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Science

Global Warming Expected to Intensify Hurricanes 589

DoraLives writes "Think this hurricane season was bad? Well according to the New York Times, a study was published online on Tuesday by The Journal of Climate indicating that warming ocean temperatures are going to make for stronger, wetter hurricanes in the coming years and decades. An abstract of the article concludes cheerfully enough that 'greenhouse gas-induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms.' Oh joy."
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Global Warming Expected to Intensify Hurricanes

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  • Whoa (Score:2, Funny)

    by Ninja27 ( 772574 )
    Look out florida...
    • by johnpaul191 ( 240105 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:10PM (#10414673) Homepage
      the hurricanes have been nothing more than intense storms when they make it up to my area (Philadelphia), but they have made a mess. just this last week all over PA, DE and NJ had lots of mess i watched on the local news. there was a few feet of mud from runoff on I-76 just outside the city. they had to get people off a bus using an xtension ladder from the other side of the road (the jersey wall acted like a dam). in all 30 cars and one bus were destroyed. countless houses and stores flodded out. sinkholes all over the place opening up. a lady was killed in the city because the water coming down the sidewalk was so strong it knocked her over and washed her down the street, she got stuck under a car and by the time people pulled her up she had drowned!
    • Florida has very little to worry about.
      Hurricanes do NOT kill people. The supply strong winds and lots of rain but people actually die from pore planning, stupid choices, ineffective government and most importantly large scale poverty.

      I.e. Florida lost less than 40 people in Hurricanes this year. They were directly hammered by 3 big ones (Category 3 to 5). A single category 4 passed 30 miles south of Jamaica and killed 16 people (.jm is small, 2.7 million). Meanwhile, Haiti was grazed by a tropical storm (not strong enough to be called a hurricane) and around 2000 people have died with another 100000 or so left homeless and starving (I.e. Likely to die if massive amounts of help isn't forthcoming).

      PS: I am writing from Jamaica. In case that matters.
      • by Martin Blank ( 154261 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @03:49PM (#10415478) Homepage Journal
        Haiti was grazed by a tropical storm (not strong enough to be called a hurricane) and around 2000 people have died with another 100000 or so left homeless and starving

        A lot of this has to do with the rampant deforestation in Haiti. Notice that the Dominican Republic, which is on the same island, did not suffer nearly as badly, as it still has much of its forest remaining. There's a picture [nasa.gov] where you can pretty clearly see the border of Haiti and the DR -- DR is green, and Haiti is not.
      • Florida has very little to worry about.

        So are you going to pay my mortgage when I lose my job due to the devestated economy?

        There's a lot to worry about besiced a direct threat to life. Florida will basically become Wyoming with coastline and warm weather if we have seasons like this one for the next 10 years.
  • Nature's way... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chrispyman ( 710460 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:06PM (#10414631)
    Perhaps this is nature's way of saying "I hate you."
    • Re:Nature's way... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zarks ( 783916 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:29PM (#10414846)
      Prehaps this is nature's way of telling America, the worlds biggest polluter by far to take global warming seriously.

      If this doesn't do it nothing will. It is the equivilant of being hit on the back of the head and not bothering to turn round to stop whatever hit you from hitting you again.
      • Re:Nature's way... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by khallow ( 566160 )
        Prehaps this is nature's way of telling America, the worlds biggest polluter by far to take global warming seriously.

        If so, nature needs to speak up. A few hurricanes don't mean much to the US which has experienced seasons like this before. I suspect instead that you are projecting your psychoses on the weather.

