Pirate's Cove

I thought that ALL scientists agreed that Global Warming As Caused By Man was responsible for hurricane strength and amount (from The Washington Post)

A year after Hurricane Katrina and other major storms battered the U.S. coast, the question of whether hurricanes are becoming more destructive because of global warming has become perhaps the most hotly contested question in the scientific debate over climate change.

Academics have published a flurry of papers either supporting or debunking the idea that warmer temperatures linked to human activity are fueling more intense storms. The issue remains unresolved, but it has acquired a political potency that has made both sides heavily invested in the outcome.

Paradoxically, the calm hurricane season in the Atlantic so far this year has only intensified the argument.

Seriously, what argument? Scientists have agreed for a long time that we are in a period of more hurricanes and stronger hurricanes, which has happened before. They are a force of nature. They happen, if the conditions are just right. Even so, last year was an aberation, which happens, too. Just like the 1993, where immense, abnormal rainfall caused severe flooding along the mighty Mississippi. Just like the earthquakes along the New Madrid Seismic Zone in the late 1800's.

Is global warming happening? In my opinion, more then likely. But not global warming with capital letters, denoting that Man is causing it. Simply, it is what happens to the Earth. Warmer and cooler periods. All part of a natural cycle.

Does it effect hurricanes? Good question. While the scientists and Global Warming nuts concentrate simply on water temperatures, they forget other variables that even us amatuers know. Temperatures and atmospheric conditions in western Africa, causing tropical waves to eminate into the Eastern Atlantic. Atmospheric conditions over the Atlantic. Atmospheric conditions moving eastward from the North American continent and over the Caribbean. The Sun. Etc.

Hurricanes happen. Deal with it. They were happening well before Man appeared, and will happen long after. Some seasons will be big, some won't. But, what I do know is, one season doesn't make a trend. There have been plenty of, well, boring hurricane seasons over the past 10-20 years. If Global Warming was really effecting hurricanes, don't you think there would be a continuous amount of higher then average seasons? I would.