Shape of things to come

Some have argued that Katrina was not the only category 5 hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast and that the Gulf Coast has always been vulnerable to hurricanes, with or without global warming. What we do know is the physics of tropical hurricane and that it forms over warm ocean water. We also know that since the early 1950s, the average intensity of tropical storms has increased globally and that this trend correlates with the increase in average sea surface temperatures in the tropics.

Carlos Pascual and Strobe Talbott from the Brookings Institution also point out in their recent article titled “7 Years to Climate Midnight” that greenhouse gas emissions are raising the Earth's temperature and the Earth is on a trajectory to warm more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit by around mid-century and that exceeding that threshold could trigger a series of phenomena: Arable land will turn into desert, higher sea levels will flood coastal areas, and changes in the convection of the oceans will alter currents, such as the Gulf Stream, that determine regional weather patterns, Manhattan and Florida would be under water, while Nevada would have no water at all. Read "7 Years to Climate Midnight". [Sung]