Science Source

Historical Atlantic Hurricane and Tropical Storm Records

States that existing records of past Atlantic tropical storm numbers (1878 to present) show a pronounced upward trend, correlated with rising SSTs
States, however, that the density of reporting ship traffic over the Atlantic was relatively sparse during the early decades of this record
Finds, after adjusting for an estimated number of missing storms, there is a small nominally positive upward trend in tropical storm occurrence from 1878-2006
Statistical tests reveal that this trend is so small, relative to the variability in the series, that it is not significantly distinguishable from zero