The term "global warming," like many quickly adopted scientific terms (i.e. the theory of general relativity) is not entirely accurate. And it's the lack of accuracy that lends credence to the cudgels of the anti-science monkeys who seek to beat reason out of us. "How can their be global warming," they crow, "if we got record rainfalls and icy winters?!"
The answer is "global warming" really should be called "global climate change." Some areas are hotter and some are colder, but the net result is, things are getting increasingly inhospitable for humankind. And whatever you wish to call it, there's no question that we humans are holding the smoking gun.
A new study out from Georgia Tech showing a relationship between global climate change and hurricanes reinforces and expands upon one from MIT earlier this month.
"What we found was rather astonishing," says Peter Webster of Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. "In the 1970s, there was an average of about 10 Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide per year. Since 1990, the number has averaged 18 per year."
Although Webster and his fellow researchers stop short of attributing the increase directly to global warming, they say the worldwide increase in intense storms — like Hurricane Katrina — closely matches the predictions of computer climate models for a warmer world.
"It's impossible to say that a particular hurricane like Katrina, or any other storm, is due to climate change. But storms like Katrina have increased tremendously in all ocean basins of the world, so the trend doesn't appear to be a result of natural variability," says Webster.