Warm and windy

New scientific evidence that warmer oceans are behind a spate of deadly hurricanes calls for state action

Generations of North Carolinians have raised their fists to the sky in anger over hurricane damage. But this generation could well be the first with a chance to take part in actively reducing the threat posed by these powerful storms. Science points the way.

New evidence in the authoritative journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences helps explain the stronger hurricanes seen over the past decade. The culprit appears to be so-called greenhouse gases that trap radiation from the sun. The gases represent carbon pollution chiefly from the burning of fossil fuels in power plants and cars.

The study, as The N&O's Catherine Clabby reported, ruled out natural causes for a one-degree increase in ocean temperature around the globe since 1970. Other scientists have shown that rising sea surface temperatures are causing more intense hurricanes.

There's still the contention that hurricanes run in cycles, but the latest study almost makes it moot. One persuasive observation is that the hurricanes since 1995 have been greater in number and intensity than during the previous stretch of storm activity, 1945 to 1955. During the earlier decade, there was less than one Category 4 or 5 storm per year, compared with an average of nearly three such storms a year since 1995.

Anyone who saw the damage caused by the Category 3 Hurricane Fran in 1996 or the Category 2 Hurricane Floyd in 1999 received a scary preview of what would happen if a Category 4 or 5 storm were to hit this state. And the threat from rising sea levels caused by global warming is equally ominous for North Carolina.

Studies show that Arctic temperatures are approaching the same levels that thawed Greenland's glaciers 130,000 years ago. If the process gathers an unstoppable momentum, rising seas could eventually swamp the Outer Banks and other low-lying coastal lands.

Unchecked emissions of carbon pollution would accelerate the melting -- unnecessarily. Technology already exists for cars and trucks to run farther than most of today's models on the same amount of fuel and with far less pollution in their exhaust.

Likewise, there are ways to generate electricity with less air pollution than traditional coal burning. Even if these alternatives aren't perfect substitutes, in many cases they are worth the up-front investment required to achieve a more diversified mix of energy sources.

Nations committed by the Kyoto treaty to reducing greenhouse gases are scrambling to find ways of spurring those investments. The United States spurned the treaty. Still, a sense of urgency is gathering in individual states, most recently and most dramatically in California, which has set an ambitious goal of reducing today's emissions by 25 percent. The state aims to meet that goal by allowing polluters to solve their problem, then sell emissions credits to others.

Northeastern states are trying other approaches, and of course energy conservation is another effective strategy. The hope is that North Carolina's legislative commission on global warming will consider all such strategies before reporting its recommendations next year. Hopping onto this bandwagon surely would be in the state's interest.