I would hope I have never called anyone here a chimp. And in this case I was complimenting the presentation of the science.

On other occasions, both here and in other venues, the subject of hurricanes has been most unfortunately linked to climate change – suggesting that they’re measurably increasing in number or intensity or something and that this is a SIGN. The reference to Morano above indicates that it is still hovering around in the background, but Chris was careful not to say it. So I was just giving some positive feedback – if you only hear from me when I’m complaining about something, you might get the impression that there’s no pleasing me. I liked this post. It just gives some genuinely interesting stats on Atlantic hurricanes and leaves it at that. So I thought I’d offer a few more, and say well done.

And if he can manage it next time without mentioning Morano, I probably won’t bring the subject up at all.

JMW #6,

Yes, it was something like that. Morano is a moderately useful news agregator, but his tendency towards over-dramatised, tongue-in-cheek polemic means that his commentary is not the sort of thing to be taken seriously, even by sceptics. Chris only cites him rather than somebody like Roger Pielke Snr because he’s popular and he casts sceptics in a bad light. (Which is fair enough.)

On this occasion, Morano was alluding to all the past media hype portraying Katrina as a sign of global warming, of Al Gore putting pictures of hurricanes on the front of his video and books, of repeated (and misleading) the claims of increasing hurricane damage in the United States and the foretelling of even more to try to scare people, and noting that had this year’s hurricane season been bad, the media would have been filled with it, as it was a few years ago when there was a peak – but that on the subject of an equally unusual lack of hurricanes making landfall, leading to a record-breaking extreme of the opposite sign, the media is strangely silent. His point was to contrast the two responses.

It’s arguably an unfair point, since it is a general truism in journalism that good news is no news, and since the ‘weather-is-not-climate’ message has by now percolated into the media’s mental sphere to the point where they quite possibly wouldn’t have gone nuts again over a bad season. But it plays well to Morano’s political base, and it’s as well to keep reminding people so there’s no backsliding to the bad old days of ‘hot-weather-is-a-sure-sign-of-dangerous-climate-change-but-cold-weather-is-just-weather’ reporting.

I hope I’m doing him an injustice.

But if I’m not, it reminds me of the stand up comedian who parodied the American MSM with “…Something truly horrible happened today in Africa, but no Americans were involved. Moving right along…”

The Atlantic showed an above average season, mainly due to Igor, but the Pacific was at a historic low. It’s a very variable sort of weather, though, and such patterns in the noise don’t mean very much. It’s a bit of a Rorschach ink blot test, really.

I’m impressed that you resisted the temptation to mention climate change. Very good!

Just because there wasn’t a Category 3 hurricane that made landfall in New Orleans doesn’t mean this season hasn’t been destructive. Might I remind you Tropical Storm Hermine dropped 16 inches in Georgetown, TX! Not to mention some other cities were completely under water. That storm was absolutely brutal. Hurricane Alex also made landfall in Texas and was a record-breaking storm for hurricanes in June, and also dropped a large amount of rain and flooded the Rio Grande for WEEKS after it had dissipated. So, check your facts before you make stupid claims like that… it’s been a pretty bad season for Texas.