The Patriot Post® · No Nefarious Actor Caused or Influenced Hurricanes Helene and Milton

By now, many of you have heard the widespread claims that something nefarious lay behind Hurricane Helene and the havoc it wreaked across North Carolina and other parts of the American Southeast, and then, following close on its heels, Hurricane Milton and the havoc it caused crossing Florida. People claim someone — some institution, perhaps our federal government, perhaps some enemy government — either caused or at least significantly influenced the intensities or tracks of these two hurricanes.

What should we think of such claims? They’ve been rampant on social media, and one friend sent me an email asking what I thought of them. She included a list of hundreds of patents for processes to control weather as evidence that some people have the capacity to significantly influence hurricanes like Helene and Milton.

So, what should we think?

Let’s dispense first with the appeal to thousands of patents. Many patents are granted for things that never work — or work only trivially, so they are never adopted for any common use. Many are filed by speculative inventors simply to protect ideas long before they start really testing them, because they don’t want someone else to beat them to the punch. The existence of patents for various types of weather modification proves absolutely nothing about actual, successful weather modification. Yes, there are attempts, but very few work, and in this case, to the extent any would work, it would do so only minimally.

And absolutely nothing we’ve done — or, I suspect, ever will be able to do — can cause or significantly influence hurricanes.

Meteorologist Chris Landsea, one of the world’s leading authorities on hurricane research who demonstrated his integrity when he quit working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about 15 or so years ago because manmade climate change alarmists working with it kept making claims about hurricanes that contradicted or far exceeded the data, was cited in an AP story on the subject on October 10: “A fully developed hurricane releases heat energy that is the equivalent of a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes — more than all the energy used at a given time by humanity.”

That statement agrees with what plenty of other meteorologists, some whom I know personally, have said for years.

So, let’s say a fully developed hurricane persists for five days. (Many persist much longer.) The heat energy it releases is equivalent to 7,200 10-megaton nuclear bombs. That’s one every 20 minutes times 3 per hour times 24 hours per day times 5 days. And remember, that would apply to any tropical cyclone with sustained winds of 74 MPH or higher — one with higher wind speeds would be releasing even more energy.

Now, let’s say someone wants to significantly change the direction of a hurricane or blast it apart, let alone cause it from scratch. He’s got to apply more energy, lots more, than what the hurricane itself is generating. Got any idea where he’s going to get that energy and how he’s going to apply it without others detecting it? The whole idea is just nuts, a horrible waste of time. NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division addresses the issue of attempts to modify hurricanes on its Tropical Cyclone FAQ page under “Attempts to Stop a Hurricane in its Track.” It makes for some interesting reading and confirms the points I have made here.

The AP article, however, did include this paragraph that is propaganda, not accurate reporting of scientific observation: “And scientists are now finding many ways climate change is making hurricanes worse, with warmer oceans that add energy and more water in the warming atmosphere to fall as rain, said Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.”

A careful examination of historical hurricane data that keeps in mind the evolution of observational techniques reveals zero observed upward trend in frequency or intensity of hurricanes during the period of global warming, whether you go back to 1850, or 1900, or 1950, or 2000, or any time long enough to qualify as “climate,” which is roughly defined as average weather over at least 30 years.

And while there are some theoretical reasons to expect stronger hurricanes with warming (like the one mentioned in that AP paragraph — warmer oceans), there’s another to expect the opposite. Greenhouse gas-induced warming happens — and has been measured — mostly toward the poles, mostly in winter, and mostly at night, thus diminishing the temperature gradient between equator and poles. That means it diminishes the amount of heat energy the climate system needs to transport from equator to poles.

But that’s the primary function of hurricanes in the climate system as a whole. So, the diminished temperature gradient from equator to poles should result in weaker hurricanes, not stronger (and maybe even fewer, not more). Also, a hurricane doesn’t just need warm oceans to develop and intensify; it also needs atmospheric conditions conducive to development, and some climate-modeling studies have shown an increase in atmospheric conditions hostile to hurricane development over areas like the North Atlantic hurricane basin.

