Compensation?

There's a widespread notion that hurricane basins across the world take turns having active and inactive years. It's epitomized, for example, in this 2005 NOAA press release anticipating a slow season for the East Pacific:

"There tends to be a seesaw affect between the East Pacific and North Atlantic hurricane seasons," said Jim Laver, director, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md. "When there is above normal seasonal activity in the Atlantic there tends to be below normal seasonal activity in the Pacific. This has been especially true since 1995. Six of the last ten East Pacific hurricane seasons have been below normal, and NOAA scientists are expecting lower levels of activity again this season."

This notion of compensation is actually controversial. Still, it helps to set the current North Atlantic hurricane season, which doesn't look anything like 2005, in its proper global context. That's a necessary precondition for any consideration of how this season may or may not relate to climate change.

Bear in mind that in other parts of the world, hurricanes have already been quite active this year. In fact, a debate over hurricanes and climate is now rippling through Australia and China because both nations have suffered extremely strong hurricane strikes in 2006. And speaking of hurricane/typhoon activity in the Pacific, get a load of this picture taken by a NASA satellite on August 7, depicting three tropical cyclones swirling simultaneously:

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hector has just started brewing in the East Pacific, the eighth storm of the season this year. They can form until to around November 30 in that basin as well, meaning that we can probably expect considerably more activity over there as the year progresses.

In short, even though the hurricane season might seem slow right now in the North Atlantic (a perception that may be dramatically misguided anyway), there's a lot happening elsewhere this year. From a global perspective--or a global warming perspective--it's imporant to keep that in mind.