Hurricanes & global warming: Is there a connection? Or is there a bigger threat?

In Al Gore's Oscar-winning Powerpoint-turned-movie An Inconvenient Truth, hurricanes became symbols of the danger of global warming, with the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina as his Exhibit A. But the reality is more complicated.

Scientists are locked in a debate about whether global warming is spiking the size and intensity of hurricanes. Even those who agree that humans are causing global warming disagree about whether it is making hurricanes worse.

Climatologists are so desperate for clues they are boring holes along Florida's coastline, trying to discern from grains of sand how many tropical storms pounded our shores in past centuries. The one thing they all agree on: Overdevelopment of flood-prone coastal areas is a more immediate problem. Here's the rest of the story.

[Satellite image of Hurricane Katrina from NOAA]

--Curtis Krueger