In a poll on MSNBC today, 66% of over 12,000 respondents answered yes to: "Has global warming increased the severity or frequency of hurricanes?" Also, Time's cover this week was "Are We Making Hurricanes Worse?"
Unfortunately most of these people aren't going to remember in 20 years, when we are no longer in a more active hurricane period, that global warming had nothing to do with the cycle.
As for increasing intensity, higher SSTs do not create the really intense hurricanes; warm deep water is needed for that. and intensified to extreme only when over the loop current, exactly as Camille did in 1969; not due to global warming. Camille even had much higher winds at landfall. A lot of other atmospheric conditions that have nothing to do with global warming have to be in place as well, for a hurricane to increase to extreme intensity.
All anyone seems to remember is the inactive decades of the 70s and 80s, but history is full of very intense storms since 1900.
On the positive side, anything that helps get us back on track environmentally after the Bush years brought that to a grinding halt and started a rapid slide backwards, can't all be a bad thing, even if it is sensation journalism.
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Katrina's Surge: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/Katrinas_surge_contents.asp
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