The empirical data is that we don't have more hurricane (in total or per category) per decade now than we did 150 years ago [1]. So if climate change (which is real, to be clear) is intensifying hurricane, shouldn't that be reflected in the data?

Likewise, when Helene hit North Carolina, this too was attributed to climate change except the exact same thing happened a century ago [2].

When we talk about the impact of hurricanes on infrastructure, people and buildings, we forget that there are an awful lot more people now than there was a century ago. 100 years ago, the population of Florida was less than a million.

Calling every storm a once in a century storm or saying how once a century events now happen every year (you'll hear both of these claims often) does nothing but discredit climate change.

Move a normal distribution half a standard deviation left or right and you have real impact but it will take you a lot of data points to figure out that's really happened. Extreme outliers in either case will tell you, quite literally, nothing.

[1]: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

[2]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/10/07/hurricane...

> Calling every storm a once in a century storm or saying how once a century events now happen every year (you'll hear both of these claims often) does nothing but discredit climate change.

Isn't it the other way? If climate change makes storms more intense, then "(previously) once-a-century storm happening more often than once a century" is precisely what you would expect to see.

I agree that there are too many breathless headlines and not enough scientific rigor, but that happens with any topic, not just climate change.

* Also, nothing can really "discredit climate change" in the same sense nothing can discredit covid-19 or the war in Ukraine. It's happening, we all know it's happening, the most we could argue about is how it would impact the world.

The data you linked shows there are more cat5 now than there were 150 years ago.