Now that Hurricane Andrew—the most expensive vortex in recorded history—has come and gone, blowing everything to bits in its path, the usual political suspects have substituted one strong wind for another. In fact, the only thing that one could forecast with more confidence than Andrew's path ("a well-behaved hurricane," whatever that means, from the forecaster's point of view) is the likelihood that it would be used to enhance the vision of lurid environmental change because of man's pernicious influence on the atmosphere.

At least that's what readers of Newsweek saw: "Many scientists are also confident enough to say: look at Andrew; that may be what a greenhouse world would be like."

Pretty subjective stuff. In fact, the scientific core of all this is MIT scientist Kerry Emanuel's 1987 Nature paper that calculates that an increase in the strength of hurricanes could accompany global warming. This paper, which is an interesting theoretical calculation, includes assumptions about the behavior of hurricanes that are known to be untrue, and which are freely acknowledged by the author.

One of these is that hurricanes, which require sea surface-temperatures in excess of 27 degrees Celsius, do not reduce the temperature of the ocean over which they travel. Everyone knows that they do, and Emanuel only assumed it as a matter of convenience in his calculations.

To give an idea of how much cooling hurricanes cause in the real world, consider Gilbert in 1988. After it hit the Yucatan peninsula, Gilbert unspun into a garden-variety system burbling across the Bay of Campeche. That caused great consternation in the news media, which likes destructive hurricanes about as much as Democrats love big unemployment figures. But because it had generated so much interest earlier, while setting the record for the lowest barometer ever recorded over the Atlantic Ocean, Gilbert became the most instrumented cyclone in human his- tory.

As Gilbert chugged between the Yucatan and La Pesca ("the fish"), Mexico, Where final landfall was made, even as a moderate hurricane it cooled the ocean 5 degrees Celsius; from 31 C to 26 C, which is beneath the value necessary to create subsequent hurricanes. This is equivalent to the difference between summer and winter temperatures of those waters, and serves more to demonstrate that the hurricane is as much a natural brake on surface warming as it is a product of warm temperatures.

Having said all that, recent events provide an appropriate forum to beat on a few hurricane myths, particularly as they might be affected by a putative global warming:

(1) Hurricanes are becoming more severe. This nonsense sprang up in September 1988, when aircraft measured a lowest pressure of 26.23 inches in Hurricane Gilbert in the Western Caribbean. This beat the previous Atlantic record, by a grand total of 0.15 inches, that was measured when the great Labor Day hurricane of 1935 augured into the Florida Keys.

In facts it's only in the last 35 years or so—since the 1935 storm—that we've been dropping barometers via aircraft into the eyes of hurricanes. (No, thank you. You can't pay me enough to do it.) One thing we've found is that big storms tend to weaken a bit (i.e., their lowest pressure rises) before they hit land. Gilbert's pressure rose considerably—to values above those noted in Florida during the 1935 storm—before it hit Cozumel. If we assume that the 1935 storm also filled up a bit before it drowned a trainful of escapees from the Keys, it seems obvious that its lowest pressure was probably beneath that of Gilbert's.

(2) The most severe hurricanes are related to global warming. Unmitigated balderdash. Only two "Category 5" hurricanes, government dialect for "big time," have hit this country. The aforementioned 1935 storm hit when temperatures were very warm. The other 5-blast was Camille in 1969, which tore up the Mississippi Gulf Coast with profound dispatch. It occurred when the hemisphere was near its coldest temperature for the last half century.

Here's a chronology of fill of the 20th Century "Category 4" storms to hit the United States with respect to global warming: Andrew occurred as hemispheric temperatures approached their lowest values measured in the 14-year satellite record, and after a rapid cooling from Mt. Pinatubo. Hugo ( 1989) occurred in a very warm year. Carla (1961)—the storm that made Dan Rather famous—Donna (1960), Audrey (1957) and Hazel (1954) all occurred during a cool period.

Prior to 1950 hurricanes weren't named, but it was still cool for the 1947 Category 4. Similar storms in 1928 and 1926 occurred during relatively warm times, and the 1919, 1915, 1909 and 1900 storms all occurred during colder than normal temperatures—the last, the natural disaster with the highest number of fatalities in the history of the United States. Score for Category 4s: Three during warm years, and 10 when temperatures were below average.

(3) Hurricane severity will increase in a warmed world. This one, based upon a casual read of Emanuel's paper, flies in the face of what has been observed in the 20th Century. While there hasn't been much overall temperature change, there have been some warm times (like the 1930s and the 1980s) and some cold times (1940-1975). Writing in the scientific journal Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics in 1990, scientist Sherwood Idso and his colleagues found that indeed thee Are more tropical cyclones (the generic term for tropical storms and hurricanes) in warm years, but that they tend to be weaker.

(4) Almost all tropical cycles are bad news. Hardly. While it is true the relatively uncommon Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, a landmark study by George Cry, of the U.S. Department of Commerce, demonstrated that as much as 50 percent of the late summer rainfall that normally occurs in the Southeast and Atlantic Coast regions of the United States results from the much weaker Category 1 and 2 hurricanes and tropical storms. Regional agriculture is heavily dependent upon this precipitation. Much of the double-cropped soybean culture of the Southeast is in its period of maximum moisture requirement just when these storms are expected.

Where does that leave is in a warmed world? First, as I have said repeatedly in the last few years, observed data suggest we won't see the apocalyptic warming that is in vogue, but we should see some. If history is to be our guide, a modest warming will produce more wimpy hurricanes but about as many Gilberts or Andrews or Camilles or Labor Day sockos as we have already seen. Coastal agriculture will flourish, but every few years someplace is going to get pulverized. Every succeeding blast is likely to cost more money because of increased coastal population and monetary inflation.

And as the damage figures go up, up and away, folks will likely blame global warming, instead of their own desire to live in harm's way.