I know how much John likes hurricane forecasts, so I thought I would beat him to the punch. The National Oceanic and Atmoshperic Administration's 2006 hurricane forecast is out and it's not pretty...but the experts are still arguing over the reason.
The North Atlantic Ocean could see 10 hurricanes form this year and four to six of them become major storms, the National Hurricane Center announced Monday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration advised coastal residents to "prepare, prepare, prepare" for a very active storm season.
NOAA predicts 13 to 16 named storms, with eight to 10 becoming hurricanes. Four to six could reach Category 3 strength or higher.
[...]
"The hurricanes we are seeing are indeed a direct result of climate change and it's no longer something we'll see in the future, it's happening now," Greg Holland, a division director at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, was quoted by Reuters as saying.
Speaking to the American Meteorological Society's 27th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, Holland said wind and warmer water conditions that fuel storms that form in the Caribbean are "increasingly due to greenhouse gases. There seems to be no other conclusion you can logically draw."
Some like Colorado State University hurricane researcher William Gray disagree.
Gray attributes the warming to natural cycles -- predicting another five to 10 years of warming, followed by cooling.
Gray predicted an active 2006 Atlantic hurricane season with nine hurricanes, 17 named storms, and five Category 3-4-5 hurricanes.
In the short-term, does the reason matter? And is it a coincidence that both hurricane forecast centers are locates in...COLORADO? Economists love revealed preferences. That's about as revealed as you can get.