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| From the article online here |
Let me explain what's going on here.
Let's say Hong Kong has around ten named typhoons per year (which is about right).
And let's say that three of those are classified as "strong typhoons", or "super typhoons", based on average winds speeds classified by the Hong Kong Observatory. Again, about right.
So that's 30% of the typhoons are "Strong", ie 3/10 = 0.3
Now, let's say there are fewer typhoons overall, in a year. Let's say there are just eight. And let's say that the number of "strong" typhoons remains the same, ie three.
Now the percentage of "Strong" typhoons is 37.5%, ie 3/8 = 0.375.
Thus the percentage of "Strong" typhoons is *higher*.
This is in fact what has happened in Hong Kong. I showed this in published correspondence, in the SCMP. This point was granted by the HKO itself, in a published letter responding to me, quoting the HKO Senior Scientist, Lee Sai-ming. The evidence “does not conflict with your correspondent” (ie, me) he concluded.
Fewer typhoons overall, same number of "Strong" ones = higher percentage are "strong".
But is it fair to say:
"… we expect a greater number of stronger typhoons”?
It is fair only if you clarify that the “greater number" you're referring to is a higher percentage of an overall lower number.
But this the HKO have not done.
The comment underneath the "Quote of the Week" above shows that the editors of the SCMP have drawn precisely the incorrect conclusion that I bet the HKO wants them to draw. I know from following the HKO closely, they are of the climate alarmist bent. More stronger typhoons! Panic, panic!
HKO have no reason to be alarmed as Hong Kong has sharply reduced carbon emissions per capita, now down to just one-third the world average and much lower than other advanced economies.
Even the IPCC does not claim that storms and hurricanes are becoming measurably more violent as a result of climate change. The two areas they have "high confidence" are climate-change-related are (a) rising temperatures and (b) changed rainfall patterns. Which, yes, we are seeing in Hong Kong.
EG: US National Academy of Science:
I call out the typhoon quote as HKO misinformation.
One more thing: Guangdong province in Southern China has records of typhoons going back to at least the Tang dynasty, around 1,000 years ago. These show that the only times they got stronger on average was during unusually cold spells. The main effects of climate change on typhoons are that warming tends to move typhoons north in the northern hemisphere and south in the southern hemisphere. My post on that, here, at the bottom. The original article here.
ADDED:
Deaths per decade in Hong Kong, from typhoons. The most recent decade a total of 8 people killed by typhoons. Less than one person per year. There’s no need to panic!
What happened in the sixties is that there was a major push to close down so-called “squatter villages”, and move people to subsidised government housing. A major program of the beloved Governor Murray MacLehose. IOW, we human beings can take measures to stop “the climate’ from harming us. And we’re getting better at it. There is no need for panic, folks!
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| HKO figures |
