While there is no apparent connection between warming and an increase in the number of hurricanes, there is a growing literature -- including some half-dozen peer-reviewed studies -- which find that warmer surface waters generate more powerful and destructive hurricanes.
Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.
There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.
You don't see this every day. President Barack Obama used Twitter today to call out climate deniers in Congress who are blocking political action to address climate change. 
The tweet links to this video released by Organizing for Action, the 501(c)(4) campaign group that promotes the President's national agenda.
...
read more
Comments
Hmm, interesing that one set
Hmm, interesing that one set of graphs:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5742/1844/FIG2
Seems the number has dropped lately. Looks like a cycle to me, thus nothing to do with AGW.
Hurricanes
When will you people stop leading with your chins?
The WMO workshops on tropical cyclones have discussed this and have come to the conclusion that there is NO clearly identifiable signal to indicate that warming is causing changes in cyclone numbers and intensity. They also recognise that Emmanuel and Webster's researches are not definitive and that there is still robust debate amongst cyclone researchers as to whether there is any global warming signal in the cyclone record.
WMO workshop?
Which one? IWTC-6 in Costa Rica? Where summary statement 18 states:
18. Given the consistency between high resolution global models, regional hurricane models and MPI theories, it is likely that some increase in tropical cyclone intensity will occur if the climate continues to warm.
(it's all here: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/WWRP2007_1_IWTC_VI.pdf)
There is still some legitimate debate on this, as Landsea points out. However, that's a far cry from "NO clearly identifiable signal to indicate that warming is causing changes in cyclone numbers and intensity."
BTW: weather /= climate. Yes, you can't model weather accurately over 14+ days, but you sure as heck can model climate pretty decently based on 30+ years of data. If you are so inclined, take a look at http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm - especially the section on predicting/projecting the future.
WMO
Also read statements 14 and 17 which state that no global warming signal will be evident for decades.
Also: Statement on Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change
Submitted to CAS-XIV under Agenda Item 7.3 by Dr G. B. Love, Permanent
Representative for Australia.
In that statement:
• Current knowledge and available techniques are not able to provide robust
quantitative indications of potential changes in tropical cyclone frequency;
• The modest available evidence points to an expectation of little or no change
in global frequency. Regional and local frequencies could change substantially
in either direction, because of the dependence of cyclone genesis and track on
other phenomena (e.g. ENSO) that are not yet predictable;
• The rapid increase of economic damage and disruption by tropical cyclones
has been caused, to a large extent, by increasing coastal populations, by
increasing insured values in coastal areas and, perhaps, a rising sensitivity of
modern societies to disruptions of infrastructure.
http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:sie5H-FEH6AJ:www.bom.gov.au/info/CAS-statement.pdf+cyclone+research+paper+australia&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=au&client=firefox-a
seems like winning the
seems like winning the hurricane argument depends on who has the better lawyers.
Either intensity is clearly increasing over the last 50 years... or it's a short and meaningless period of time... or the measurements of a few decades ago are suspect.... or the deniers are getting paid off ....or the activists are grabbing anything they can find.
hung jury
uh oh - consensus on global
uh oh - consensus on global cooling :) - hope that doesn't make the hurricanes worse!
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/consensus_on_global_cooling.html
more on the evil Ruskie ....
more on the evil Ruskie .... I had no idea exxon was paying off the Ruskies too :)
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/01/top_russian_scientistglobal_co.html
Trolls are a bit thick
Trolls are a bit thick around here. So thick that people seem to be tuning out to avoid the irritation.
Is there a cream or a pill for something like these guys? That much vitriol suggests severe blood pressure problems, so perhaps these are self-correcting abnormalities.
Back to the real world and away from the reflexive, "reality is a partisan issue" crowd.
JTK