# @ChrisMartzWX: Extreme weather trends reply (long post, verbatim) Analysis: [[Users/@ChrisMartzWX/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - ChrisMartzWX on Extreme Weather Trends (2026-11-01)|Post Analysis]] · Author: [[Users/@ChrisMartzWX/ChrisMartzWX-x-profile|@ChrisMartzWX]] · Topic: [[Topics/Climate Change Science and Policy Debate/Climate Change Science and Policy Debate|Climate Change Science and Policy Debate]] - **URL:** https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/2116967384233693289 - **Posted:** Nov 1, 2026, 12:55 PM CST (6:55 PM UTC). Marshall sent this link on Nov 1, 2026, a second post by the same author, with no label. - **Metrics (X API, Nov 1, 2026, about 1:44 PM CST):** 4,051 views · 189 likes · 31 reposts · 8 replies · 5 quotes · 21 bookmarks - **Quotes:** @ForeverUnitedFU's reply of Nov 1, 2026, 10:39 AM CST (post 2116933168616124461, "Daniel 🇨🇦") to Martz's post 2116776684548460707 ("Oooh, you thought you got me…"). It reads: "Because the data says their is a trend, and the news… talks about weather events that are outside the climate norms and how it is part of a trend that has been accurately predicted for decades." - **Mentions:** none (quotes @ForeverUnitedFU) - **Attached images:** 4, shown below. - **Text source:** X API `note_tweet.text`, copied unchanged. The feed shows only the first 280 characters; this is the full post (5,499 characters). The `t.co` links in the text expand to the list at the end of this note. ![[Users/@ChrisMartzWX/Post Analyses/attachments/ChrisMartzWX-2026-11-01-tc-frequency-ace.png|420]] *Image 1: "Global Hurricane Frequency 1990–2025" (hurricanes and major hurricanes) and "Global Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) 1990–2025". Data: CSU. Chart: Chris Martz.* ![[Users/@ChrisMartzWX/Post Analyses/attachments/ChrisMartzWX-2026-11-01-rapid-intensification.jpg|420]] *Image 2: "Global Number of ≥30-knot Rapid Intensification (RI) Events 1990–2025" by basin. Data: NHC HURDAT2 and IBTrACS v04r01 USA_WIND (JTWC). Chart: Chris Martz.* ![[Users/@ChrisMartzWX/Post Analyses/attachments/ChrisMartzWX-2026-11-01-usgs-flood-map.jpg|420]] *Image 3: map titled "Change in the Magnitude of River Flooding in the United States 1960–2025" (annual linear trend in peak flow at 425 USGS gauges; legend: significant increase 22 (5.2%), insignificant increase 209 (49.2%), significant decrease 25 (5.9%), insignificant decrease 169 (39.8%)). Map by Chris Martz, data USGS NWIS.* ![[Users/@ChrisMartzWX/Post Analyses/attachments/ChrisMartzWX-2026-11-01-wildfire-burned-area.jpg|420]] *Image 4: "Wildfire Area Burned by Land Cover Type 2002–2024" and "Forest Area Burned by Wildfires" (million hectares). Data source printed on the chart: Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). Chart: Chris Martz.* --- > Shut up, 51st stater. ✋ > > I am a degreed meteorologist, barf muffin. I have taken TWO climate dynamics courses. A's in both. > > Also, “climate science” is not a real physical science. If you need to append “science” to a discipline, then it's not real science. That includes political “science,” behavioral “science,” and climate “science.” The latter is akin to astrology. > > Tinkering with numerical computer models (fantasy simulations) that will print output contingent on the quality of input data and your parameterization assumptions isn't science. Making up data (which is what NOAA and NASA do over large swaths of land area with few in-situ observations, primarily in Africa and at the poles) is not science. > > Real science involves taking physical measurements to observe real world state variables and build datasets from scratch to describe their statistics and the variability in them over time. Then, you look at that data and interrogate it by asking questions. I do that every day with meteorological climate data. That's called “climatology,” and few so-called climate “scientists” do that. Most of these academics sit in their offices and play with computer simulations and accomplish nothing of merit. > > Regarding extreme weather trends, for the most part, there has been no measurable increase or decrease in it over the last 35 to 100 years. > > Tropical cyclones are not becoming more frequent or intense globally (regional basin-wide increases, such as in the Atlantic are just due to natural multi-decadal variability) since 1990 (Knutson et al., 2019; Klotzbach et al., 2022, see the first image I attached below). Global tropical cyclone rapid intensification events have not increased either since 1990 (NOAA HURDAT2; JWTC best-track archive, see the second image). > > 🔗https://t.co/AIUkVXYEuL > > 🔗https://t.co/CrXDOYGurP > > Tornadoes in the U.S. have not become more frequent