The evidence linking global warming and hurricanes is mounting. Our warmer climate is heating up ocean waters, and warm ocean water fuels hurricanes. Scientists have long predicted that global warming will lead to more intense storms. The questions that remained were: "When will stronger hurricanes arrive?" and "How much fiercer will they be?" Two new papers, one in Nature and the other in Science, suggest that the answers are "They're already here" and "Quite a lot stronger." The scientific community is still debating whether these two papers tell the complete story and the increased intensity observed so far is due to global warming. But there is no debate that future warming will make tropical storms fiercer.

A recent MIT study found that the destructive potential of tropical storms has doubled over the past 30 years. It correlates this increasing ferocity with warmer sea surface temperatures, suggesting a strong link to global warming. Research at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled since the 1970's. For the thousands of Americans displaced by Andrew, Charley, Frances and many others, the anecdotal evidence is hard to miss.