        Second, by "world's biggest polluter", you of course ignore China which pollutes more in certain very substantial categories (eg, heavy metals, particulate matter, human fecal material) and wou

  • Problem Solved (Score:2, Interesting)

    Problem solved...
    See Here [slashdot.org]
    • Re:Problem Solved (Score:3, Informative)

      by julesh ( 229690 )
      Despite popular confusion, global warming and ozone depletion are two entirely independent phenomena with little or no relation to each other, except that both are probably caused by pollution of differing kinds.
  • by erick99 ( 743982 ) <homerun@gmail.com> on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:07PM (#10414636)
    Even the most complicated computer models for weather systems can only approach less than 5% of the actual variability and density of the atmosphere. Consider that most forecasts are less than 50% accurate at 48hrs+. I am not dismissing the research, far from it, I just don't think the models are there yet.
    • by Aglassis ( 10161 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:27PM (#10414831)
      You said "Even the most complicated computer models for weather systems can only approach less than 5% of the actual variability and density of the atmosphere. Consider that most forecasts are less than 50% accurate at 48hrs+. I am not dismissing the research, far from it, I just don't think the models are there yet."

      The key point is that they are less than 50% accurate for short term forcasts. The same rule applies to psychology for diagnosing a single patient (meaning that it isn't always particularly effective).

      This rule does not apply for large sums. Psychology, for example, is an extremely predictable science for sample sizes greater than 1000 or so. The same will apply to weather forcasts. And it makes complete sense since hurricanes are fueled by thermal energy. Increasing the overall thermal energy of the planet can only make them more probable.

      Of course predicting when one will occur is very difficult.
    • Yeah. I just love these "plug all this data into the computer and see what comes out" studies. In the end, it's only as good as your model. And how good is the model? To answer that, we've got a big fat: "Who knows?"
    • by Martin Blank ( 154261 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:45PM (#10414986) Homepage Journal
      Indeed. In fact, when I saw this headline, I went looking for another story [abc.net.au] I saw just a few days ago that says that this may be part of a normal cycle of increasing and decreasing cyclone counts and intensities. It doesn't rule out global warming effects, but it does present an alternate theory.

      I have seen some other alternate theories to cover possible issues with global warming. Increases in geothermal activity under Greenland, for example, causing increased movement of the glaciers there. There's been the suggestion that increased energy output by the sun (a fraction of a percent, but at the level of the sun's output, that adds up pretty quickly) may be more at fault than man-made atmospheric releases. I don't mind research into man-made effects -- I'm all for getting off of oil dependency, and tech innovations are Very Good Things(TM) in general -- but alternate ideas do need to be suggested, considered, and explored.
      • by stevelinton ( 4044 ) <sal@dcs.st-and.ac.uk> on Saturday October 02, 2004 @03:17PM (#10415264) Homepage
        Interestingly, of course, even if increased solar output or whatever else is causing the global warming (and these theories are being looked at and discounted by very respectable scientific reviews), the correct response is the same -- increase the IR transmittance of the atmosphere by decreasing the levels of CO2 and various other gasses to allow the Earth to lose heat faster.

        The 30ish year hurricane cycle is well established, but global warming cuts across that -- if the sea is generally warmer there will be more hurricanes compared to the same point in the 30 year cycle when the sea is cooler.

  • by NeuroManson ( 214835 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:07PM (#10414641) Homepage
    Maybe when Jeb has to invest in scuba gear, that would be a good time to finally believe in global warming?
  • Great (Score:5, Funny)

    by MemoryDragon ( 544441 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:08PM (#10414651)
    The environment seems to solve the Bush problem at least in Florida itself.
  • by bobhagopian ( 681765 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:09PM (#10414656)
    I'm really sad that residents of Florida, Cuba, Haiti, and all those other hurricane-hit places will have to face more severe and more frequent hurricanes in the future. However, global warming is bigger than just Florida; as terrible as extra hurricanes are, this just might be the wake up call that the rest of the world (especially those of us in non-Kyoto countries) needs to really appreciate the significance of global warming. Maybe now people will realize that global warming isn't an issue put forth by tree-hugging hippies, but rather a serious concern with serious implications.
    • I'm sure that humans don't help the problem much, but nothing has been presented yet to convince me that this warming trend (if there is one) isn't part of the natural cycle of our planet over 1000s (and 1,000,000s) of years. Our data doesn't go back far enough to definitively say that it's all because of human impact.

      Again, I'm sure that humans don't help the problem and can do a lot better than we currently do, but I'm not convinced that if we immediately stopped all the "bad stuff" that the warming tre
      • Yes, but nothing has been presented to prove that global warming IS part of a a natural cycle. We dont know nearly enough about the weather to say anything 100%. Even the best computer models have yet to come close to the real complexity of the weather patterns. They could be many other effects that we know nothing about which could cause disaster.

        Right now we're running into a dark cave and hoping there isn't a bear in it. Not a very good strategy for survival.
      • by deragon ( 112986 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:47PM (#10414997) Homepage Journal
        If we stop pushing out green house gases nothing will change, environmently speaking. The % of CO2 in the atmosphere will still remain at the current level and will take decades to come down.

        If we stop pushing out green house gases, we stop agravating the situation. We do not improve the current situation. The pollution already released will remain. The issue is not about improving the situation, but stoping its deterioration.
  • Haiti (Score:5, Informative)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:09PM (#10414657) Homepage Journal
    If you think Florida had it bad, they don't even know how many thousands of people died in Haiti yet, they'll have to dig through the mud to find the bodies. Once they get food that is...
    The estimates are one or two thousand dead these days.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • WTF? Your being paranoid. Noone accused USA of being the fault of this.

        A little more money to aid the Haitians wouldn't hurt, though.

    • by gnuman99 ( 746007 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @03:27PM (#10415330)
      Thousand+ died in Haiti because they almost deforested their entire island. When the rain came (only tropical storm there), there was nothing to stop the water so it went down the mountains and though the cities.

      Of course, no one in Haiti is going to do much about it. They will just continue to chop down what trees remain for charcoal, etc.. They are digging their own graves. This is not a troll, this is reality.

      more info [indybay.org]

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:09PM (#10414662)
    I think that this, once again, shows the faliure of closed source.

    If we had access to the source code for the weather module, we wouldn't have to wait for god to fix the bug, do some sort of mediocre quality control, and then release it after 6 months.
    • I think it is premature to suspect the weather module, it might just as well be the smiting module. If that is true it would be operating according to spec. Anyway, let's just wait and gather some more data first. If mt. Helen blows and wipes out a significant part of the landscape, the Big Earthquake hits and drops California into the ocean, and half a dozen further hurricanes hit Florida, all this year, I'm inclined to think it wasn't weather.cpp...

  • Kyoto (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:09PM (#10414665)
    Democrats blaming Bush in 5, 4, 3, 2 ...

    (Kerry voted against the Kyoto agreement in the Senate in 1998)
    • Re:Kyoto (Score:5, Informative)

      by MillionthMonkey ( 240664 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @03:10PM (#10415203)
      Democrats blaming Bush in 5, 4, 3, 2 ...

      (Kerry voted against the Kyoto agreement in the Senate in 1998)

      You know, I've seen so many Republican talking points that come in the form of "Kerry voted against X", that turn out to be based on procedural details and similar bullshit. So I did some Googling and found this article from December 1997 [washingtonpost.com] (smothered in an avalanche of right wing blogs essentially parroting what you said).
      In Kyoto, a leading Democratic member of the observer delegation agreed that the treaty was not acceptable to the Senate in its current form. "What we have here is not ratifiable in the Senate in my judgment," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said. According to aides in Washington,
      Kerry wanted Clinton to sign the deal but hold off submission of it until follow-on conferences scheduled for Bonn in June and Buenos Aires in November.

      At those meetings, the next step in the process of designing an international strategy to combat global warming, international delegates will again discuss more active participation by developing countries, which was essentially removed from the pact during the final hours of deliberation in Kyoto because of objections from China and India.

      U.S. opponents of a global warming pact, including the Republicans and major American industries, especially coal, oil, steel and electric power producers, have argued that a deal that requires industry in this country to go through the expensive process of significantly cutting emissions of greenhouse gases was unfair unless the same requirements applied to all nations.
      In January 1998 the Senate voted 95-0 against Kyoto because the exemptions for developing countries were widely viewed as unfair.
      • Re:Kyoto (Score:5, Informative)

        by clone22 ( 252516 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @03:47PM (#10415460)
        Mod parent up. Kerry authored an ammendment to the bill:

        KERRY (AND CHAFEE) AMENDMENT NO. 987 (Senate - July 24, 1997)

        [Page: S8101] GPO's PDF

        (Ordered to lie on the table.)

