Warmer Oceans linked to Stronger Hurricanes

linguizic writes "According to Scientific American, global warming could be creating stronger hurricanes: 'Since the 1970s, ocean surface temperatures around the globe have been on the rise--from one half to one degree Fahrenheit, depending on the region. Last summer, two studies linked this temperature rise to stronger and more frequent hurricanes. Skeptics called other factors into account, such as natural variability, but a new statistical analysis shows that only this sea surface temperature increase explains this trend.'"

Comments

Re:This isn't Global Warming

[linguizic]

Quote from the SciAm article: "Her team will now focus on clarifying the mechanisms at work in the North Atlantic by separating out the 75-year natural cycle and climate change. "The last peak was in 1950, the next is in 2025," she adds. "We're only halfway up [the cycle] and we're already 50 percent worse [in terms of storms]. To me, that's a compelling issue that needs to be confronted." Though no one can yet claim that the 75 year cycle isn't responsible for Katrina et al, Dr. Curry there seems to think that this new data presents the possibillity that Katrina et al cannot be explained by the Atlantic cycle.

Re:This can't be true

[jadavis]

I know what you said was a joke, but there's a real issue here. Most people believe global warming is happening, and most people believe that a part of that warming is caused by humans. It doesn't really matter if it's caused by humans or not, if a natural cycle throws the environment out of whack it's just as bad as if humans do.

The question is what to do about it. We can:
(1) Totally ignore it.
(2) Put our entire economy on hold.

Or anything in between. To determine what we should do requires a lot more information than we actually have. What's the extent of the damage? How much of that damage will be prevented if we do something now? How much of our economy will be affected by doing something?