Monday, August 29, 2005
Study ties global warming, hurricanes
In the Bush regime’s zeal to pay off their cronies and contributors in the energy industries, with an agenda that seems more like a never-ending war on the environment, they have blocked studies and gutted laws designed to slow down or stop global warming. When religious claptrap like “intelligent design” is held to be true and any form of objective and rational science is pushed to the side - the truth will rear its inconvienient head and bite back.
Now here comes the payback, at least on this front. Not only are the connections between global warming and rapidly escalating weather-related disasters being drawn - but to top it off, it also turns out that Bush slashed the budget for hurricane and flood protection in the New Orleans area, which could have a large bearing on the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
And where are most of the Louisiana and Mississippi (and all the other states, for that matter) National Guards that would normally be helping out in a domestic crisis?
In Iraq, thanks to you-know-who.
When will the voters in the “red states” (which, ironically, are going to be the ones to bear the brunt of these hurricanes) finally get a friggin’ clue?
- Bob Woods
Report is first to link water temperature with storms’ growing punch
MARTIN MERZER
Knight Ridder
The accumulated power of Atlantic hurricanes has more than doubled in the past 30 years, according to a study to be published this week, and global warming likely is a major cause.
Though a connection between global warming and hurricane ferocity might seem logical, the report by a reputable climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the first to draw a statistical relationship between the two.
“The large upswing in the last decade is unprecedented and probably reflects the effect of global warming,” scientist Kerry Emanuel wrote in a study that will appear in the Thursday edition of the journal Nature. Copies of the article were made available Sunday.
Importantly, his study did not shed any light on the effect, if any, of global warming on the number of storms.
But that is only of modest consolation.
One reason: Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s hurricane research division in Virginia Key, Fla., have concluded that, because of long-term natural cycles, we are in the middle of a decades-long period of more frequent hurricane formation.
The current season, with a record seven named storms by July 23, provides unpleasant support for that conclusion.
Another source of concern: Most experts expect global warning to persist.
So, if both camps of scientists are correct, we could be facing stronger storms and more of them, a potentially catastrophic collision of phenomena.
“My results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential and, taking into account an increasing coastal population, a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the 21st century,” Emanuel wrote.
He said his analysis of wind-speed reports by the National Hurricane Center and other sources show that the accumulated power of hurricanes in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, has more than doubled since 1970.
A particularly steep increase began in 1995, according to the study.
“This large increase in power dissipation over the past 30 years or so may be because storms have become more intense, on the average, and/or have survived at high intensity for longer periods of time,” he wrote.
He said the trend is closely linked to an increase of about 1 degree in the average ocean surface temperature, which might not seem significant but can be crucial.
“It sounds like a small amount, but we know that as waters get even a little bit warmer, the potential exists for hurricanes to get dramatically stronger,” said Chris Landsea, a NOAA scientist on Virginia Key and one of the nation’s leading hurricane researchers.
