Hurricane Isaias: The Data Are In

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Hurricane Isaias: The Data Are In

  • We finally had our first hurricane this season in the North Atlantic region: Isaias. Isaias formed on October 7 as a tropical storm in the Gulf of America, and made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on October 10 near Destin, Florida.

  • Paul Homewood of Not a Lot of People Know That collects the relevant data in a post from October 11.

  • Homewood notes that Isaias represents the latest ever first hurricane for the North Atlantic, at least since the satellite era (1966) has provided full data:

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On The Criteria For Falsifying A Scientific Hypothesis

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On The Criteria For Falsifying A Scientific Hypothesis

  • My September 29 post asked whether we could deem as “definitively falsified” the hypothesis that human-caused global warming was leading to “more and more severe” hurricanes.

  • The cited basis for the question was that, despite the endlessly repeated prediction of “more and more severe” hurricanes, as of that date not a single hurricane had yet formed this season in the North Atlantic basin. This represented a record-low rate of hurricane formation in this region since the satellite era, and comprehensive hurricane data, began in 1966.

  • In response to that post, I received a comment from a reader that I thought deserved a serious response. The comment came as an email, rather than as a comment on the blog. The commenter gave his name, but since he did not post the comment on the blog I am keeping his name confidential as a courtesy. Here is the text of the comment: . . .

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"More And More Severe Storms": When Can We Declare This Hypothesis To Be Definitively Falsified?

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"More And More Severe Storms": When Can We Declare This Hypothesis To Be Definitively Falsified?

  • You know the mantra: Human caused climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels and adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, causes an increase in the frequency and severity of major storms, like hurricanes.

  • When major hurricanes come along, as they regularly do, the promoters of this mantra immediately claim an ability to “attribute” the storm and/or its intensity to the ongoing human-caused warming.

  • For example, last October we had Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm that struck Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. As soon as Melissa had passed, an organization calling itself World Weather Attribution promptly came out with an analysis blaming the storm and its intensity on “climate change.” From the AP, November 6, 2025:

  • Melissa was one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall and brought destructive weather to Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba, causing dozens of deaths across the Caribbean. . . . The rapid analysis by World Weather Attribution found that climate change increased Melissa’s maximum wind speeds by 7% and made the rainfall near the center of the storm 16% more intense. The scientists also wrote that the temperature and humidity in which the storm intensified were made six times more likely due to climate change compared to a pre-industrial world.

  • Perhaps that seemed plausible at the time. But this year the mantra that human-induced climate change is the main cause of destructive hurricanes has run into a small problem.

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Yet Another Embarrassment From The National Academy Of Pseudoscience

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Yet Another Embarrassment From The National Academy Of Pseudoscience

In my own professional life, I was not a scientist, and therefore I never much paid attention to the kinds of rewards and honors that practicing scientists pass out to each other. But at some point I became aware that there was something called the National Academy of Sciences, and that among scientists it was considered a big deal to get selected to become a member. This membership is one of those things that you cannot apply for; rather, one day you get “tapped” by some committee of super-elite gurus who invite you to come learn the secret handshake. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about membership:

Membership of the National Academy of Sciences is an award granted to scientists that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the United States judges to have made “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research”. Membership is a mark of excellence in science and one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive.

There are only around 2000+ members of the NAS, out of a universe of some 2 million + people who do some kind of scientifically-related research. So only about one in a thousand gets in. Needless to say, these people must be really, really smart.

Well, as far as I can tell, they are all morons. Also, corrupt morons.

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EPA's Greenhouse Gas "Endangerment Finding": Finally Gone

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  • On Thursday (February 12) President Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin held a press briefing at the White House where they announced the issuance of the final rescission of what is known as the “Endangerment Finding” — the 2009 Obama-era regulatory edict purporting to find that CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” are a “danger to human health and welfare.”

  • The regulatory document finalizing the rescission then came out the next day, February 13.

  • The Rescission Document has the title “Rescission of the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards Under the Clean Air Act.” It is 436 pages long. In this version, it appears in standard double-space typed format, with no page numbers. Although there is a table of contents, the lack of associated page numbers makes it extremely difficult to find anything in the Document.

  • Within a few days, the Document will then appear in something called the Federal Register. The text will not be changed (other than that they reserve the right to correct errors); but the format will be substantially different — single-spaced and with multiple columns on a page. Publication in the Federal Register is what starts the clock ticking for deadlines to challenge the rescission in court.

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Don't Forget To RSVP To The February 19 "Net Zero And Freedom" Event

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  • Word on the street is that tomorrow is the big day when the federal government’s phony-baloney greenhouse gas “Endangerment Finding” will finally get rescinded by EPA. It has now been more than 16 years since this idiotic and massive government power grab got foisted on the American people by the Obama EPA in December 2009.

  • I don’t have any good insight into what the rescission documentation will look like. If the people writing it do what is really appropriate, they will heap mounds of scorn, derision and ridicule upon the Finding itself, and upon the legions fools, dopes and grifters who continue to try to support it.

  • While we all hold our breaths for this big moment, I am shamelessly shilling for the February 19 Net Zero Watch in-person event in New York, “Net Zero and Freedom.”

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