Just What Floridians Don't Want to Hear

Okay, not what we need or want to hear. But we're not the only ones. Ask Haiti. Ask North Carolina.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- With four hurricanes and tropical storms hitting the United States in a recent five-week period, 2004 already is being called "The Year of the Hurricane." But this year's unusually intense period of destructive weather activity could be a harbinger of what is to come as the effects of global warming become even more pronounced in future years, according to leading experts who participated today in a Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School briefing.

The recent onslaught of four major tropical weather disturbances -- Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne -- that did so much damage in the United States and nearby Haiti have spurred new questions about the relationship between hurricanes and global warming. While experts can't say that climate change will result in more hurricanes in the future, there is growing evidence and concern that the tropical storms that do happen will be more intense than in the past. Fueling concerns about the link between global warming and hurricanes is a new study on hurricane intensity published on September 28, 2004 in "The Journal of Climate." The study used extensive computer modeling to analyze 1,300 future hurricanes and projected a major increase in the intensity and rainfall of hurricanes in coming decades.

Read the story...