THIS time last year, hurricane Katrina was bearing down on New Orleans. The tragedy that followed thrust the link between global warming and hurricanes into the public eye. This year, however, the hurricane season has begun tamely. So is global warming off the hook?
Not at all, say climate scientists. The first and obvious point is that weather is fickle. “Global warming gives you a baseline that everything is riding on, but it doesn’t mean that every year is going to be the same,” says Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado.
Many factors…
