May 10, 2007 - Human World

sagar: Author=’Marc Airhart’ program=’4890′ video=”“Kerry Emanuel”:http://208.96.63.114/?p=2305 is a climate scientist at MIT. He?s been central in a controversy over whether global warming is making hurricanes more intense.

Emanuel’s data suggests it’s happening. Other experts have disagreed. In 2005, the increased hurricane activity was said by some to be part of a natural cycle of Atlantic hurricane activity that rises and falls every few decades.

Kerry Emanuel: _I think that idea is dead and I think one of the key observations is that one of the people involved in the original papers that linked it to a phenomenon called the “Atlantic Mutlidecadal Oscillation”:http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/amo_faq.php – that person himself seriously doubts that now. So, I think within a year that story will be largely finished._

He said in science knowing the “truth” often involves waiting. Another example was Earth’s ozone hole. He said scientists once disagreeed that humnan activities were the cause. So when will we know if global warming is making hurricanes stronger?

Kerry Emanuel: _I have some confidence that, say on the time scale of a year or so, we’ll really understand this a lot better._

Our thanks to “NASA”:http://www.nasa.gov/:_ explore, discover, understand.

Written by earthsky

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