Hurricanes and Climate Change

I received an email from “change.org” (see below) that was titled “Action Alert!” and talked about how we need to Tell Obama to push for fixing climate change so that another Hurricane Katrina doesn’t happen. I was appalled. I thought there was no evidence to substantiate what they wrote at all… I even put together this graph, and wrote this post about how their was no evidence. Then, right before clicking post, I played with the graph, and realized, CRAP, there does appear to be a slight correlation. Because I hate how some poeple only cite the stuff in their favor, I decided to post this anyways. But… I still have yet to see any evidence or proof that Carbon capping is the way to fix the problem. Not saying there isn’t any, but I havn’t seen it.
I used the following sites to get this information.

Hurricanes per year came from the NOAA, it is actually Atlantic hurricanes per year.
Temperature Deviation From The Average over the last century came from NASA here.

Because I want to be fair, I explored the data, and tried to find a correlation. I added the column “Average Cyclonic Energy per Hurricane” to the graph by dividing the Accumulated cyclonic energy on the NOAA’s site by the number of hurricanes.

Acculumated Cyclonic Energy is defined on the NOAA’s site as: An index that combines the numbers of systems, how long they existed and how intense they became. It is calculated by squaring the maximum sustained surface wind in the system every six hours and summing it up for the season. It is expressed in 104 kt2.

Tell Obama that One Hurricane Katrina Was Enough

Dear Joey,

Four years ago this Saturday, Hurricane Katrina hit the city of New Orleans with devastating force. None of us will ever forget the heartbreaking images of residents fighting for their lives while their iconic city drowned and our leaders failed to act.

President Bush’s short-term failures compounded the suffering along the Gulf Coast in those fateful days. But his dismal failure to lead on global warming has made extreme weather events like Katrina more likely in the future.

We can’t settle for a world where Katrina becomes the “new normal” of our weather patterns. Our new President has an opportunity to succeed where the last one failed.

Tell President Obama to lead on climate change by pushing for a strong clean energy and climate bill this year >

President Obama led boldly when he pushed through Congress an economic recovery bill that included $87 billion in clean energy investments.

We need that same leadership from him when senators go back to Washington this fall and start working again on energy and climate.

Tell the President to lead by pushing the Senate for a strong clean energy bill >

As we remember the victims of Hurricane Katrina this week, let’s work tirelessly to prevent a future where disasters like Katrina become the norm. A strong clean energy bill is critical to preventing such a future, but we need our President to lead Congress where it needs to go. Tell President Obama to push Congress for bold action today.

Thanks for lending your voice,

- The Change.org Team in partnership with 1Sky