Foreword
For more than a decade, experts have warned that climate change may be creating an environment prone to more violent storms, droughts, and other extreme weather conditions. While it might be scientifically unsound to conclude that the recent storms to batter the U.S. Gulf Coast were intensified by global warming, studies show that the strength of tropical storms and hurricanes has increased since the mid-1970s. Whether this trend reflects natural weather fluctuations or a harbinger of things to come is not known for certain.What we do know is that while tropical storms and hurricanes are driven by ocean and atmospheric…
