THIS ARTICLE INCLUDES AN ANNOUNCEMENT FOR A FURTHER SEMINAR ON HURRICANES IN THE DIRKSEN SENATE BUILDING, WASHINGTON DC, for Tuesday October 25, 2005.

For the first time in the history of recording and measuring hurricanes we have finished our regular Latin alphabet. After Wilma we get now ALPHA - is it a he or a she? In November we will probably continue by getting BETA, GAMMA… What will be next year? How will we handle the naming problem then?

Will our conventional “gold standard” newspapers wake up to this changing reality? This question arises from the fact that I found in THE EPOCH TIMES of October 17, 2005, the only report about an October 11, 2005, presentation at the World Bank headquarters in Washington. Did I miss the parallel article in the New York Times? Is that paper drowning under its coverage of the Judith Miller case? So, let me bring up here the link www.THEEPOCHTIMES.com for those interested in climate change related events happening in the nation’s capital.

Dr. Judith Curry, is a member of the team that included Dr. Peter Webster, G.J. Holland, and H.R. Chang, that published in the September 16th issue of Science magazine the article that provided a correlation between the effect of global warming, as it brought about a warming of the surface of the ocean, and numbers and intensity of hurricanes; Dr. Curry presented the findings to an audience at the World Bank.

The authors dealt with data of global hurricanes from 1970 to 2004 - they found that over these 35 years that the number of category 1 hurricanes has decreased, category 2 and 3 has remained stable, but category 4 and 5 have grown from 40 per year in the 1970s to 90 per year in the 1990s. What struck me even more was the fact that the number of land falling hurricanes in the U.S. is only 0.2 percent of global hurricanes. By the amount of news-cover of our losses here we might have thought that we have a large share of such events — the truth is thus very different. The World Bank has to look into damages in many lands - so this point was clearly of special interest. I assume the day will come that the blame for global losses will have to be apportioned to the economies that caused them — so here we have an interesting input.

Measurements showed sea surface temperature increases of 0.5 degrees Celsius, or 0.9 degrees F, across the globe, in all oceans and basins, but dramatic increases in hurricane numbers and intensity is not common to all oceans. Most basins have seen only an increase in hurricane intensity - so destruction is everywhere - but in the North Atlantic there is also an increase in the number of hurricanes. The increase in atmospheric moisture (water vapor) was found to be in the order of 4%. Thus increases in energy available for storms and enhanced chances of heavy rains.

Further, In 2004 Japan was hit by the largest number of typhoons - is this the wave of the future? The observed sea surface temperature (SST) in the tropics is unprecedented and we have reached a level that is highest for at least the last 150 years and perhaps the last several thousand years. As the ocean waters warm and expand, and glaciers melt, the sea level has risen over one inch in the past decade.

There are several ingredients to get a hurricane. Sea surface temperature is absolutely necessary; other factors are wind patterns and air moisture. Dr. Curry indicated that the Gulf of Mexico had a couple of hundred feet deep warm waters this year, and when the powerful winds of the hurricanes churn this warm water it intensifies the hurricane - so we got: “Emily, Dennis, Katrina, Rita.” And while I am writing now this on the computer, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida is talking on TV explaining, in English and Spanish, his orders and arrangements for the Florida incoming Wilma. We saw pictures from Cancun and Western Cuba earlier today. Prior to that we were told on TV that Alpha will hit the Dominican Republic and Haiti; Stan did hit mainly Central America. Quite an achievement for this years hurricane midseason. This year we have thus already the largest cluster of storms ever observed - and mind you - we are not finished yet.

Dr. Curry warned that we should not jump at conclusions from the phenomenon of US landings, she said “we haven’t proved this beyond a reasonable doubt, but we have preponderance of evidence,” but nevertheless warned that “increased hurricane intensity represents the greatest near term socioeconomic impact of greenhouse warming”. Greenhouse warming is the best explanation that we have for the temperature increase of the SST, this at a time when actually solar and volcanic activity have been working in the opposite direction, during this period, to produce rather a slight cooling.

Dr. Judith Curry, Dr. Kevin Trenberth and Dr. Kerry Emanuel will be speaking on these subjects again in Washington, Tuesday October 25, 2005 12:00 noon - 2:00 pm, at an American Meteorological Society’s Environmental Science Seminar in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room G-50. Congressional staff, the Public, and the Press are invited.

Yes, we can continue to split hairs but the bottom line is nevertheless that unless we start reducing the effect that our fossil-fuels dependent lifestyle has on the composition of the atmosphere all humanity will continue to pay for our sins.

To Governor Jeb Bush an aside: - if you go for drilling of oil closer to the shores of Florida you will continue to be host to Wilma’s children. So help you God.