What do you think the future of Atlantic hurricane activity is

[Dean_175]

On one hand, there is some good research tying the warm phases of AMO to increased major hurricane activity. However, partially due to low sample size, particularly within the satellite era, it is controversial that this is a primary cause of the increased activity post-1995. There have been other ideas put forth by reputable researchers that doubt it as the deciding influence. It is even less certain how much of a role climate change will play when the AMO does shift back into a negative phase. Do you think we will revert to the lower levels of activity we observed in the 1980s and early 1990s? 2013 showed that it is still possible to have a quiet season in an ENSO neutral year even during relatively modern times when there is a variation in ocean currents (which are partly responsible for AMO as well) less conducive to tropical development. On the contrary, the 1930s demonstrate that even if you take back a century of global warming, extremely active seasons and record breaking storms are still possible. That period happened to be in a +AMO phase.

[Category5Kaiju]

Hard to say for sure, but with warmer waters and if any recent seasons serve as indications, irregardless of overall activity in a given season, I’m inclined to believe that we’re more likely than not going to see a strong Cat 4/5 hurricane or a few at least (so, even in the most unfavorable seasons otherwise, we’ll probably see something like 1992/2007/2022). Multi-Billion dollar storms will likely also become an accepted norm.

2013, imho, is such a black swan event that involved so many unfavorable factors coming in so fortuitously that while it happened in the modern satellite era, something like it probably won’t happen anytime soon. I liken it to the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season or the 2011 US tornado season, just in the opposite direction.

[al78]

Climate is the distribution and statistics of weather over a period of time so climate change influences should be thought of as changes in the probabilities of weather events happening. The fact that the 1930's had very active hurricane seasons means nothing on its own. What matters is whether climate change is enhancing the probability of hyper-active hurricane seasons or making super-intense storms more likely even in a near-average season. It is possible that climate change may shift the probability towards less active seasons if it enhances the probability of one or more hostile climate teleconnections occurring through a season; however, with the warming ocean, it could also enhance the probability of very intense hurricanes or rapid intensification events (e.g. Patricia 2015 in both cases) in any one season, since if the ocean is warmer, the maximum potential intensity increases, and all that is needed for a storm to make the most of that is for the other favourable factors to align, which by random chance they will do occasionally (e.g. La Nina events).