(no subject)

[eirias]

I've heard some speculation that global warming is the cause of the recent upswing in the number of major hurricane hits to the US. Apparently that's not the case. However, as common sense would suggest, it is possible that global warming will affect hurricane season in some way, and a recent article in Nature suggests that it already has, in that total power has increased over the last 30 years - but nevertheless the current/recent Atlantic activity, they say, is no more than one would expect from normal variation.

Further reading on hurricanes and on global warming in general for the curious (I'm looking at you, upsilon! :) ). Some of them are pretty old at this point, but I tried to pick things in reputable journals.

Knutson TR, Tuleya RE, & Kurihara Y. (1998). "Simulated increase of hurricane intensities in a CO2-warmed climate." Science, 279: 1018-1020.
Harman JR, Harrington JA, & Cerveny RS. (1998). "Science, policy, and ethics: Balancing scientific and ethical values in environmental science." Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 88(2): 277-286. (This is a really great article!)
Nordhaus WD. (1993). "Reflections on the economics of climate change." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 7(4): 11-25.

Time to get my mind off the climate change train and on the getting to school on time train.

Comments

[upsilon.livejournal.com]

Well, admittedly, I didn't really mean to suggest that the last few years' hurricanes were due to global warming. If I did suggest that, I was being a bit sensationalist. It's ridiculous to say "Hurricanes are up 60% in the last five years! Must be global warming!"

What I did want to speculate on, and point out, was the easy possibility of this number of storms every year from now until whenever we get our global warming butts in gear. And I'm not a scientist, so maybe this speculation is too facile and not grounded enough in reality...

I'll try to check out those journals... erp. I'm not sure when. Or even, really, how, but I suspect my local librarian might be able to help with that...

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't mean to upbraid you! I just thought you specifically might be interested because you were the one that got me thinking about it. :) And because one of the things I like best about you is that, of my friends, you are one of the most prone to wonder something and then look it up.

If any of the articles look interesting in particular I'd be happy to send them on to you in pdf format, since I do have access.