Atmospheric science. Is Katrina a harbinger of still more powerful hurricanes?

Now, however, a connection is emerging between warming oceans and severe tropical cyclones. On page 1844, meteorologists report a striking 80% increase worldwide in the abundance of the most powerful tropical cyclones during the past 35 years. The study lends support to another, independent study published just last month that found a similar intensification in the Atlantic and western North Pacific. At the same time, the tropical oceans have been warming, driven, most researchers agree, by rising greenhouse gases. "There's a strong suggestion of a link" between the growing greenhouse and intensifying tropical cyclones, says meteorologist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sole author of the earlier paper.