Hot air

(Hurricanes are not caused or affected by greenhouse gas emissions)

Hurricanes like Katrina are not new, nor are they caused by global warming, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).

According to Stanley Goldenberg, a meteorologist at the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), such claims are nonsense; "Katrina is part of a well-documented, multi-decadal scale fluctuation in hurricane activity . . . (that) was described in a heavily cited article printed in the Journal of Science in 2001."

Moreover:

Chris Landsea, a colleague at NOAA, agrees, adding that if you look at raw hurricane data there is no global warming signal, instead, we see a strong cycling of activity.

At the 27th annual National Hurricane Conference, William Gray, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado, explained that nature, not man, is responsible for hurricane cycles, and that periodically changing ocean-circulation patterns influence these cycles.

A recent paper, "Hurricanes and Global Warming," written by six noted tropical cyclone experts stated that there was no connection between greenhouse gas emissions and hurricane activity.

Additionally, the National Hurricane Centre Web site says that the peak for major hurricanes was between 1930 and 1950, when storms averaged nine per year; today, the average is three. Nor is hurricane strength intensifying; since the 1940s, the mean maximum intensity has actually decreased.

Source: Editorial, Gore In The Balance, Investor's Business Daily, September 16, 2005.

For text (subscription required): http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20&artnum=2&issue=20050915

For more on Global Warming: http://eteam.ncpa.org/issues/?c=science

FMF Policy Bulletin/ 27 September 2005