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tombi123 on 19 February 2010
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Sqrl said:
tombi123 said:
Sqrl said:

Actually, even the hurricanes have been called into question.

Granted there was plenty of data on the fact that hurricanes haven't increased in frequency or severity well before this recent run of scandals but it's easier to find links for the recent stuff.

No climate models predict that hurricanes will increase in frequency with rising temperature, only that they will increase in intensity (which is obvious if you think about it). That is why there is no evidence to suggest an increase in frequency of hurricanes. 

I am pretty sure there is evidence which suggests hurricanes/storms are getting more intense in the mid latitude regions. Give me a minute to find it.

Last I knew there was no trend in severity either (which I mentioned, see bolded above).

Landsea, C. W., Nicholls, N., Gray, W. M., and Avila, L. A. (1996) Geophysical Research Letters 23, 1697-1700.

Goldenberg, S. B., Landsea, C. W., Mesta-Nuñez, A. M., and Gray, W. M.  (2001) Science 293, 474-479.

Well models show that if CO2 emissions are doubled the peak wind intensities increase by 5-10%. 

This is because the land surface temperature rises with increased CO2 quicker than the ocean surface temperature (which lags behind by about 30-40 years). This creates a steeper temperature gradient between ocean and land, which will in turn increase the intensity of hurricanes/storms. 

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/jyin/IPCC_paper_GRL_Jeff_Yin_final.pdf 

(Really long read, there is a short summary at the end). 

The explanation I would give as to why hurricane wind speeds haven't increased from 1950 to 2000 is because we haven't increased CO2 in the atmosphere enough to see a difference yet (doubling CO2 emissions only gives an increase of 5-10%).