Narrative buster for the meteorological doom and gloomers. If you’re familiar with my work, you know that there are two sides to stories and one side to facts. I don’t do narratives, especially when they’re driven solely by agendas. As I mentioned in a recent Q&A: You might have noticed we seemingly have had more Saharan Dust clouds flying over South Florida. It’s not your imagination, we have. Now, I specifically had been researching this because my wife Ashley has asthma, and the increasing Saharan Dust activity has meant she’s had to change inhalers, use them more often and frequently pops Zyrtec. As part of my research into the Saharan Dust I came across a Harvard study in 2020 entitled Climate change affects Saharan dust stroms. The lead line says it all: A New groundbreaking study shows that warming planet will make dust storms more intense in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Now, without diving into all of the specs of the study, the bottom line is this. The past couple of years we have seen a marked increase in Saharan Dust clouds and Harvard’s researchers offer extensive evidence that rising temperatures/climate change is behind it. Few things act as a greater hurricane repellant than massive dust clouds across the entire Atlantic (crossing over into the Gulf). The question is, why didn’t hurricane researchers account for this? This hurricane season has been as inactive as it's been up to now due largely to well above normal Saharan Dust clouds. It’s also the reason the rainy season hasn’t been nearly as rainy as usual for many in South Florida this year. But is this front and center in the collective meteorological conversation? Seemingly not. At least not publicly. And this is illustrative of what happens when narratives are latched onto as opposed to being truly analytical in the dissemination of information. And the creation of hurricane forecasts as the case may be. The metrological community may have been generally correct about climate change yet failed to analyze all of the related effects. What will be interesting going forward is what the explanation will be. Will the climate agenda/narrative color coverage and information or will there be intellectual honesty about this phenomenon? You might imagine some with climate agendas not wanting to publicly admit that it’s possible climate change could result in fewer hurricanes. I don’t know what will happen from here this hurricane season, but I do know that we’re currently pacing a hurricane season that’s a third of what the hurricane forecasters said it would be. A third. Will there be intellectual honesty, or will there continue to be narratives?
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