A new research paper providing scientific underpinning for links between global warming and the increasing regularity of hurricanes is a challenge to policy-makers to think afresh, report Dave Frame & Daithi Stone.
The devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina and the subsequent development of hurricane Rita have invited speculation about the role of greenhouse warming in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Over the last decade many scientific studies have attempted to examine the links between the two. The evidence has generally been mixed: many studies have asserted increases in intensity or frequency of hurricanes, but none have convinced the research community of a definite link.
