Reply #36: Maybe I should have been more clear. [View All]

[Uncle Joe]

While no single hurricane including Katrina can be directly laid to global warming effects. There is a consensus among the leading scientists that warmer water will increase the strength of hurricanes and possibly the number of them.

As you stated Katrina was only a category 3 so if warmer water increases the strength of hurricanes, it is inevitable that we will have an increase of category 4 or 5 and maybe one day category 6 hurricanes, any of which could swamp New Orleans or most other coastal areas. If Katrina had been a five or six, maybe even a 4 the levees still would not hold after improvements.

What I was trying to imply was that the general devastation of the gulf coast and the drowning of a major U.S. City should open the eyes of many people insulated by our artificial world as to he dangers posed by the prospect of more powerful hurricanes as one consequence of global warming.