or intense since 1954. In fact, strong-to-violent (EF2+) tornadoes have decreased by ~45% since the 1960s. The post-1990 increase in U.S. tornado outbreaks is primarily an artifact of increased detection of smaller, weaker tornadoes thanks to (a) rural population expansion and (b) the advent of the WSR-88D radar in the late 1980s and early 1990s. > > 🔗https://t.co/NgHr5v7WZq > > Meteorological droughts have not increased globally either since 1950 (Vicente-Serrano et al., 2022). Increases in agricultural and hydrological droughts, however, have been documented, but are primarily regional and caused by (a) land use change and (b) poor water resource management. > > 🔗https://t.co/v3KzYc1tp4 > > River floods have not increased in frequency either in the U.S. or globally since the 1960s, but there are regional and local increases and decreases within the bounds of natural variability. > > Long-term trends in river floods are usually evaluated by looking at river and streamflow from river / stream gauges. This can be evaluated by looking at the flux of water passing by a fixed point, and we measure this in units of cubic feet per second (ft³ / sec). > > With respect to river flooding trends, IPCC AR6 WG1 states in Chapter 11 that, > > 🗨️ “Peak flow trends are characterized by high regional variability and lack overall statistical significance of a decrease or an increase over the globe as a whole. Of more than 3,500 streamflow stations in the USA, central and Northern Europe, Africa, Brazil, and Australia, 7.1% stations showed a significant increase, and 11.9% stations showed a significant decrease in annual maximum peak flow during 1961–2005.” > > With respect to attributing flooding trends to human influence, the IPCC states, > > 🗨️ “In summary there is low confidence in the human influence on the changes in high river flows on the global scale. In general, there is low confidence in attributing changes in the probability or magnitude of flood events to human influence...” > > 🔗https://t.co/rCcMMVHu5K (pp. 1568–69) > > Recent streamflow data from USGS river and stream gauges affirm the IPCC’s synthesis in that river floods, at least in the U.S., have neither increased nor decreased since 1960. > > The map I made below (third image attached) shows the change in the magnitude of river flooding in the Lower 48 since 1960. The triangle-shaped markers show the annual linear trend in peak river flows (ft³ / sec) from 1960 to 2025 for all 425 USGS river and stream gauges having at least 95% completeness over the 66-year period. > > Only ~5.2% of gauges show a statistically significant increase in river floods and ~5.9% show a significant decrease. The rest are not statistically significant in either direction, so overall the trend isn’t statistically different from zero. > > With respect to flash flooding IPCC AR6 says, > > 🗨️ “[H]eavier rainfall does not always lead to greater flooding. This is because flooding also depends upon the type of river basin, the surface landscape, the extent and duration of the rainfall, and how wet the ground is before the rainfall event... A mix of both increases and decreases in [flash] flooding have been observed in some regions...” > > 🔗https://t.co/D4EPjLdiSg (p. 8) > > Again, any regional trends are within the bounds of internal variability. > > Finally, global wildfire burn area, including that from forest fires, have not increased since at least 2002, based on satellite data from NASA. > > 🔗https://t.co/JieV8JdeUm > > If increases have been predicted by experts for many decades, well they're batting zero. > > Are you ready to surrender? Or do you need another brutal beatdown? --- ## Links in the post (expanded) - [Knutson et al. 2019 (PDF, Harvard course page)](https://courses.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/global-change-debates/Sources/Hurricanes/Knutson-etal-2019.pdf) - [Klotzbach et al. 2022, GRL, "Trends in global tropical cyclone activity: 1990–2021"](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL095774) - [NOAA repository 69985 (tornado fact sheet)](https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/69985/noaa_69985_DS1.pdf) - [Vicente-Serrano et al. 2022, Phil Trans R Soc A 380:20210285](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/article/380/2238/20210285/58216/Global-drought-trends-and-future-projectionsGlobal) - [IPCC AR6 WG1 Chapter 11 (pp. 1568–69)](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter11.pdf) - [IPCC AR6 WG1 FAQ Chapter 8 (p. 8)](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/faqs/IPCC_AR6_WGI_FAQ_Chapter_08.pdf) - [Our World in Data, annual burned area by landcover](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-burned-area-by-landcover)