How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

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Gulf of Mexico Landfalling Hurricanes
Reference
Bove, M.C., Zierden, D.F. and O'Brien, J.J.  1998.  Are gulf landfalling hurricanes getting stronger?  Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 79: 1327-1328.

What was done
The authors examined the characteristics of all recorded landfalling U.S. Gulf Coast hurricanes - defined as those whose eyes made landfall between Cape Sable, Florida and Brownsville, Texas - from 1896 to 1995.

What was learned
The first half of the century studied saw considerably more hurricanes than the last half: 11.8 per decade vs. 9.4 per decade.  Ditto for intense hurricanes of category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson storm scale: 4.8 vs. 3.6.  In fact, the numbers of all hurricanes and the numbers of intense hurricanes have both been tending downward since 1966, with the decade starting in 1986 exhibiting the fewest intense hurricanes of the entire century.

What it means
Contrary to climate alarmist predictions of more and stronger hurricanes being spawned by global warming, real-world hurricane data for the past century of real-world global warming have revealed just the opposite with respect to hurricanes that have made landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast.  Consequently, as the authors of the study politely conclude, "fears of increased hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico are premature."  In our more blunt words, we would probably replace "premature" with "irrational," or even "deceptive," especially when such unsubstantiated - and even disproven - claims are used as a means to scare people into adopting Kyoto-type restrictions on energy usage.


Reviewed 24 April 2002