        Mr. KERRY (for himself and Mr. Chafee) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by them to the resolution (S. Res. 98) expressing the sense of the Senate regarding the conditions for the United States becoming a signatory to any international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; as follows:

        On page 4, line 13, after `period,' insert the following:

        `(ii) provides countries with incentives and flexibility in reducing emissions cost-effectively by using the market-oriented approaches of emissions budgets, emissions trading, and appropriate joint implementation with all Parties,

        `(iii) includes credible compliance mechanisms, and

        `(iv) provides appropriate recognition for countries that undertake emissions reductions prior to the start of the mandated reductions;'.

    • Kerry voted against Kyoto? Gee, that's pretty amazing considering the Kyoto protocol was never submitted to the Senate for ratification.

      Kerry had some problems with that version of the protocol but he definitely recognizes that we have to do something about global warming. That's why he has authored legislation to cut down on greenhouse gases.

      Here's a quote from him on Kyoto:

      "Bush's abrupt and unilateral decision to abandon discussions with the world community on climate change was early evidence of th
  • by Richard Aday ( 816593 ) <airwave@ufl.3.14159edu minus pi> on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:10PM (#10414669)
    I'm currently living in Florida, and let me tell you what we had this season was bad. If in the future, we're going to have these types of hurricanes on even a stronger level we're going to lose a lot of tourism.

    This year our damages are estimated at $18 billion because of the hurricanes (that's $3 billion more then Andrew). I can only imagine how much we will loose if we get stronger and more frequent hurricanes.
  • by MagicDude ( 727944 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:11PM (#10414681)
    In other news, the State of Florida has changed its name to State of Emergency.
  • Conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)

    by julesh ( 229690 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:11PM (#10414688)
    An abstract of the article concludes cheerfully enough that 'greenhouse gas-induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms

    That's not a conclusion. That's a hypothesis. When they conclude 'greenhouse gas-induced warming probably lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms' or something equally as strong, let me know.

    I mean, anyone with the slightest knowledge of the subject could have you told that this _may_ happen. What's needed is someone to get a good idea of how likely it is to be true.
  • by ezraekman ( 650090 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:16PM (#10414738) Homepage
    Check out Mother of Storms [amazon.com] by John Barnes. EXACTLY this theory was the premise of the book... though taken to it's extreme, of course. :-)
  • Forseen 18 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Randym ( 25779 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:19PM (#10414759)
    In 1986, my dad -- an agriclimatologist -- worked on a report for the DOE, analyzing the impact of global warming upon crop regions and yield. Even then, the temperate perimeter had moved northward. I asked him to give me a quick overview of what global warming would bring. His reply was chilling:

    "Hotter summers, colder winters, and more intense hurricanes. But we can't rule out a sudden (say, within a century) plunge into a little ice age, if the ice caps at the poles melt, causing the earth to lose too much albedo from the loss of the reflective ice caps. Also, glacial runoff from Greenland could stop the warming North Atlantic current and make northern Europe uninhabitable, like in the last big ice age, which ended 11,000 years ago."

    So far he's been right. Not that that's a good thing.

  • "Was bad"? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Joao ( 155665 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:21PM (#10414779) Homepage
    Just for the record, hurricane season lasts until the end of November.
  • by Simon Brooke ( 45012 ) * <stillyet@googlemail.com> on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:21PM (#10414780) Homepage Journal

    This (more hurricanes) comes as a surprise to anyone? The atmosphere is a heat engine. You put more heat energy in, you get more wind energy out. It's as simple as that. Of course you're going to get more high wind events. In the Carribean, you call those Hurricanes.

    What's bemusing to a European eye is that it seems to be the places which are most likely to be devastated by global warming that are most likely to vote for Bush.

