The point about the 1970s–80s hurricane lull being driven by increased aerosol pollution is exactly right. Sulfate aerosols from mid-20th century industrial activity reflected sunlight, cooled the North Atlantic, and suppressed hurricane activity. As air-quality regulations in the US and Europe reduced those emissions in the 1980s–90s, the masking effect lifted and greenhouse-gas warming reasserted itself, driving sea surface temperatures (and hurricane activity) upward. This is well established in the literature (see Dunstone et al., Nature Geoscience, 2013; Murakami et al., Nature Geoscience, 2015).
Where I’d be more cautious is in calling event attribution “pseudo-science.” The field is indeed politicized at times in its presentation, but the underlying methods are rigorous: comparing model simulations with and without anthropogenic forcing to estimate how climate change shifts the probabilities and intensities of extreme events. The World Weather Attribution group, for instance, has published peer-reviewed studies on heatwaves, floods, and hurricanes using this framework.
So yes — media narratives often oversimplify complex feedbacks into neat morality tales. But that’s a problem of communication, not of the science itself.
The remaining national newspapers are sad shells of themselves. They still have some influence, but there is a pretty big percentage of people that just look at their work and shake their heads. They have cried wolf so many times and nobody seriously looks to mainstream journalists to give them straight news or nuanced interpretation. Hell, Nature won’t even retract stuff they know is BS…
You are absolutely correct. I have posted a comment beneath the article asking it for it to be immediately corrected and will monitor it from time to time today and if a correction occurs I will post the correction here. Thank you for catching that and let’s hope that it was an innocent error and not an indication of extraordinary ignorance of a well-known climate phenomenon
The point about the 1970s–80s hurricane lull being driven by increased aerosol pollution is exactly right. Sulfate aerosols from mid-20th century industrial activity reflected sunlight, cooled the North Atlantic, and suppressed hurricane activity. As air-quality regulations in the US and Europe reduced those emissions in the 1980s–90s, the masking effect lifted and greenhouse-gas warming reasserted itself, driving sea surface temperatures (and hurricane activity) upward. This is well established in the literature (see Dunstone et al., Nature Geoscience, 2013; Murakami et al., Nature Geoscience, 2015).
Where I’d be more cautious is in calling event attribution “pseudo-science.” The field is indeed politicized at times in its presentation, but the underlying methods are rigorous: comparing model simulations with and without anthropogenic forcing to estimate how climate change shifts the probabilities and intensities of extreme events. The World Weather Attribution group, for instance, has published peer-reviewed studies on heatwaves, floods, and hurricanes using this framework.
So yes — media narratives often oversimplify complex feedbacks into neat morality tales. But that’s a problem of communication, not of the science itself.
Very glad you are pointing this out.
The remaining national newspapers are sad shells of themselves. They still have some influence, but there is a pretty big percentage of people that just look at their work and shake their heads. They have cried wolf so many times and nobody seriously looks to mainstream journalists to give them straight news or nuanced interpretation. Hell, Nature won’t even retract stuff they know is BS…
Thanks for explaining this! Fingers crossed for a correction
You are absolutely correct. I have posted a comment beneath the article asking it for it to be immediately corrected and will monitor it from time to time today and if a correction occurs I will post the correction here. Thank you for catching that and let’s hope that it was an innocent error and not an indication of extraordinary ignorance of a well-known climate phenomenon