First, I can’t help thinking the UN could save more lives in Africa if they’d try to do something about genocide. Gun control hasn’t worked; they’re using machetes now. But the bottom line is, it seems to me, the so-called global warming problem should be a bit further down the list of the UNs priorities (although I suppose a few more millions dead might somewhat mitigate rpoblems with drought and food supplies …).

Second, anybody want to discuss this news item?

http://www.chron.com/ disp/ story.mpl/ front/ 5337583.html

“With another hurricane season set to end this Friday, a controversy is brewing over decisions of the National Hurricane Center to designate several borderline systems as tropical storms.

Some meteorologists, including former hurricane center director Neil Frank, say as many as six of this year’s 14 named tropical systems might have failed in earlier decades to earn “named storm” status.

Any inconsistencies in the naming of tropical storms and hurricanes have significance far beyond semantics.

The number of a season’s named storms forms the foundation of historical records used to determine trends in hurricane activity. Insurance companies use these trends to set homeowners’ rates. And such information is vital to scientists trying to determine whether global warming has had a measurable impact on hurricane activity.

What everyone agrees has changed is the ability of meteorologists to more accurately analyze tropical systems, thanks to an increased number of reconnaissance flights with sophisticated tools and the presence of more satellites to monitor storms from above.

Scientists generally agree that prior to the late 1970s and widespread satellite coverage, hurricane watchers annually missed one to three tropical storms that developed far from land or were short-lived.

But this season’s large number of minimal tropical storms whose winds exceeded 39 mph for only a short period has ignited a separate debate: whether even more modern technology and a change in philosophy has artificially inflated the number of storms in recent years.”

Click the link for entire story.