Our own Chris Mooney was honored this week at the 89th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. He won the 2009 Louis J. Battan Author's Award for Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming, dubbed “an accurate and comprehensive overview of the evolving debate on the impacts of global warming on hurricanes that illustrates the complexities of this significant scientific problem." It's a compelling book that successfully provides an interesting and honest account of the history of storms and climate science, while taking a serious looks at the players and politics involved.

Mooney is a regular commentator at DeSmogBlog, contributing editor to Science Progress, and senior correspondent for The American Prospect magazine. He has authored three books, New York Times bestselling The Republican War on Science, Storm World, and forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. A founding member of ScienceDebate, he also writes for a variety of news and scientific magazines and blogs at The Intersection.

Congratulations Chris!

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. 

Tropical Storms 50 Percent More Intense since 1970s

Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment   

But if we take them together--the story of pain and grief in a low-lying region on the one hand; the careful words of scientists on the other--it seems impossible not to attempt a still grander synthesis.

A new study published by Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Peter Webster of Georgia Institute of Technology has found that the number of hurricanes in the past 100 years has doubled. Altered wind patterns and rising surface sea temperatures (SST's) caused by global warming are the culprits. The team studied hurricane frequency from 1900 to 2005 and found 3 distinct periods in which hurricane activity increased sharply and then stabilized.

Debate does exist however...

Here's a short Wired piece adding some balance to an earlier Wall Street Journal article that dismisses climate change as an influencer of hurricane intensity.

The WSJ piece is also worth the read. It's interesting to see Bill (if-I-haven't-observed-it-with-my-own-eyes, -it's-not-happening) Gray tie himself up in knots, predicting more hurricanes of higher intensity but denying that climate change could be a contributing factor.

Researchers are charging the Bush Administration with yet again muzzling their scientific findings regarding climate change.

In this case, a scientist at NOAA claims the agency has gagged his attempts to expalin connections between global warming and hurricane intensity.