From the we’ve been telling you so department, comes this honest briefing to the White House:

(CNSNews.com) – Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate said the frequency of tornadoes and hurricanes is cyclical, and he doesn’t know if global warming has anything to do with it.

“If you look back for the amount information we have going back to about 1850s, you’ll see a cycle, and it’s over decades of increased activity and decreased activity,” Fugate said. “And so that cycle has been there. As far anything driving that, I’d really defer to climate scientists.” “Well, I’m not a meteorologist. I’m not a climate scientist, and hurricanes are cyclic,” Fugate responded. “I do know history, and if you look at history and you look at hurricane activity, there are periods of increased and decreased activity that occurs over decades,” Fugate said. “Throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, early ‘80s, up until about ’95, the Atlantic was actually in a period of below-average activity, even though you had significant storms like Andrew, Frederic, and David.” “Beginning about 1995, we saw an uptick in activity that has been sustained, and about the only variation is whether or not we’ve had El Niños or La Niñas, depending upon that for a factor,” Fugate continued. “But if you look back for the amount information we have going back to about 1850s, you’ll see a cycle, and it’s over decades of increased activity and decreased activity. And so that cycle has been there. As far anything driving that, I’d really defer to climate scientists.” “But the reality is the history says we’ve had this period of activity, we’ve had a period of quiet,” Fugate said. “We’ve had a period of activity; we’ve had a period of quiet. And so what we’ve seen is not what we — we’ve seen this in history before.”

Fugate spoke Wednesday at a White House press briefing on the 2012 hurricane season that begins June 1.

h/t to Climate Depot

Appropriate to view this again:

Figure: Global Hurricane Frequency (all & major) — 12-month running sums. The top time series is the number of global tropical cyclones that reached at least hurricane-force (maximum lifetime wind speed exceeds 64-knots). The bottom time series is the number of global tropical cyclones that reached major hurricane strength (96-knots+). Adapted from Maue (2011) GRL.

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