[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On today's D.N, Amy Goodman interviewed someone far from being whacko -- MIT Prof. of Meteorology Kerry Emmanuel (who Goodman undoubtedly sought out precisely because of his recently published studies of global warming) -- who took an at most agnostic position re. whether "Katrina" or the comparative effects of that storm can be said scientifically to be ascribed to global warming (saying "it would be very hard" to make such a claim).He said "it would be very hard" to blame the fact of comparatively greater hurricane frequency during the last ten years on "global warming" ("a very difficult connection to make") and said that, instead, he "think[s] what you are seeing mostly is a natural cycle in this case" adding later in the interview that "what we thought a few years ago was, well, global warming should have an effect on hurricanes, but it's small enough that you won't really see it for many decades to come."
I looked into this a few years ago for a piece I wrote on catastrophe bonds and other financial instruments tied to weather disasters. The scientific consensus was that Florida enjoyed a several-decade period of milder and less frequent hurricanes, and the increase in frequency and severity we started seeing the 1990s was a reversion to mean. That said, part of the insurance industry - notably European-based reinsurers - are concerned that climate change is going to lead to bigger losses. Sadly, they're more interested in financial fixes (e.g. catastrophe bonds) than in political action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Or at least they were a few years ago. Doug
