Stephen Leahy
BROOKLIN, Canada, Sep 11 (IPS) – There is little doubt now that climate change is making hurricanes and cyclones much more powerful and more frequent, top scientists announced Monday.
Sea surface temperatures are rising due to global warming and more than a dozen studies since Hurricane Katrina hit the United States last August show this has resulted in the dramatic increase in the strength of hurricanes in recent years.
“There is no doubt at all that hurricane intensity has increased,” said Kerry Emanuel, a climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“I was startled to see the power of hurricanes and cyclones increase by 50 to 100 percent since the 1970s,” said Emanuel, one of 19 climate scientists who published a major study Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist 