Dear Prof. Nancy Ann Watanabe and Readers,

According to the information available from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions:

“Although scientists are uncertain whether climate change will lead to an increase in the number of hurricanes, there is more confidence that warmer ocean temperatures and higher sea levels are expected to intensify their intensity and impacts. Stronger hurricanes will be far more costly in terms of damages and deaths without action to make coastal (and inland) areas more resilient“.

https://www.c2es.org/content/hurricanes-and-climate-change/

Dear Prof. Nancy Ann Watanabe and Readers,

The other factor to consider is a solar cycle. During solar minimum, the ozone layer located in the stratosphere absorbs significantly less UV radiation, which leads to much cooler upper layers making the atmosphere more unstable. A more elaborate discussion of this subject is presented by Robert Hodges and Jim Elsner of Florida State University.

https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/joc.2196

The current solar minimum can be therefore one of the major factors contributing to the increase of the number of hurricanes.

The problems associated with this minimum are not limited to the meteorological phenomena. It is very likely that the Covid-19 pandemics is to a large extent caused by mutations of a virus caused by the increased influx of the cosmic rays during Solar minimum

https://www.longdom.org/open-access/sunspot-cycle-minima-and-pandemics-the-case-for-vigilance-2332-2519-1000159.pdf

Dear Prof. Nancy Ann Watanabe and Readers,

Increase of the influx of cosmic rays during the current solar minimum enhances the growth and formation of cloud condensation nuclei controlling the cloud processes. For details please see:

“The missing link between exploding stars, clouds, and climate on Earth

Breakthrough in understanding of how cosmic rays from supernovae can influence Earth's cloud cover and thereby climate”

“The study reveals how atmospheric ions, produced by the energetic cosmic rays raining down through the atmosphere, helps the growth and formation of cloud condensation nuclei -- the seeds necessary for forming clouds in the atmosphere.”

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171219091320.htm

This fact is very well known and it was discovered by Wilson in 1911, please kindly consult

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_chamber

Start quote

Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869–1959), a Scottish physicist, is credited with inventing the cloud chamber. Inspired by sightings of the Brocken spectre while working on the summit of Ben Nevis in 1894, he began to develop expansion chambers for studying cloud formation and optical phenomena in moist air. Very rapidly he discovered that ions could act as centers for water droplet formation in such chambers. He pursued the application of this discovery and perfected the first cloud chamber in 1911.

End quote

We can extend this list even further by including more details about the work of Wilson, but it depends on the potential interest in this discussion, I hope that it will attract more attention.

Janusz Pudykiewicz ., P. Contreras ., Ilan Kelman ., Arvind Singh ., Stephan C. Mann ., Dimitri Ketchakmadze ., and others,

Thank you very much for your expert scientific, fascinating, intriguing, and well-appreciated interest in this discussion thread question. I really appreciate your detailed answers, new issues raised by the unprecedented rains and flooding in Venezuela (similar to the Caribbean islands and Atlantic seaboard of the Continental United States, as well as in Western Europe) and also all of the many different recommendations.

With my very best regards and best wishes for better atmospheric conditions to all.

Dear Prof. P. Contreras and Readers,

Based on the analysis of historical data, we can conclude that the floods affecting Venezuela are reoccurring with a period of 10 to 11 years. It is still too early to formulate a specific theory, however, when we consider the floods of December 2010

“CARACAS, Dec 1, 2010 (From AFP) - At least 25 people have been killed and thousands left homeless as torrential rains have caused the worst flooding in Venezuela in the last 40 years, officials said”.

(Source ESA)

and December 1999

“Venezuela has been confronted with its most serious natural disaster in at least fifty years, following more than thirty-one inches of rainfall in the first half of December 1999. Normal average monthly rainfall for December is approximately two inches. The hardest hit portions of the country include coastal zones from the eastern State of Anzoategui to the State of Zulia. “

(Source relief web)

we have to search for some theoretical explanation of the periodicity of the precipitation pattern over Venezuela with the Solar cycle being one of the most important elements.

