Hurricane season officially begins tomorrow.  So I’m updating one more 2008 post on the science.  Last September, Nature published a major analysis that supports my 2-parter (Why global warming means killer storms worse than Katrina and Gustav, Part 1 and Part 2).  As Nature explained:

… scientists have come up with the firmest evidence so far that global warming will significantly increase the intensity of the most extreme storms worldwide.

The maximum wind speeds of the strongest tropical cyclones have increased significantly since 1981, according to research published in Nature this week. And the upward trend, thought to be driven by rising ocean temperatures, is unlikely to stop at any time soon.

The team statistically analysed satellite-derived data of cyclone wind speeds. Although there was hardly any increase in the average number or intensity of all storms, the team found a significant shift in distribution towards stronger storms that wreak the greatest havoc. This meant that, overall, there were more storms with a maximum wind speed exceeding 210 kilometres per hour (category 4 and 5 storms on the Saffir–Simpson scale)….

“It’ll be pretty hard now for anyone to claim that cyclone activity has not increased,” says Judith Curry, an atmospheric researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who was not involved in the study….

“People should now stop saying ‘who cares, storm activity is just a few per cent up’,” says Curry. “It’s the strongest storms that matter most.”

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The Center for American Progress Action fund had a recent event on clean energy jobs keynoted by Van Jones, who is not the President’s “green-jobs czar,” but “the green-jobs handyman.”

Besides being the administration’s point person on clean energy jobs, he is is the best speaker on the subject — because he studies rhetoric and persuasive speechmaking (see “Van Jones and the English Language“).

So he is worth hearing, and for the video click here, which is where the rest of this post was first published.

“[The report] ‘Green Jobs/Green Homes New York’ looks at the big picture [of retrofitting homes for energy efficiency] and all the dynamics that are impacted and influenced. It speaks to the boldest and greenest terms of community, making sure that those who are the weakest amongst us will have that hope of growing out of poverty,” said Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) at CAP Action’s Friday event “Green Jobs/Green Homes New York: Expanding Home Energy Efficiency and Creating Good Jobs in a Clean-Energy Economy.”

Keynote speaker Van Jones, Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, also addressed the new report from the Center for American Progress, the Center for Working Families, and Half in Ten. CAP Action Senior Fellow Bracken Hendricks moderated a follow-up panel discussion with New York State Laborers Local 10 Community Affairs Officer Lavon Chambers, Half in Ten Campaign Executive Director Lisa Donner, Conservation Services Group Senior Vice President Mark Dyen, and Center for Working Families Director of Green Policy Emmaia Gelman.

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