 "Enhanced" greenhouse effects caused by human activities such as emissions from factories and plants contribute to climate changes that have produced major hurricanes like Katrina. PHOTO BY NIKKI G. BANNISTER|DIGEST |
Discussion linking climate changes and global warming to stronger hurricanes has finally reached Southern University.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 2005 summer was the 10th warmest recorded in the U.S. NOAA also reported the precipitation levels with global temperatures to be the second highest on record.
In May, NOAA released their annual Atlantic hurricane season outlook report and predicted an above average-normal season.
The report forecasted 12 to 15 tropical storms, with up to nine of them becoming hurricanes. Up to five of them were expected to reach major storm levels.
"We anticipated a busy season and we're already half way there," said Dr. Christopher Landsea of NOAA's Miami hurricane research division.
Landsea said there is no "yes or no answer on global warming" and its possible effects on hurricane activity this year and it would be a long time in the future before any change could be documented.
Global warming is defined as natural increases in the Earth's near surface temperatures and is most often used to predict warming as a result of increased omissions of greenhouse gases that absorb infra-red radiation in the atmosphere producing a greenhouse effect.
These gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and other photochemical important gases caused by human activities such as fossil fuel consumption.
The "natural" greenhouse effect helps to regulate the temperature on Earth, but "enhanced" greenhouse effects, caused by human activities, are said by researchers with globalwarming.org to trap more infra-red radiation in the atmosphere resulting in a warming influence on the climate.
A study released by Arizona State University professor Dr. Robert C. Ballings states that although the climate has warmed slightly in the last 100 years, 70 percent of warming occurred prior to 1940, before the upsurge in greenhouse gas emissions from industrial processes.
Globalwarming.org reports' claim 98 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are natural, and the other two percent are from man-made sources.
Landsea said it is certainly undeniable that there are increases of gases and carbon dioxide changing the Earth's atmosphere.
"Things have warmed up in the last 100 years and a portion of that is because of greenhouse gases," he said. "But as far as science can tell, the effect is so small that we can't measure it well."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology climatologist Kerry Emanuel released a report stating that major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and Pacific have increased in duration and intensity by 50 percent since the 1970s.
His report links these storm trends to the increases in ocean surface temperatures, which correspond to increases in global atmospheric temperatures, but Emanuel says global warming is not the blame.
"There has been a large upswing in the frequency of Atlantic hurricanes," Emanuel said. "This is owing to natural cycles in North Atlantic climate that we have observed for many decades and has nothing to do with global warming."
Southern University Political Science professor Lionel Lyles disagrees.
"Many scientists know about global warming," Lyles said. "But the judgment politically is to deny it and attribute what's going on to a long term weather cycle."
Lyles, who has been involved with global warming research for over ten years, said that you would usually expect Category 5 storms once every ten years within a "normal" weather cycle.
"Now every three to five years we're getting as many as three to five Category 4 and 5 hurricanes due to increases in sea surface temperatures."
NOAA research shows that warmer sea surface temperatures make for stronger hurricanes because warm ocean waters add moisture and heat into the air contributing additional power to the storm.
"We have to look at the sea surface temperatures as a prime indicator because sea surface temperature is what fuels hurricanes and makes them super charged and last longer," he said. "The ocean's sea surface temperature will continue to rise over the next 50 years. If nothing is done, the temperature will continue to get warmer causing the icebergs in Greenland, Antarctica, and the North Pole to melt, contributing to rising oceans in places that are coastal based, like Florida."
NOAA studies have shown rises in global mean sea level rates throughout the past 100 years and they project increasing from 1990-2100 to be anywhere from 0.09-0.88 meters.
Lyles encourages students to take an interest and research the global warming issue so that they may be educated on a very dangerous matter.
"My greatest concern is the destruction that hurricanes are going to bring to our communities in the form of property destruction and loss of life," he said.
NOAA data ranks Louisiana as third in the country for direct hits to its coastline by hurricanes. Louisiana, which has been hit by a total of 49 storms since 1851 (18 of them ranging in the Category 3-5 intensity level), follows only Florida and Texas.
