Rogue Waves: Climate Disruption? Global Warming?

Intriguing piece in today's New York Times about giant "rogue" waves and efforts to monitor and track them.

"Scientists are now finding that these giants of the sea are far more common and destructive than once imagined, prompting a rush of new studies and research projects. The goals are to better tally them, understand why they form, explore the possibility of forecasts, and learn how to better protect ships, oil platforms and people."

While there seems to be agreement that fierce winds create the waves, somehow this long and generally well-researched story fails to mention a single time the possible relationship of global warming or climate disruption to any trends in rogue waves.

Somehow a reporter did not think the issue worth addressing, and a series of editors did not think to ask. Why not? As a reader, my first question is, Does global warming have anything to do with the situation?

If it doesn't, the reporter should say so. If it does, of course the reporter should say so. That might even be the lead! And even if global warming isn't an issue at all at all, then that's just as much worth addressing, because any reader with a pulse is going to wonder.

I have trouble believing The Times is this cloth-eared. My suspicion is that the decision not to address global warming had little to do with journalism and instead was entirely political. Someone thought that bringing up global warming would "make waves," so to speak. So the entire issue was deliberately suppressed.

And they wonder why readers are abandoning newspapers.

-- Paul Andrews, GreenforGood