The consternation about storm frequency and intensity is an anthropological, not a statistical, phenomenon.

Other problems crop up when considering hurricane statistics – do you only count the ones with winds over some MPH in a capital city? Do you only count the ones which come over land? If we go back about 120 years, people at various meteorological observatories around the globe spent time correlating sudden changes in barometric pressure with the onset of a hurricane. However, aside from knowing that there is a hurricane and its general direction, those old techniques don’t give up much more information. The meteorological satellites provide an incredible amount of information compared to the old days.

A few years ago I wrote an angry letter to folks with the IPCC because of the claims made by some about “more frequent and more powerful storms” along with the statement that their claim was “difficult if not impossible to prove”. After all, how can you even claim the former if the latter is true – that’s the realm of religion, not science. So the challenge remains: who can come up with a sensible measurement scheme by which we can demonstrate (or refute) the claims of increased frequency or force of hurricanes?