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Hurricanes and climate
Aug. 20th, 2006 10:31 amThis Washington Post article on the possible hurricane strength/climate change link is somewhat he-said-she-said, but in this case it's more forgivable than most because there's less actual consensus on the matter. There's something of an opposition between climatologists who tend to support the existence of the link, and some mesoscale meteorologists, especially the ones working for the National Hurricane Center, who are more skeptical and emphasize the role of a multidecade oscillation. My sense is that the balance of opinion is gradually tilting in favor of the link—the theorized mechanism is pretty reasonable and straightforward, for one thing—but the variable quality of historical data on hurricane strength makes it hard to say the numbers are solid.
I do wish the Post article hadn't led with the extremes—Lester Brown calling the Katrina evacuees "the world's first climate refugees" (since, first, lots of things contributed more to their plight than the sheer strength of the hurricane, and, second, if they are to some extent climate refugees, I'd be hard-pressed to call them the first); then someone from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is completely an industry-funded astroturf organization.
As usual, RealClimate has come through; they link to this interesting PDF on the debate, an article from the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The authors seem to be pretty much on the side supporting a climate/hurricane strength link, but, I think, do a good job separating out legitimate objections to the hypothesis from stupid ones, then step back for a big-picture view of scientific community/media relations.
I do wish the Post article hadn't led with the extremes—Lester Brown calling the Katrina evacuees "the world's first climate refugees" (since, first, lots of things contributed more to their plight than the sheer strength of the hurricane, and, second, if they are to some extent climate refugees, I'd be hard-pressed to call them the first); then someone from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is completely an industry-funded astroturf organization.
As usual, RealClimate has come through; they link to this interesting PDF on the debate, an article from the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The authors seem to be pretty much on the side supporting a climate/hurricane strength link, but, I think, do a good job separating out legitimate objections to the hypothesis from stupid ones, then step back for a big-picture view of scientific community/media relations.
