White House Blocks Report Linking Global Warming to Hurricanes

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WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported yesterday.

The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — part of the Commerce Department — in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes. According to Nature, a draft of the statement said warming may be having an effect.

In May, when the report was expected to be released, a panel chairman, Ants Leetmaa, received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported.

The head of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey, Mr. Leetmaa did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

An NOAA spokesman, Jordan St. John, said he had no details of the report.

An NOAA administrator, Conrad Lautenbacher, is currently out of the country, but Nature quoted him as saying the report was merely an internal document and could not be released because the agency could not take an official position on the issue.However, the journal said in its online report that the study was merely a discussion of the current state of hurricane science and did not contain any policy or position statements.

A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that many storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.

Just two weeks ago, researchers said most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, a study one researcher said “closes the loop” between climate change and storms like Katrina. But not all agree with opponents who say many other factors affect storms, which can increase and decrease in cycles.

The possibility of global warming affecting hurricanes is politically sensitive because the administration has resisted proposals to restrict release of gases that can cause warming conditions.


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