Scientists to Bush: global warming boosting strong hurricanes
By DAVID ROYSE
Associated Press Writer
(AP) TALLAHASSEE, Fla.
Florida's governor cautiously entered the debate Wednesday over whether rising global temperatures are to blame for an increase in the number of strong hurricanes, meeting with two researchers who say global warming is threatening Florida with a long-term future of more bad storms.
Bush met with Peter Webster and Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who published research last year showing an increase in global hurricane intensity, with a doubling of the number of Category 4 or 5 hurricanes since 1970. That increase coincides with a rise of nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit in ocean surface temperatures, they say.
While they agree with other scientists that the Atlantic basin is in a natural cyclical increase in hurricanes, they argue that can't explain by itself such a dramatic increase in strong storms. Warmer temperatures globally mean warmer water, which is what fuels hurricanes.
"It's very complex, but there's one thing that we do know: if you increase these surface temperatures you're going to get more intense hurricanes," said Curry. "I think we can say - it's not totally conclusive, but with considerable confidence - that there is this connection between global warming and increased global hurricane intensity and the increased number of hurricanes in the north Atlantic."
There isn't scientific consensus that global temperature increases explain increased hurricane intensity, and there are some researchers who say there isn't a continuing long-term pattern of global warming at all.
The debate is something of a storm itself, and Bush joined it cautiously.
"He said they presented some pretty compelling information," said Bush spokesman Russell Schweiss, declining to say whether Bush agrees that global warming is increasing the number of strong hurricanes. "He encouraged them to continue with their research."
Webster and Curry's meeting came as environmentalists seek to push to the state level efforts to curb the emission of so-called greenhouse gasses that are blamed for causing global temperature increases.
They say President Bush's administration in Washington hasn't done enough to combat greenhouse gas emissions - and note that Florida could help by cutting emissions since it's the fifth largest producer of such gasses in the United States.
Besides, in hurricane alley, Florida has more to gain from lower emissions than the country as a whole if Webster and Curry's findings are right, said Jerry Karnas of the Florida Wildlife Federation, which set up the meeting.
Bush didn't commit to any policy changes in the meeting.
But Attorney General Charlie Crist, with whom the scientists also met, said he was impressed. Crist is one of several men running to be the next governor.
"It's fairly apparent that (global warming) has increased (hurricane) activity," Crist said after meeting the scientists.
Webster and Curry's research, published last year in the journal Science along with another 2005 study in the journal Nature by Massachusetts Institute of Technology climatologist Kerry Emanuel appeared coincidentally about the time the country was looking at pictures of the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.
But there are those who say the connection between warming and hurricanes isn't so clear.
Florida's state climatologist James O'Brien is one, arguing that the increase in stronger storms is part of a natural cycle.
"The jury is still out whether they're right - or I'm right," said O'Brien, who is director of the Florida State Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies.
O'Brien said there's no question that some parts of the ocean are heating up - at the poles for example - but that tropical waters don't seem to be.
Other skeptics of the global warming impact on hurricanes are probably the nation's best-known hurricane predictors - Colorado State University's William Gray and Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center.
In a recent Washington Post article, Gray, whose hurricane forecast is widely disseminated, proclaimed the whole idea of global warming "one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people." He has said the Earth is getting warmer - but that it will soon begin cooling because of natural weather cycles.
Mayfield, director of the hurricane center's Tropical Prediction Center in Miami, doesn't deny that temperatures are going up, but said last year that's not to blame for more storms.
"The increased activity since 1995 is due to natural fluctuations - cycles of hurricane activity... not enhanced substantially by global warming," Mayfield told a congressional panel.
But Webster said the patterns are going beyond the natural variation.
"Anybody who doesn't put into their risk analysis the possibility of increasing hurricanes in the Southeast, in the Gulf states, is probably a little irresponsible," Webster said.
"Even if there's only an 80 percent that we're right," Curry added, "it's a serious risk."
Global opportunity Florida's role in climate change is huge
We hear it all the time from our governor: "We are competing in a global economy." The start of hurricane season last week reminds us of another global arena where action is needed: global warming.
