Perfect recipe for a storm We can't keep making greenhouse gases
and playing Russian roulette with the world's climate, writes
Michael Molitor. Jurgen Trittin, the German Environment
Minister, has just claimed that hurricane Katrina was caused by
global warming. The devastating impact of Katrina has ignited,
once again, the scientific and political debate about whether
the growth in damage from extreme weather events is being driven
by human modification of the global climate system (what is
commonly referred to as "global warming") or if it results
simply as a function of natural changes in the weather. Do
emissions of greenhouse gases at coal-fired power plants in
Victoria have anything to do with the occurrence or ferocity of
a large hurricane striking the Gulf Coast of the United States?
Supercomputer models of the global climate system using
increasing detail and sophistication have long since made the
connection between the addition of greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere by humans and the increased fre