Al "Amazing Kreskin" Gore Makes Another Prediction

From Watts Up With That, Al Gore is now claiming all the ice in the North Pole will be gone in 5 years.

Al Gore made another prediction, about increased hurricanes shortly after hurricane Katrina.

The following is a transcript of a speech given by former Vice President Al Gore at the National Sierra Club Convention in San Francisco on September 9, 2005 addressing the challenges and moral imperatives posed by Hurricane Katrina and global warming.
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There are scientific warnings now of another onrushing catastrophe. We were warned of an imminent attack by Al Qaeda; we didn't respond. We were warned the levees would break in New Orleans; we didn't respond. Now, the scientific community is warning us that the average hurricane will continue to get stronger because of global warming. A scientist at MIT has published a study well before this tragedy showing that since the 1970s, hurricanes in both the Atlantic and the Pacific have increased in duration, and in intensity, by about 50 %. The newscasters told us after Hurricane Katrina went over the southern tip of Florida that there was a particular danger for the Gulf Coast of the hurricanes becoming much stronger because it was passing over unusually warm waters in the gulf. The waters in the gulf have been unusually warm. The oceans generally have been getting warmer. And the pattern is exactly consistent with what scientists have predicted for twenty years. Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming. [applause] It is important to learn the lessons of what happens when scientific evidence and clear authoritative warnings are ignored in order to induce our leaders not to do it again and not to ignore the scientists again and not to leave us unprotected in the face of those threats that are facing us right now.

We can check how that prediction has panned out...
2005 28 storms, 15 hurricanes, 7 major hurricanes
2006 10 storms, 5 hurricanes, 2 major hurricanes
2007 15 storms, 6 hurricanes, 2 major hurricanes
2008 16 storms, 8 hurricanes, 5 major hurricanes

But that does not tell us how big and devastating the storms can be, so lets look at it from a different perspective. How costly have they been? It would seem to make sense that if in fact things are getting warmer and if in fact storms are getting bigger and more dangerous then the most costly storms should have been fairly recent.

Costliest U.S. Atlantic hurricanes
Total estimated property damage, adjusted for wealth normalization[121] Rank Hurricane Season Cost (2005 USD)
1 “Miami” 1926 $157 billion
2 “Galveston” 1900 $99.4 billion
3 Katrina 2005 $81.0 billion
4 “Galveston” 1915 $68.0 billion
5 Andrew 1992 $55.8 billion
6 “New England” 1938 $39.2 billion
7 “Pinar del Río” 1944 $38.7 billion
8 “Okeechobee” 1928 $33.6 billion
9 Ike 2008 $31.5 billion
10 Donna 1960 $26.8 billion


Hmmm... 6 of the top 8 costliest storms are prior to 1945. Only one in the top 10, that being #9 since Mr. Gore made his prediction.


Unlike "The Amazing Kreskin" though Al Gore actually believes what he is saying is true. Too bad the facts do not back him up. Really too bad nobody seems interesting in calling him on it.