By Vijay Jayarj

Before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida, the media chorus linked “an historic” storm to climate change and warned of even greater catastrophes in the future. For all the noise, Hurricane Milton was downgraded to a Category 3 storm that was bad enough if not apocalyptic for most.

Nonetheless, the media rant about a climate crisis will not stop. This alarmism feeds off the emotional intensity inherent to a human response to natural disasters.

But this knee-jerk hysteria is more than an annoyance; it is scientifically inaccurate and harmful. Using hurricanes as a political rallying cry amplifies anxiety at a time when clear-headed preparation is needed; it misrepresents the current state of the science on hurricanes and climate change; it politicizes what should be an apolitical focus on disaster response and preparedness.

The immediate threat posed by any hurricane is primarily a function of its current strength, size and path — not long-term climate trends, whatever their cause. There has been no significant increase in the frequency of hurricanes globally nor in the number of hurricanes making landfall in the continental United States.

Going back to 1851, data from The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s “U.S. Hurricane Strikes by Decade” shows no significant trend in either the number of U.S. hurricane landfalls or the number of major (Category 3-5) hurricane landfalls from 1900 to 2023.

From 2006 to 2017, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented “hurricane drought” with no storms classified as Category 3 or higher making landfall for 12 years. This was despite predictions by some that climate change would lead to more frequent and intense hurricanes.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated in its most recent Assessment Report that there is only a “low confidence” in long-term (multi-decadal to centennial) trends in the frequency of all-category tropical cyclones, suggesting minimal link between 21^st century warming and hurricane frequency.

Another important metric that receives little attention in popular discourse is the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE), which accounts for the number, strength and duration of all tropical cyclones in a season. Global ACE has shown no increasing trend over the past 50 years. In fact, the intensity of major storms for the past couple of years has been much below the intensities for the period 1984-1998.

The truth is that there is no indication that we humans have worsened hurricanes or increased their frequency. Further, hurricanes have existed long before the onset of modern warming, influenced by natural cycles such as El Niño and La Niña.

The effects of hurricanes are felt by more people today because of coastal development. For instance, there were fewer than 130,000 people in Tampa Bay in 1900. By 1950, the number had risen to 300,000; today there are more than 3 million people.

So obviously, there will be increased financial losses as more infrastructure is now in harm’s way. However, improved building codes, forecasting and evacuation procedures have reduced the lethality of hurricanes in developed countries.

As conveyors of information, media outlets and governments have a profound responsibility to report on hurricanes straightforwardly and not use them as an opportunity to instill baseless fear.

Moreover, the misguided priorities of the fabricated climate crisis contribute to a misallocation of resources and misfeasance of all manner, including a lack of preparedness for real emergencies.

Questions about the adequacy of funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in responding to Hurricane Helene underscore the life-and-death seriousness of diverting attention away from the acute needs of people in dire circumstances.

This commentary was first published at BizPac Review on October 14, 2024.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO₂ Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.