    • by code_rage ( 130128 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:41PM (#10414958)
      From the NYTimes article:
      "Dr. Emanuel and the study's authors cautioned that it was too soon to know whether hurricanes would form more or less frequently in a warmer world. Even as seas warm, for example, accelerating high-level winds can shred the towering cloud formations of a tropical storm."

      The important take-away is that the models predict a higher proportion of severe hurricanes, but no one knows yet whether there would be more or less hurricanes.

      Ironically, we could wind up with both drought and more severe hurricanes. If the total number of hurricanes diminishes, large areas of the South could experience drought. Yet, when a hurricane does form, it could be more severe than has been usual so far. Worst of both effects...
  • An abstract of the article concludes cheerfully enough that 'greenhouse gas-induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms

    What make you think it was cheerfully concluded? Did they end the paper with a smiley?


    -Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
  • Global Warming (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DaFallus ( 805248 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:25PM (#10414816)
    One important thing to remember is that this is nothing the planet hasn't seen before. Things have gotten no worse than they were 200 million years ago. There have been plenty of studies in dendrochronology that prove this and that while the earth might be heating up, its nothing the planet can't handle.
  • Global warming is also responsible for ending every ice age (including the one that we're still in the tail end of). I'll take global warming over global cooling, thank you much.
    • Actually, global warming may in fact induce a new ice age by shutting down the gulf stream ocean current.

      Can't happen? ... do some reading on the 'little ice age' that lasted 300+ years in the middle ages.

      Do you think it makes sense for us to help trigger this process?

  • Not a problem.

    I don't live anywhere near Florida, so I don't see any reason not to continue driving the Landrover.

  • Because the reason for the current surge in temperature is mainly the greenhouse-gas sent into the air some decades ago.
    And yes, for people in Germany (that's me) and France etc, it will be a very tough life, when the Gulf stream changes route and maybe leaves us with a climate like Hudson Bay or so.

    What you can blame Bush of course is that he refused to acknowledge these effects even now (or back when he didn't want to sign the Kyoto Treaty)!
    But then, it's hard to say what he really decides and what is pr
  • Before you jump on the human cause for global warming, I would suggest reading some articles and papers by John Christy [google.com]. He is a very respected climatologist. He provides some very convincing counter arguements.
  • History (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tiggan ( 581390 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:52PM (#10415038)
    Or, we could quit trying to blame everything on "global warming" and realize that hurricane severity is cyclical. Florida's been due for a couple of years now.
    • Re:History (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ozborn ( 161426 )
      Hotter earth- > warmer water -> more hurricanes

      Hurricane severity may be cyclical, but it doesn't mean global warming is not involved.
  • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @03:05PM (#10415154) Journal

    I have thought that a lot of money gets wasted by the USA government by always coming to the fiscal salvage of disaster. I am really a beliver that the feds should quit paying out for reoccuring natural damage. IOW, if something happens every 10 years or less, it is natural. Good example is Hurricanes in Florida. While we should help with rescue, we should not be paying for the rebuilding of a home, a business, etc. Yet we do. In fact, I think that every state and/or locale should be evaluated for what is naturally occuring and make locals pay the insurance and/or increase the building codes. Some example

    • Florida; Hurricane, Tornadoes, and Floods.
    • California; Earth quake, drought for south, mud slides for north, etc.
    • Texas; Just about every thing; Hurricanes, tornados, flood, drought, fire, hail, too much sun/heat/whatever, too little sun/heat/whatever, etc.
    • Colorado; Front range - hail, drought, Heavy snow; Highlands - Fire, flood, drought, Heavy snow.
  • Ecosystem (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tokerat ( 150341 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @03:15PM (#10415243) Journal

