Global Warming and Tropical Cyclones of the Western North Pacific

Ma and Chen (2009) say "it is assumed that higher SSTs [sea surface temperatures] are favorable for the greater [creation] of tropical cyclones," but that "recent studies [have] suggested that with global warming, there have been no increasing trends in TC [tropical cyclone] frequency in response to greenhouse gases-induced ocean warming, as proven by a large number of evidences," after which they provide one more piece of such evidence for the Western North Pacific (WNP).

In conducting their own analysis, Ma and Chen used NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data to determine the SST distribution over their area of interest and to evaluate its temporal variability, while they employed TC frequency data obtained from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, the Tropical Cyclone Year Book of the China Meteorological Administration, and the Tokyo-Typhoon Center of the Japanese Meteorological Agency to characterize TC frequency over the period 1949-2007.

The two researchers first demonstrated that "SSTs over the WNP have been gradually increasing during the past 60 years ... with a maximum increment of 1°C around the central equatorial Pacific for the last 10 years," and that "the warm pool, which is defined to be enclosed by a critical temperature of 28°C, has expanded eastward and northward in recent years," noting further that "there has been remarkable warming in the last decade, more than 0.8°C in some local areas." Nevertheless, and in spite of this "remarkable warming," they determined that "the frequency of TC against the background of global warming has decreased with time [italics added]."

Once again, we have a situation that is just the opposite of what climate alarmists and the IPCC claim to be the case.