climate system. It's not a dimmer switch. It's more like an ON / OFF switch. We live in a stable climate today. Things are getting a little warmer. And we see some weird things. But still, even at a little warmer, we are in the same stable climate system, just a little warmer or cooler. However, if we flip to "OFF" on a stable climate by getting a lot warmer, our climate system moves to a chaotic state unlike anything we've ever known in human history.

ChrisMarshallNY 4d ago

My understanding was fewer storms, but the ones that do happen, are stronger.

echelon 4d ago

El Nino decreases Atlantic hurricane activity. Weather patterns in the Americas and Asia change in the summer through winter months. Rainfall changes throughout the Americas, and Asia sees worsening floods and storms. Just because the Atlantic sees fewer hurricanes doesn't mean it's out of the woods - the number of winter storms increases.

WarOnPrivacy 4d ago

> I thought the warming waters were supposed to increase the number of hurricanes? That is a question. I suppose the answer is yes, you thought that. You likely thought that because - Holy cow. Year after year after year of explosively strengthening Cat5 storms is fairly well unprecedented. source: FL coastal resident and repeated hurricane relief worker. Equally unprecedented is the supercharged El Nino that's been interfering with the Atlantic Basin's ability to form storms, in proportion to it's record development.

monster_truck 4d ago

[flagged]

anonymousiam 4d ago
Just so I understand you correctly: 1) It's "fucking bad" that we are at a 60-year low for hurricanes this season. 2) It's "fucking bad" that "global warming" will cause more hurricanes in the future. So how does it actually work? Climate "scientists" have been telling us that Earth has severely warmed already, and they've been telling us that the warming will cause more hurricanes. So when is that going to begin exactly?
- anon7000 4d ago
  The problem with practically every climate denier out there is you only see things from a very narrow local perspective. Skipping horrible weather in one area doesn’t mean the rest of the world is ok. Climate scientists, in fact, predicted that there would be fewer hurricanes than normal this year because of El Niño. (https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/how-does-el-nino-impact-atlantic-hurricane-season/ https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/how-does-el-nino-impact-atlantic-h...) I think it would be fucking foolish to look at a system as complicated as the climate on planet earth and think “hm, I think warming by a couple degrees has barely any impact on the weather.” In fact, El Niño is an amazing example that localized warmth in one specific area can completely halt the hurricane season. But while that’s great, for now, it’d be extremely short sighted to think that a system which can do that is always going to act in your favor. In fact, a complete lack of weather systems at all is a bad thing if it means your region doesn’t get rain anymore. Which is currently happening in Indonesia, because of El Niño, and is devastating (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/el-nino-fuels-wildfires-in-indonesia-sickening-some-100-000-people/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/el-nino-fuels-wil...).
- monster_truck 3d ago
  You don't seem to understand what you're talking about