One might respond, as someone I know did, “I have trouble believing they’re propagandizing climate change but being pure as the driven snow about geoengineering.”

My response?

First, consider sources. Meteorologists on both sides of the climate change controversy say we can’t control or significantly affect hurricanes.

Second, consider the reasoning. The amounts of energy involved simply far exceed anything man could counter without doing something that is, first, way beyond our capacity and, second, way too huge to hide if we could do it.

Third, consider that there simply has not been any change in trend of observed hurricanes, which means there is nothing new to explain by appeal to a new cause not operating before we are alleged to have developed the ability to influence hurricanes.

Fourth, keep in mind there’s a difference between geoengineering and creating or significantly influencing hurricanes.

Cloud seeding of particular weather systems to get water vapor already in them to condense and precipitate sooner than it otherwise would is one thing — it’s tried, tested, and found successful in certain cases, though generally not highly predictable. (One effort by one Middle East Arab state appeared to have caused devastating flooding, which certainly wasn’t the government’s intent! But it’s not even certain that the seeding caused the flooding.)

Injecting reflective particles into the stratosphere would reduce incoming solar radiation, though thus far we’ve not figured out how to inject enough, for long enough, to make a significant difference over any significant period such that the benefits would outweigh the costs. That doesn’t mean some people with either good or bad motives don’t want to try, but it does mean that so far none has done it successfully on a scale large enough to detect — that is, to distinguish confidently from what naturally occurs.

Put rather simply about hurricanes: There’s no evidence of change from usual, so there’s nothing to explain, and there’s no evidence that anyone’s done anything remotely capable of causing or affecting them significantly. So, the case for alleging human control of them lacks evidence of both effect and cause. It’s all argument from silence.

Again, someone might respond, as someone did to me, that there were unusual things about both Helene and Milton. Helene stalled out over an area that usually doesn’t see such activity, and Milton started where hurricanes don’t usually start.

My response?

Their paths and Helene’s copious rain over North Carolina were not surprising granted the larger weather patterns that led to them. Although the exact track and other conditions are unique in each case, this sort of thing has happened before — there is nothing new under the sun. Meteorologists predicted the paths as they observed the larger weather patterns and explained why. As for the catastrophic flooding in North Carolina, sadly, that is what happens when a mountainous region, with its ground already saturated by days of rainfall, gets additional large amounts of rain from a tropical system like Helene. The water flows into the valleys, causing massive flooding and, in this case, mudslides.

And, frankly, every hurricane takes a path that’s different compared with all the others — none goes exactly as any other has done. What happened with Helene and Milton was nothing unnatural, just unique for their situations. It’s all a matter of different conditions for each hurricane. Some might be similar to others, but in the end, each is unique.

So, don’t be fooled by claims that Hurricane Helene or Hurricane Milton — or any other hurricane, for that matter — was caused or significantly influenced by human activity. The people pushing those claims might sound like experts and supply fancy graphics and other explanations, but knowledgeable and trustworthy meteorologists I know can easily see the problems with their theories and claims.

What’s important is not speculating about what causes hurricanes but acting to minimize the harm they do and speed recovery afterward.

The good news is that hurricanes kill far fewer people today than 50 or 100 years ago because our weather forecasting technology yields much earlier and more precise advance warning; economic development has enabled people and businesses to build homes and other structures that are less vulnerable; and we’re better equipped to get more aid to victims faster than before. All of that is reason to thank God.

For more in-depth discussion of whether it’s possible to manipulate hurricanes, I recommend the October 10 episode of the Heartland Institute’s “Climate Realism Show,” and particularly the clear, expert comments of Dr. Stanley B. Goldenberg, a 40-year veteran hurricane scientist and friend of mine who does research at the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.

E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., is president of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.