STORMING THE DEBATE. As has been explained previously, severe storms haven't been decisively tied to climate change. But while the most recent storms that have pummeled Mexico and Central America can't be fingered as evidence of global warming, most scientists agree that warming trends aren't helping matters.
"My guess is that the high intensities of Dean and Felix had more to do with when and where they formed and tracked than with global warming per se," Kerry Emanuel, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of meteorology, told Reuters. "But it is true that the theoretical (wind) speed limit in the tropical Atlantic is about 10 percent higher now than it was 15 years ago, and that may indeed be a contributing factor."
Scientists are predicting that this will be a busy storm season, with experts estimating that we'll have 15 named storms in the Atlantic -- well above even the modern average, which has increased dramatically since 1970.
--Kate Sheppard
