So Who Is Right in Debate on Role of Global Warming?

NY Times ^ | 9/24/05 | Andrew C. Revkin

[Crackingham]

With an American city swamped by one great hurricane and then by another one less than a month later, with federal forecasters ticking down the annual list of 21 names for tropical storms at a record clip, it is no surprise that debate has flared over the role of global warming.

After all, one of the clearest signals that human actions have pushed recent warming beyond natural cycles is a measured buildup of heat in the world's oceans, and oceanic heat is the fuel that powers hurricanes.

The issue has been addressed from starkly different vantage points. For example, former Vice President Al Gore has conducted a continuing speaking tour on the need to cut heat-trapping pollution, while Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, has accused environmental campaigners of fomenting unfounded fears about human-driven warming.

So what is the state of the science behind the arguments over the message sent by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina?

What is clear is that an array of leading experts on oceans and climate agree that the tropical oceans have warmed in a way that is hard to attribute to anything other than overall warming of the climate from the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions.

It is also clear to many climate scientists and oceanographers that warmer oceans will eventually increase the intensity and rainfall of hurricanes, but not necessarily their frequency.

In fact, two recent studies of hurricanes, by different scientists using different methods, claimed to detect a big rise in hurricane intensity around the world over the last several decades.

But the authors of both analyses acknowledged that more data would be needed to confirm a link to human-caused warming.

[meyer]

1969: Hurriance Camille. 256 deaths. Before global warming.

Camille is of particular interest, since it took place when the hippy professors were starting to whine about the new impending ice age.

[Sam Cree]

I didn't read the article, since it's bound to be irritating, but at the bottom of this hoopla is not the fact that there are more hurricane strikes, it's the fact that millions of people, during a 30 year lull, moved into hurricane strike zones and now they are getting creamed.

People like Dr. Neil Frank long predicted this, but not everyone seems to remember.