The northern hemisphere cyclonic storm season is upon us. Though the North Atlantic hasn’t produced any named storms yet, one is brewing off west Africa that has the potential to be the first of the season.

Meanwhile, in the eastern Pacific, Tropical Storm Felicia is losing intensity but is bringing fine surfing swells to Hawaii and is expected dump rain and bring flash floods and mud slides.

Parts of the western Pacific are being drowned by Typhoon Morakot. After saturating Taiwan with 80 inches of rain in two days [a near record] and dumping buildings to the ground it is moving on to mainland China where over 1,000,000 have been evacuated. Earlier, in the Philippines, 21 were killed as the storm passed through.

We watch these storms for a variety of reasons, from the morbid fascination with death and destruction to concern for our own safety — how close will it come? What should we do? We watch as well with the economic eye: which crops will be affected? How will the price of milk, or wheat respond? What communications or transport might be affected?

As well, we watch to see what changes are occurring over time. What patterns are emerging and what do they tell us about weather writ large, the climate itself.

There has been much prognosis that global climate change will bring with it, and to some extent can be measured by, increasingly big and violent cyclonic storms. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 convinced many that climate change was real. Climate scientists have cautioned, however, at assuming too mechanical a linkage between storms and climate change. It is well known that warmer surface water below the path of a typhoon or hurricane provides more energy to grow the storm. Global warming — a bad “handle” in any case– does not mean that all water everywhere, or ocean water in the hurricane/typhoon zones is getting warmer.

In fact on-going measurement of ACE — Accumulated Cyclone Energy — for the Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere and globally, show that it has dipped below normal over the past three years. Despite the overall measurements of increasing CO2 in the upper atmosphere, leading to the retention of more heat in the earth’s heat-exchange system, other forces continue to operate — in particular the El Nino / La Nina [ENSO] oscillation of warmer and colder water across the Pacific Ocean just below the equator has a significant effect on the winds and cyclone formation. And, in fact La Nina has been significantly stronger in the past 2+ years of lesser cyclonic energy, according to Ryan Maue at Florida State who tracks Cyclone Energy.

While storm activity may be linked to global warming the exact linkages are still too subtle to be understood. Recent observations have discovered weaker ENSO like events in ocean and air which seem to follow the .1% change in solar heating due to the sun’s 11 year cycle of sunspot formation. Not fully understanding all the sources and reaction of complex systems does not mean, as some are fond of crowing, that nothing is going on.

At the Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit in Cairns, New Zealand, climate change was discussed last week in the most urgent terms: whole sale population transfer. Some island people have already begun moving further inland; some are making plans to. At least some are already pleading and negotiating with larger countries, such as New Zealand, to accept the entire population of smaller, lower lying islands.

New reports from the USGS, National Geographic News and others have been reporting dramatic loss in glacier ice from Greenland to Switzerland, from Montana to Alaska.

The bad news is that those who know what is going on and have the willingness to work and sacrifice to turn the tide are being overwhelmed in public by those who deny and whose purpose is to sow confusion from which they will benefit.

The coal industry lobbying outfit the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is pressing forward with an aggressive astroturfing campaign going after U.S. senators — despite the recent revelation that it was responsible for forged “grassroots” letters to lawmakers, attacking the American Clean Energy and Security Act:

Climate Progress is one of the best places to go for information — and of course stay tune here. We will do our best to keep you informed and sharp for action.