The National Hurricane Centre said the path of Rita, with top winds dropping slightly to 265 kph and is now a Category 4 storm, had shifted toward the north. It appeared to be headed toward Galveston and Houston, the nation's fourth largest city and centre of the US oil industry. Exxon Mobil said it was closing the biggest US oil refinery in Baytown, Texas and another in Beaumont, 144 km east.

5000-8000 years ago, temps worldwide were a coupla degrees higher than they are today, yet the hurricane activity appears to have been lower

Due to this semi-random nature of weather, it is wrong to blame any one event such as Katrina specifically on global warming - and of course it is just as indefensible to blame Katrina on a long-term natural cycle in the climate. Yet this is not the right way to frame the question. As we have also pointed out in previous posts, we can indeed draw some important conclusions about the links between hurricane activity and global warming in a statistical sense

we can draw some conclusions about hurricanes more generally. In particular, the available scientific evidence indicates that it is likely that global warming will make - and possibly already is making - those hurricanes that form more destructive than they otherwise would have been. The key connection is that between sea surface temperatures (we abbreviate this as SST) and the power of hurricanes.......

That way maybe 100,000 or so illegals will go home and gets jobs there rebuilding?

..imagine yourself standing in the very center of the eye of the hurricane, facing the shore toward which the hurricane is moving. Everything to your right and in front of you is considered the right-front quadrant. Everything behind you on your right side is the right-rear quadrant. The same holds for the left-front and left-rear quadrants. Hurricane quadrants are significant when it comes to damage potential. Generally, the right-front quadrant causes the most destruction at the coast.

MR. McCLELLAN: Good afternoon, everyone. I’d like to begin with an update on some of the hurricane preparations. As you know, Hurricane Rita is approaching the Texas coast, threatening to bring death and devastation to some of the President’s wealthiest and most powerful political supporters – as well as to ordinary residents of the greater Houston area, not all of whom are black. We want everyone to understand that we're taking this hurricane very, very seriously, and the federal government has already set the machinery in motion to delivery vital disaster recovery services .....

one of Britain's leading scientists believes...

A paper by US researchers, last week in the US journal Science, showed that storms of the intensity of Hurricane Katrina have become almost twice as common in the past 35 years. Although the overall frequency of tropical storms worldwide has remained broadly level since 1970, the number of extreme category 4 and 5 events has sharply risen. In the 1970s, there was an average of about 10 category 4 and 5 hurricanes per year but, since 1990, they have nearly doubled to an average of about 18 a year. During the same period, sea surface temperatures, among the key drivers of hurricane intensity, have increased by an average of 0.5C (0.9F).

I believe we will see RITA .... as a CAT 4. ... the storm surge will be equal to that of CAT 5 hurricane. A tidal surge of 20-22 feet, with Port Arthur most vulnerable to catastrophic storm surge damage -- will likely cover a 20-30 mile stretch of coast from the point of landfall eastward, with 13-18 ft extending to 50-80 miles east of the point of landfall. Gale force winds extend out for over 200 miles from the center -- and gusts to gale force will reach over to the New Orleans area. A tidal storm surge of 4-8 feet will hit the Mississippi Delta region over to Grand Isle, LA.

At this point the world’s climatologists are agreed that we do not have… tens of thousands of years to prepare for the next ice age and that how carefully we monitor our atmospheric pollution will have a direct affect on the arrival and nature of this weather crisis. The sooner man confronts these facts… the safer he will be. Science Digest 1973

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice.

I "believe" that the number of vehicles on the road during heavy rush hour traffic is a preponderance of observational data that points to a likely conclusion.

now know that what you are talking about is anecdotal evidence

You just might make it across the road without getting killed, but I wouldn't call it a safe way to conduct your life, and I know you wouldn't either.

The storm surge - expected to be near 20ft at the point of landfall - and 15-20 feet up to 30- miles east of the center -- and this will cause near Catastrophic damage typical of a CAT 5 hurricane surge. And tidal surge of 10-15 feet is likely up to 50NM east of the landfall fall, with tides 3-5 feet above normal as far east as the Alabama coast.

but a very powerful Cat 3

6 PM CDT FRI SEP 23 2005 ...TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS SPREADING OVER SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA AND SOUTHEAST TEXAS AS DANGEROUS HURRICANE RITA APPROACHES... A HURRICANE WARNING IS IN EFFECT FROM SARGENT TEXAS TO MORGAN CITY LOUISIANA. A HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN COMPLETED.

In the aftermath of the hockey stick’s demolition, some scientists connected to the IPCC have tried to insist that it actually didn’t matter that much to their case. Any such attempt to downplay the influence of the graph flies in the face of the print record. Without it the TAR would have looked been a very different document, it would not have been able to conclude what it did, nor could the IPCC have convinced world leaders to take the actions they subsequently took. In light of its singular role, and in light of the enormous trust placed by governments around the world..

Gravity has NOTHING on a Class 5 hurricane.