“Hurricane Rita struck the coast of southwest Louisiana in September 2005. The storm generated an enormous tidal surge of approximately four meters in height that inundated many thousands of acres of the coastal marsh with full strength seawater. The initial surge resulted in the deaths of a number of alligators and severely stressed those who survived.”

Source : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19937751

They probably will, the people on the other hand .. probably not so much even if its only a small one this time.

Guess hurricane Sandy :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-G6Z2xDuM4

was just a figment of the imagination then?

Elsewhere I guess Typhoon Haiyan /Yolanda (2013) :

” ..the deadliest Philippine typhoon recorded in modern history,[2] killing at least 6,300 people in that country alone.[3] Haiyan is also the strongest storm recorded at landfall, and the strongest typhoon ever recorded in terms of one-minute sustained wind speed.[4][5] As of January 2014, bodies were still being found.”

Source : Typhoon_Haiyan wikipage

Didn’t happen on your planet either?

Then there’s this rather interesting and telling fact that of the ten most intense Atlantic hurricanes five of them (Wilma, Rita, Katrina,Dean & Ivan) have occurred in the past (not even) 15 years. Co-incidence?

Source : wiki page / List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_records#Intensity

Hurricane Wilma (2005) holds many records including fastest Intensification from a Tropical Storm to a Category 5 Hurricane and maximum pressure drops in both 12 & 24 hours. Hurricane Sandy (2012) is the largest in diameter on record – and of the top five in that category four came in the last 15 years and the other Lili in 1996.

Source wikpedia : List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_records page

So .. what do you make of that? That all being just happenstance starts to look pretty unlikely don’t it? (Possible just maybe but not that plausible.)

A point to consider with Florida and other low lying area is that it isn’t just sea’s rising but also increased erosion, storm impacts made more severe by stronger surges, higher tide impacts etc ..

I’m calling it a “good storm”. The alligators will love it.

When you say “you guys” you should specify what you mean. If you mean the community of legitimate climate scientists and science writers, than I suppose that makes sense but you should probably clarify.

In the original post I did indeed link conditions in the Atlantic to climate change, in two ways. First, because of a combination of anthropogenic causes and (probably) El Nino, we see attenuation of the Atlantic hurricane season over the last couple of years including this year. Indeed, the same basis modeling approaches that are used in climate change research have been applied year after year to make predictions of the likely intensity of each Atlantic hurricane season. Those predictions have been very accurate, verifying the validity of the modeling approach and the models themselves.

Second, there is a long term projection from climate modeling that despite small scale (and the Atlantic is very small compared to the rest of the world’s oceans) attenuation of hurricane activity, there should be an overall increase in hurricane activity. That overall increase has been observed. We expect it in the Atlantic as well.

I suspect that at present and for a few years we’ll see the Atlantic shift back and forth between the “new normal” of increased tropical storm energy and the other “new normal” of regionally attenuated activity. This, sadly, could result in periods of growing complacency punctuated by high activity years where at least the first major hurricane landfall or two are not properly handled by the generally anti-science state governments and an inured populous. This will cost lives.

However, there is a way to address that problem (other than the obvious and critical requirement that we do what we can, as fast as we can, to keep the carbon in the ground). Do you know what that is? It is to talk about the damn hurricanes.

So we can avoid talking about the hurricanes, perhaps even actively silence discussion, and thus increase the overall loss of life and damage to property as a result of social or other means of limiting free expression. Or, we can talk about the hurricanes openly and honestly and perhaps save a few lives and slightly diminish the severity of outcome that is inevitable when hurricanes hit land.

You seem to be in favor of the former. Why? Be clear in your answer. We all want to know.