    1. Polution produces greenhouse gasses and puts holes in the ozone layer. Atmosphere allows more radiation in and traps more of it as heat.
    2. Planet warms up.
    3. Ocean tempatures rise.
    4. Tropical storms, including hurricanes and typhoons become more severe.
    5. Increased lightning activity means more ozone is generated, patching the ozone hole.
    6. Wetter inland weather means more plant life is active to use some greenhouse gasses, thus reducing their atmospheric amounts
    7. Things cool off a bit and then the cycle starts again, leaving the world not a whole lot different than it started.
    It could run deeper and somehow the warming of the earth is what is starting volcanos to trigger again, producing carbon monoxide which in turn eventually helps form ozone, but I can't think of a way those two events could be directly related.
  • by IvyMike ( 178408 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @03:18PM (#10415275)
    There are many models for the effects of carbon dioxide in the atmostphere being proposed by scientists. Our best, most extensive computer models show that increased C02 will lead to climate change, and our best records show that humans activity has increased atmospheric C02 by about a third.

    But the models all disagree exactly how much. And there are other sources of C02 (although there is no evidence any of them are responsible for the increases since the industial age). And since models always have to take a few shortcuts (instead of modelling every atom) they may have ignored something that could affect climate. Unfortunately, there are things we don't understand; our computer models don't explain all historical climate changes (even though every model has more C02 = climate change). And who knows, maybe the sun is hotter (even though the evidence for this is sketchier than any of the other data).

    Some people turn these little bits of uncertainty into a complete lack of action. They argue that climate change is
    natural", ignoring the fact that it's catastrophic and we might be able to do something about it. They choose to do nothing, and rush us ever faster into the abyss in our giant, wasteful SUVS.

    A large climate change is bad news for humans, and we have some evidence that we are responsible for some of it, and we have some evidence that we might be able to slow or reverse it. Do we need more evidence? Hell yes. But if we wait for the climate experiment known as "the earth's atmosphere" to finish, we'll be doomed. I believe that human ingenuity will be able make the world a place where humans can continue to thrive.

    P.S. I don't understand why "less pollution, less waste" is seen as more as a burden and not an opportunity for business.
  • by rspress ( 623984 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @03:24PM (#10415314) Homepage
    It seems that no matter what happens it is the cause of global warming.

    Lots of hurricanes, global warming. No hurricanes, global warming.

    Big hurricanes, global warming. Small hurricanes, global warming.

    Drought, global warming. Flooding, global warming.

    Hot weather, global warming. Cold weather, global warming.

    Different weather, global warming. Same weather, global warming.

    Obviously the planet is warmer than it was 50,000 years ago and at least he in California it has been wetter and cooler in the last several thousand years than it has been before that. One super volcano or asteroid and we may be trying to warm the planet up or it will be very, very cold.
  • by Fantastic Lad ( 198284 ) on Sunday October 03, 2004 @12:34AM (#10417998)
    How long after The Phantom Menace came out were some fanboys in denial about the fact that it sucked?

    Denial of unpleasant truths seems to be a big part of living in Western culture.

    Every fifth post through this whole thread is, "The Sky is NOT falling!" and "There is NO link between global warming and strange weather!" Essentially, "NOTHING IS ABNORMAL! LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

    Ahem. . .

    First Ever South Atlantic Hurricane Hits Brazil [about.com]. (March of 2004)

    South American Glaciers Melting Faster, Changing Sea Level [nasa.gov].

    Alaskan Glaciers Melting Faster [cbsnews.com].

    desertification in China [din.net.cn].

    desertification in Africa [fsu.edu].

    Heck, even the rest of the solar system is acting funny. Remember the. . .

    Blue Band on Jupiter [abc.net.au] this past March of 2004?

    and

    the Huge X-class solar flares of last year? [bbc.co.uk]

    Interestingly, the evidence of past hurricanes categorized by decade [noaa.gov] suggests that there have been big hurricanes to make US landfall before. Indeed, the worst decade, from 1950-1959 saw a total of nine storms between category 3 and 4, (though none of category 5) during that ten year period. Sure. But we've just had four in just one summer. Nobody can say that this is par for any course.

    Now, I am not claiming that this has anything to do with global warming. But anybody who tells me that everything is normal probably swore up and down that The Phantom Menace was a good film for a whole year after it came out.


    -FL

"Facts are stupid things." -- President Ronald Reagan (a blooper from his speeach at the '88 GOP convention)

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