Jerry Albro schrieb:

Has global warming increased the frequency of hurricanes? One of the
nation's foremost hurricane experts, William Gray, points out that if
global warming is at work, cyclones should be increasing not just in the
Atlantic but elsewhere, in the West Pacific, East Pacific, and the
Indian Ocean. They aren't. The number of cyclones per year worldwide
fluctuates pretty steadily between 80 and 100. There's actually been a
small overall decline in tropical cyclones since 1995, and Atlantic
hurricanes declined from 1970 to 1994, even as the globe was heating up.

....
But if hurricanes aren't more frequent, are they more powerful? Warm
water fuels hurricanes, so the theory is that as the ocean's surface
heats up, hurricanes will pack more punch. An article in Nature - after
questionable jiggering with the historical wind data - argues that
hurricanes have doubled in strength because of global warming.
Climatologist Patrick Michaels counters that if hurricanes had doubled
in their power it would be obvious to everyone and there would be no
need to write controversial papers about it.
....
If you see it that way: How many hurricanes do you need, until you are
convinced? It's simply not the question, whether there's a water-tight
scientific evidence. If the value - and I'm not only talking money
terms of U.S. property here - at risk is very high, you should keep
the risk very low.
Example: Imagine 10 glasses of water, one poisonned. You would juge it
an acceptable risk in some game show, if someone else drinks. For
yourself you would need 100 glasses to one to accept the risk to drink.
For your kids, you wouldn't even accept 1000 glasses to one, if you
know they will drink.
And it's not only the US-Americans at stake here. Would you accept, if
Canada would run unsafe Nuclear Plants close to the US-Border simply
argueing: Heck, an accident will kill just US-citizens... Certainly
not. In most cases these "stronger-than-ever" hurricanes devastate
other states around the Gulf. This time, the global warmers have
recieved a message... The rest of the world hopes, that they will
understand this time. If not, well more messages are already under way.
That's cruel, extremely cruell -- I just saw the TV-reports with
victims desparately shouting up to the helicopters....