The effect of global warming on Floridians - hurricanes and rising sea levels that will devour parts of our state - will be intensely local. But the global economic and leadership opportunities it offers our state are profound. The message two noted climate scientists - Peter Webster and Judith Curry of Georgia Tech - shared with Gov. Jeb Bush and gubernatorial candidate and attorney general Charlie Crist last week was simple: Global warming poses a threat to Florida more than to any other state and most nations.
Mr. Webster and Ms. Curry study hurricanes, particularly the occurrence of intense hurricanes, and they found a correlation between the rise in surface-water temperatures and the increase in the number of Category 4 and 5 storms.
"The risk is greater than people are aware of. Already, it's worse than the 1950s," Ms. Curry said, referring to the last big natural cycle of hurricanes. "And it's going to get worse."
Our coasts, Lake Okeechobee and surge-prone areas such as Tampa are in the cross-hairs.
We have maybe a 10-year window to make major policy changes before the climate reaches a tipping point. The debate about the validity of global warming is over; now's the time for public policy changes that will help us avoid crisis management later on.
Florida can take some unilateral actions, beginning this week if the political will was there. We can build levees and further strengthen and enforce building codes. That alone could save billions of dollars in a Katrina-like disaster. We can plan ahead with land-use decisions and build desalination plants in places where fresh water may be contaminated by rising sea levels.
But let's think big. Let's think globally.
It's unusual for a state to take the lead on a worldwide issue such as global warming. But inaction at the federal level, combined with the fact that Florida will take the brunt of major climate change, make it imperative that our state act.
"A state is a laboratory for good ideas and bad ideas," said Jerry Karnas, regional outreach coordinator of the National Wildlife Federation. Inaction is a bad idea. Florida can be a leader in conservation and alternative energy sources (does that blazing sun outside or our sea breezes give you any ideas?). Our state must come up with a comprehensive climate plan, not just an energy bill with a climate component, which is the bloodless approach we have in place now.
Call in the academics.
Our state must be careful to not let international politics or lingering denial of global warming affect funding for our universities or researchers Knowledge and global warming know no borders. Georgia Tech is seeking as many international partnerships as it can, Ms. Curry noted. And Mr. Webster pointed out that a simple weather forecast for Bangladesh - right up there with Florida as an endangered area - can involve satellites in space and scientists on three continents.
Our state can become a leader in finding technology to ease global warming through reduction of greenhouse gas, the chief villain.
"We're talking about selling clean technology to a billion Chinese, not the other way around," Mr. Karnas said.
And we can find solutions.
Cleaner power plants have driven acid rain out of the headlines, for example. Changes in the use of certain chemicals have started to repair the hole in the ozone layer. International cooperation (and U.S. technology) promise to greatly reduce the emission of the potent greenhouse gas methane.
Gov. Bush and Mr. Crist are to be commended for opening their doors to the scientists and to representatives of the National Wildlife Federation and Florida Wildlife Federation. Listening and understanding are a start.
Now comes the hard work.
Drowning ahead - Florida leaders can't afford to ignore the threat of global warming
Attorney General Charlie Crist and Gov. Jeb Bush both listened Wednesday to researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology, who say an increase in the number of strong hurricanes is caused in part by global warming. Bush remained noncommittal, but we hope policy changes follow and that the politicians weren't wasting their time - or yours. There's no conclusive proof yet of a connection between rising ocean surface temperatures and more powerful storms, but compelling evidence is piling up. No matter when that link is established, Florida's leaders should be falling over themselves to find ways to curb the emission of greenhouse gases which lead to global warming - a link supported by overwhelming scientific consensus. That's because rising sea levels will inevitably result from global warming, and the Environmental Protection Agency is projecting an average rise of 2 feet nationwide by 2100. Other researchers put sea level increases at 3 feet by that year.
That puts southern Florida - along with coastal regions like Brevard County's barrier islands - underwater possibly within the life span of today's children. With little action to halt the danger coming from the Bush Administration, environmentalists now want states to start taking action. Florida in particular should, before the drowning starts.