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Climate Change
Stormy Weather

As if the average hurricane weren’t nasty enough, there’s increasing evidence that these storms may be growing fiercer because of global warming. The Atlantic hurricane season officially starts on the first day of June and ends on the last day of November, and if this year is anything like the recent past, you had better batten down the hatches. Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean strongly affect the strength of hurricanes. As the surface water heats up, hurricanes could form more often and gain strength as they spin across the sea. Says Kerry Emmanuel, an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “I think the weight of the evidence is that the warming of the tropical Atlantic over the past 30 years or so is owing to increased greenhouse gases.”—Susan Cosier