Global Warming and Hurricanes
Hurricane Katrina has unleashed a fury of misinformation over the link between global warming and hurricanes. Many reporters, politicians, and academics have wrongly asserted that the frequency of hurricanes has increased due to global warming. Their oft-cited “proof” is the high number of hurricanes that ravaged the Florida coast last year. The reality is no one knows whether the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere will push the frequency of tropic storms higher or lower.
Although no trend has been found between global warming and hurricane frequency, a link with increasing hurricane intensity has been seen. An article on this correlation, produced by MIT professor Kerry Emanuel, was recently published in the scientific journal Nature. Also, work over the years by NOAA scientists at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory has produced increasing robust studies predicting that as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise, so too will hurricane intensity rise. (A GFDL webpage on global warming and hurricanes has a readable overview with excellent graphical content that summarizes their work.) Thus, we’ll be seeing more storms classified as category-5 (the most intense rating) but not more storms in general.