Defending a brief reference to Hurricane Mitch

Letter to the Editor Copyright 1998 Washington Times December 28, 1998

160;Patrick Michaels charges in "Mitch's warming afterglow" (Commentary, Dec. 17) that my reference to Hurricane Mitch as a "classic greenhouse effect" is not substantiated by conclusive scientific evidence. The evidence may not be conclusive, but it is compelling. When Mr. Michaels implies that the increased intensity of recent hurricanes has nothing to do with climate change, he is not only on shaky scientific ground, he seems to be arguing for accepting major risk in the face of compelling evidence.

My very brief reference to a classic greenhouse effect has engendered separate rebuttals in three publications. I am impressed with the public relations machinery that has been put in place to track and knock down any administration reference to climate change or global warming. Perhaps the resources spent on public relations should be expanded on efforts to determine what the link is between climate change and extreme weather.

My reference was not intended to confirm a scientific linkage. Rather, it was meant to convey my notion that the excess heat and humidity of this hurricane season has contributed to more severe storms. Thomas R. Karl, a respected scientist with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climate Data Center, has written that the "earth's hydrologic cycle is intensifying" and includes "an increase in atmospheric water vapor which enables storms to generate more precipitation . . . which leads to a significant increase in the energy available to drive storms and associated weather fronts, therefore affecting rainfall rates, precipitation amounts, storm intensity and related runoff."

If my brief reference to a greenhouse effect has launched us into an informed political debate, I suppose I welcome that. I would welcome more enthusiastically a serious effort to understand what is happening to the weather on our globe. So would the people of Central America, for whom the politics of climate change must seem a remote luxury.

J. BRIAN ATWOOD
Administrator
U.S. Agency for International Development
Washington

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