With this new paper, we firm up the link between the increase in sea surface temperatures and hurricane intensity, which has been a key issue in the debate about whether global warming is causing an increase in hurricane intensity.
We found no long-term trend in things like wind shear. There's a lot of year-to-year variability, but there's no global trend. In any given year, it's different for each ocean.
We were not expecting to get caught up in the global warming debate when we published our initial research last September. But the whole question of global warming is something that has to be confronted.
If you examine the intensification of a single storm, or even the statistics on intensification for a particular season, factors like wind shear can play an important role. However, there is no global trend in wind shear or the other factors over the 35-year period.
This firms up the link between sea surface temperatures and hurricane intensity. It is an important piece of the global warming debate.