Dear Prof. Nancy Ann Watanabe

Thank you for challenging us with this question. The year of 2020 presented many difficult questions for the natural sciences as we face unprecedented calamities in the form of pandemics and meteorological disasters. These problems are not related to the averages but to the excitations and I believe that the long forgotten theory of R. Thom addressing the issues of bifurcations should be retrived from the annals of science.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/catastrophe-theory

Dear Prof. P. Contreras

The alignment of the meteorological and solar cycles is only approximate but very significant. The research related to the Solar cycle is still not completed as we can see in the following article

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspas.2018.00038/full

I hope and I wish that the forces of Nature in the.coming months will be more favorable.

I wish you all the best.

Dear Prof. P. Contreras and Readers,

Thank you very much for your comments and interest.

When analyzing the problems presented in the original question and recent examples of disastrous flooding in Venezuela, it is natural to wonder about the chances of predicting such adverse conditions. This question was answered theoretically in the past by Richardson who firmly believed that fluid equations with proper parameterization of unresolved scales can provide an answer assuming that we know the initial conditions; the long forecast horizon will obviously require a very high precision in the specification of the initial state.

The book: “Weather Prediction by Numerical Process” published in 1922 created the philosophical base that we use today to issue a famous “seamless prediction from minutes to months” advocated by many practitioners of numerical weather prediction

https://library.wmo.int/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=17276#.X7hheC01ihA

At the same time, I always remember a well-known book by I. Prrigogine: "From being to becoming, time and complexity in the physical sciences". The emergence of coherent structures from chaotic states is a normal process in all complex systems, including weather, and it is likely that our models are not equipped to simulate this transition.

http://www.fulviofrisone.com/attachments/article/412/prigogine_from_being_to_becoming.pdf

I’m quite certain that you will enjoy the book by Ilya Prigogine available at the site linked above, this text is stimulating even today over forty years after it was published.

Dear Prof. P. Contreras and Readers,

Thank you for your comments. The assumptions underlying a deterministic forecast are still being debated, for details please see page 59 in the following book

https://books.google.ca/books?id=UjglDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=margules+and+Ertel&source=bl&ots=YgU1z_8gBe&sig=ACfU3U1pkctEZiKHLeOFhNhq0afhzw8IpA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjclvza7pHtAhWsTd8KHRWGBJQQ6AEwEnoECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=margules%20and%20Ertel&f=false

(The text is available for preview, I have also attached a copy of the crucial part of the chapter on prediction of weather)

The emergence of coherent structures from chaotic states mentioned in my previous answer is most likely the main factor still missing in our predictive models regardless of the underlying nature of the modelled system.

The main reason is pollution and global warming.

Dear Isam Alkhalifawi and Readers,

Based on extensive observations, we know that tropical cyclones over the Atlantic Ocean are suppressed by the Saharan aerosol layer.

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/sensing-our-planet/saharan-dust-versus-atlantic-hurricanes

https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2018-09-12

The role of other pollutants in the life cycle of these cyclones is still unclear.

Janusz Pudykiewicz , P. Contreras , and also Isam Alkhalifawi ,

Thank you very much for your well-informed, well-researched, substantive, and concrete contributions to this discussion thread. I am learning a great deal reading your contributions; for example, I had no idea that pollutants may well be implicated in the proliferation of increasingly severe hurricanes, not only in the Atlantic Ocean region in areas such as the Caribbean, northern coast of South America, in particular Venezuela, and the Atlantic coast of the United States of America, but also the strengthening of dust storms in North Africa, spawned in the Sahara Desert region. Scientific research resulting in recognition of coherent patterns amidst the chaotic storm conditions shows, indeed, great progress, but, unfortunately, at the same time, the traditional role of meterological prediction is being impacted negatively by not only the ferocity of the hurricanes, but their increased frequency. It seems to be a good sign that global warming and climate change are directly implicated as being the main causes because these influences should be able to be partially mitigated by the current worldwide efforts to offset global warming and climate through environmental management, deploying sustainable energy, which is, however, a slow process, but a necessary one, since, in my opinion, global warming, climate change, and pollution are not only manmade but also a sign of systemic alterations in our solar and planetary system. Perhaps the "increased frequency" is mainly caused by the combined influences of diverse factors. But how does one demonstrate "increased frequency" using a scientific methodology?

