In a recent and misleading post, the Heartland Institute quoted a report by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to argue that there is no corelation between recent hurricane activity and climate change.
In a triumph of spin, Heartlands reported – accurately – that the NOAA study could establish no link between global warming and the increased hurricane frequency of recent years. But the Heartlands spinmeisters conveniently ignored the increasing consensus that there IS a link between climate change and the increased intensity of those frequent hurricanes.
The best and most recent evidence of the latter came from Massachusets Institute of Technology hurricane physicist Kerry Emanuel, who published a study on this issue in the scientific journal Nature, in August of last year.
In a presentation to a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December, Emmanual also took a moment to criticize the NOAA for trying to muzzle its scientists on this issue – from which comments he earned a rousing ovation from his scientific colleagues.
