Greg
Holland
August 2006

Senior Scientist Greg Holland is acting director of the NCAR Earth System Laboratory. He was director of NCAR's Microscale Meteorology Division at the time this article was published in 2006.

Mixing Politics and Science

Curry, J.A., Webster, P.J., and Holland, G.J. (2006), "Mixing
Politics and Science in Testing the Hypothesis that Greenhouse Warming
Is Causing a Global Increase in Hurricane Intensity," Bulletin
of the American Meteorological Society, August, pp. 1025–1037.

Abstract

The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the most
active and costly season on record. Recent publications linking an
increase in hurricane intensity to increasing tropical sea surface
temperatures have fueled the debate on whether or not global warming
is causing an increase in hurricane intensity. Because of the substantial
implications of the hurricane–global warming issue for society
and the immediate policy relevance associated with decision making
related to Hurricane Katrina, attacks and rebuttals related to this
research are being made in the media and on the World Wide Web without
the rigor or accountability expected of scientific discourse. In
this paper, we aim to promote a balanced and thoughtful examination
of this subject by

• clarifying the debate surrounding the subject as to whether
  or not global warming is causing an increase in global hurricane
  intensity,
• illustrating a methodology of hypothesis testing to address
  multiple criticisms of a complex hypothesis that involves a causal
  chain, and
• providing a case study of the impact of politics, the media,
  and the World Wide Web on the scientific process.

The full article is available for download as a PDF by
selecting
"Print Version" on the article's Web page on the Bulletin
of the American Meteorological Society site.

Related Links

News Release: Hurricanes
Are Getting Stronger, Study Says (September
15, 2005)

Backgrounder: Hurricanes,
Typhoons, and Cyclones

Home Page: Greg Holland

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