Dear Prof. Nancy Ann Watanabe

Thank you for the interest and your summary. I appreciate it and I agree with your synthesis of this subject with one clarification concerning the prediction range. At this time, we can predict a single tropical cyclone for five or even seven days ahead. The skills of the current remarkable prediction models are discussed in the paper:

Have We Reached the Limits of Predictability for Tropical Cyclone Track Forecasting?

Christopher W. Landsea; John P. Cangialosi

Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (2018) 99 (11): 2237–2243.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/bams/article/99/11/2237/70236/Have-We-Reached-the-Limits-of-Predictability-for

Despite these tremendous advancements, your original question is still very difficult, and probably only the very careful discussion presented in the book about two different prediction cultures can put the question in a proper perspective.

Hurricanes just move the heat out from a warm sea. Simple rainstorms deposit evaporated water from a warm ocean whenever warm air meets colder air.

This year's extra precipitation reflect the extra heat of the Atlantic ocean.

Call this climate change or whatever, the main point is the ocean reacts normally when it gets hot.

Don't forget the air temperature (that heats the ocean) is affected by all humans using fossil fuels in North America. They are to blame!

Dear Prof. P. Contreras and Readers,

The relationship between precipitation and the solar cycle mentioned in my comments is very well known. According to scientific studies devoted to providing a quantitative assessment, it is also observed in the Pacific basin. Please consult the following quote:

“The simulations match observations that show precipitation in the eastern Pacific varies with the Sun's brightness over an 11-year cycle. However, the model does not indicate a relationship between solar activity and the rise in global temperature over the past century.”

https://www.nature.com/news/2009/090827/full/news.2009.869.html

See this link

https://warmheartworldwide.org/environmental-news-2/?gclid=CjwKCAiAq8f-BRBtEiwAGr3DgdZwiJ6s6ag29AL-t-EF18V-T46K4OJlsBw1U7HcO04iVmExQMr7DRoCJgYQAvD_BwE

Dear Dr. Isam Alkhalifawi and Readers,

The information in the site suggested in your comment is very useful and I agree with the findings provided. Please consider, however, that the original question is:

”Is there a plausible explanation for the increased frequency of severe hurricanes in the southwest Atlantic Ocean other than climate change?”

The search for all “other” factors is difficult and we have to analyze many mechanisms that are usually neglected.

Janusz Pudykiewicz ., P. Contreras ,. Isam Alkhalifawi , . Michael Issigonis ,

Thank you very much for your informative answers to this discussion thread question! I really appreciate your well-thought-out contributions! With my best regards.

Janusz Pudykiewicz ,

I appreciate your directing our attention to the off-putting phrase at the end of my discussion thread question: "other than climate change".

It may well be that scientists who would participate in more scientifically pitched discussions are reluctant to contribute what they know in the way of factual information drawn from meteorology, atmospherics, global cycles, chemistry, geological sciences, solar studies, and the like, on the basis that Research Gate is a social media, as opposed to being a formal conference for specialists in narrowly defined academic disciplinary fields. Moreover, it may be difficult to differentiate "climate change" from closely related phenomena. Perhaps it would be a good idea to take a look at some facts about climate change. In other words, it might not be a bad idea to argue that, in point of fact, "climate change" is, scientifically speaking, the primary, and almost exclusively, the one and only reason for increasing severity of storms, not only in the southwest Atlantic Ocean, but everywhere on planet Earth.

Indeed, I am rather surprised that there is a noticeably reluctance to answer the discussion question negatively, that is, "No, there is NOT a plausible explanation for the increased frequency of severe hurricanes in the southwest Atlantic Ocean; global warming and climate are the one and only force behind both the increased frequency and the increasing severity of hurricanes observable everywhere on Earth." It may well be that this is the best answer to the discussion question.

Best regards and best wishes.

The concern raised by this question has an underlying thought: We are seeing an increasing amount of devastating hurricanes in the Atlantic.

However, there is a similar impression for the people affected by typhoons and cyclones as they are called around other oceans. So the phenomenon appears to be global.

If you link this activity with other phenomena such as torrential rainstorms that cause flooding, very strong winds that topple trees, etc then one will exclaim: There is an increase of POWER in the air!

As we all know power is derived from the latent heat of condensation. The more evaporation the more precipitation plus an increase of power that drives the wind, the hurricane, etc If you watched the weather for the last 20 years or so, it is very clear the increase has been gradual and people have summarized it as global warming.