Global Warming Expected to Intensify Hurricanes

DoraLives writes "Think this hurricane season was bad? Well according to the New York Times, a study was published online on Tuesday by The Journal of Climate indicating that warming ocean temperatures are going to make for stronger, wetter hurricanes in the coming years and decades. An abstract of the article concludes cheerfully enough that 'greenhouse gas-induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms.' Oh joy."

Comments

"Was bad"?

[Joao]

Just for the record, hurricane season lasts until the end of November.

Re:Kyoto

[MillionthMonkey]

Democrats blaming Bush in 5, 4, 3, 2 ...

(Kerry voted against the Kyoto agreement in the Senate in 1998)

You know, I've seen so many Republican talking points that come in the form of "Kerry voted against X", that turn out to be based on procedural details and similar bullshit. So I did some Googling and found this article from December 1997 (smothered in an avalanche of right wing blogs essentially parroting what you said).

In Kyoto, a leading Democratic member of the observer delegation agreed that the treaty was not acceptable to the Senate in its current form. "What we have here is not ratifiable in the Senate in my judgment," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said. According to aides in Washington, Kerry wanted Clinton to sign the deal but hold off submission of it until follow-on conferences scheduled for Bonn in June and Buenos Aires in November.

At those meetings, the next step in the process of designing an international strategy to combat global warming, international delegates will again discuss more active participation by developing countries, which was essentially removed from the pact during the final hours of deliberation in Kyoto because of objections from China and India.

U.S. opponents of a global warming pact, including the Republicans and major American industries, especially coal, oil, steel and electric power producers, have argued that a deal that requires industry in this country to go through the expensive process of significantly cutting emissions of greenhouse gases was unfair unless the same requirements applied to all nations.

In January 1998 the Senate voted 95-0 against Kyoto because the exemptions for developing countries were widely viewed as unfair.

Re:Kyoto

[clone22]

Mod parent up. Kerry authored an ammendment to the bill:

KERRY (AND CHAFEE) AMENDMENT NO. 987 (Senate - July 24, 1997)

[Page: S8101] GPO's PDF

(Ordered to lie on the table.)

Mr. KERRY (for himself and Mr. Chafee) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by them to the resolution (S. Res. 98) expressing the sense of the Senate regarding the conditions for the United States becoming a signatory to any international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; as follows:

On page 4, line 13, after `period,' insert the following:

`(ii) provides countries with incentives and flexibility in reducing emissions cost-effectively by using the market-oriented approaches of emissions budgets, emissions trading, and appropriate joint implementation with all Parties,

`(iii) includes credible compliance mechanisms, and

`(iv) provides appropriate recognition for countries that undertake emissions reductions prior to the start of the mandated reductions;'.

Re:Whoa : Florida has very little to worry about.

[Martin Blank]

Haiti was grazed by a tropical storm (not strong enough to be called a hurricane) and around 2000 people have died with another 100000 or so left homeless and starving

A lot of this has to do with the rampant deforestation in Haiti. Notice that the Dominican Republic, which is on the same island, did not suffer nearly as badly, as it still has much of its forest remaining. There's a picture where you can pretty clearly see the border of Haiti and the DR -- DR is green, and Haiti is not.