Is There a Link Between Hurricanes and Global Warming?

If you’re concerned about hurricanes and global warming and you’ve been reading the newspapers and magazines, you are probably confused.

Perhaps in an effort to be “balanced,” most stories in the media these days present a muddled picture. Cornelia Dean’s piece in the New York Times is a good case in point: a scientific paper is cited claiming a connection; another is cited claiming the opposite. The implication is that the science is inconclusive.

I suspect most folks reading stories like this will conclude that, since the studies quoted seem to say different things, there is, in fact, no link between hurricanes and global warming.

Reading the scientific literature has led me to a very different conclusion. There is much more work to be done to fully understand how global warming has affected and will affect hurricane frequency and intensity. Nevertheless, the overwhelming weight of the scientific evidence gathered thus far shows that hurricane intensity has already been increased by global warming and will continue to rise as the globe continues to warm.

But don’t take my word for it. Go to our hurricane website, where we provide synopses of virtually every peer-reviewed scientific paper published over the past two years on the relationship between global warming and hurricanes. We include not just the studies supporting a link between storms and global warming, but also the papers arguing against any connection. The webpage even has links to the papers so you can read them for yourselves. Take a look and let me know what you think.