AP
May 19, 2008
WASHINGTON - Global warming isn't to blame for the recent jump in hurricanes in the Atlantic, according to a study by a prominent federal scientist whose position on the subject has shifted.
Not only that, warmer temperatures will actually reduce the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic and those making landfall, research meteorologist Tom Knutson reported in a study released yesterday.
Ever since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, hurricanes have often been seen as a symbol of global warming's wrath.
Another group of experts, those who study hurricanes and who are more often skeptical about global warming, say there is no link. They attribute the increase to a natural multidecade cycle.
Knutson, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fluid Dynamics Lab in Princeton, NJ, has warned about the harmful effects of climate change, and has even complained in the past about being censored by the Bush administration.
His new study, published online yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience, predicts that by the end of the century, the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic will fall by 18 percent.
The number of hurricanes making landfall in the United States and its neighbors will drop by 30 percent because of wind factors.
