Global warming and hurricanes

In light of what I said yesterday, "our preparation should certainly be a large investment in science and technology for coping with the possible effects we can foresee," the following may be of interest.

First, new research shows that there is a relationship between warming and the proportion of strong hurricanes: Warming world blamed for more strong hurricanes.

The study finds there has been no general increase in the total number of hurricanes, which are called cyclones when they appear outside the Atlantic. Nor is there any evidence of the formation of the oft-predicted “super-hurricanes”. The worst hurricane in any year is usually no stronger than in previous years during the study period.

But the proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 or 5 – with wind speeds above 56 metres per second – has risen from 20% in the 1970s to 35% in the past decade.

Second, there has been research into possible ways to disrupt or deflect hurricanes: Could humans tackle hurricanes? But merely deflecting hurricanes isn't without problems:

[H]urricane steering creates hard choices. “Choosing between a Category 3 hitting Pensacola and a Category 5 hitting New Orleans is easy. But the people of Pensacola may have something to say about it.”

Here's a full article on controlling hurricanes at Scientific American.