Small linkage between global warming and storms...

You see more and more studies like this all the time...

Sea temperatures rise in June, allowing the first, weak storms to form. Hurricane activity peaks in early fall, when the seas are warmest. The storms don't ebb until November, as the oceans cool.

This correlation led many scientists to conclude that as global warming heated the oceans, so, too, would hurricanes become more powerful and seasons longer. But in the wake of two relatively quiet Atlantic storm years, two climate scientists have completed a study that sharply contradicts this conclusion.

The scientists, Gabriel Vecchi, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Brian Soden, of the University of Miami, found that natural climate variations such as El Niño likely have a larger effect on hurricanes than global warming.

And since these regional patterns oscillate over time, the scientists concluded, there is likely to be no discernible trend in the number or intensity of hurricanes in coming decades, even though the oceans will likely warm by 4 or 5 degrees Fahrenheit.