If the information reported in the Climate Summary in question was all we truly knew about the issue, this criticism would have to be given serious consideration.  However, as is clear from the scientific findings described in our Climate Summary of 17 April 2002, there are numerous studies that tell essentially the same story - that global warming leads to both less frequent and less intense Atlantic hurricanes - based on the actual long-term climate history of the earth, which includes the "unprecedented" global warming of the past century that climate alarmists and IPCC policymaker-types attribute to concomitant increases in anthropogenic activities that they claim have increased the air's CO2 content over that period.

This being the case, if one truly believes - as climate alarmists say they do - that the global warming of the past century (and especially its latter half) was primarily CO2-induced, there is no rational basis for claiming that a continuation of the same phenomenon, i.e., CO2-induced global warming, will do just the opposite, that is, that future CO2-induced global warming will increase the frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes, as climate alarmists claim.  The studies described in our 17 April 2002 Climate Summary, therefore, represent our primary basis for rejecting this highly irrational climate-alarmist position, while the corroborative testimony of the independent El Niņo - La Niņa studies that are described in our 10 April 2002 Climate Summary could well be considered the "icing on the cake."

In point of fact, however, the El Niņo - La Niņa studies do much more than provide mere "window dressing" for our take on the issue.  They actually refute MacCracken's suggestion that the implications of these studies might not apply to predicted global warming scenarios; for they truly do tell the very same story as the long-term temperature trends produced by real-world global warming of the type predicted to occur in response to rising concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases.  Consequently, our position gains even more strength when both Climate Summaries are considered together; for the frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes are clearly shown by the studies reviewed in these summaries to decrease in response to both of these types of increases in mean global air temperature.

What we essentially have, therefore, is a situation where both the frequency and the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes have been found to decrease in response to every substantial real-world increase in mean global air temperature that has been studied within this context.  This is the unflinching testimony of nature, as reported in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, the journals of which are zealously guarded by editors not particularly enamored of climate skeptics.  Hence, and "in the traditional sense of a scientist," to borrow a misapplied phrase from MacCracken, we feel that the implications of these studies are sure: any global warming that might possibly be induced by future increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations will not, we repeat, will not lead to increases in either the frequency or intensity of Atlantic hurricanes.  In fact, all real-world evidence accumulated to date suggests that any such warming of the globe would likely do just the opposite and lead to decreases in these storm characteristics.