Another anthropogenic global warming (AGW) modeling failure emerges in observed tropical cyclone data. 

According to climate modeling (Knutson et al., 2015 and 2020), everyday human activities such as driving cars and using cell phones (AGW) should lead to increases in tropical cyclone (TC) landfall frequency and intensity (i.e., accumulated cyclone energy [ACE], or maximum windspeed).

Instead, 45 years of satellite observations (Bell et al., 2026) indicate declining TC frequency trends over the western North Pacific (WNP, including the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Micronesia), as well as a weakly declining trend (-7.6 ACE units per decade-¹) in TC intensity for the WNP.

“Landfall trends over individual nations are insignificant, but significant decreases are noted for the northern Philippines and parts of Micronesia, including for intense (> 33 m s-¹).”

“TC frequency across the region has been declining, linked to changes in the large-scale atmospheric circulation…as well as projected decreases in straight-moving TCs (i.e., those making landfall in southern China and the Philippines.”

“After removing the effect of ENSO [natural variability]…downward trend of 7.6 ACE units per decade-¹ for [the entire WNP].”

Image Source: Bell et al., 2026