Global Warming's Effect on Hurricanes

What exactly makes a hurricane? Hurricanes start off as storm systems rolling off the coast of Africa barreling toward North America, and form over the warm waters around the equator. As the storm center moves over the open ocean a Low Pressure is formed and water is sucked up into the core of the storm. The warmer the water, the more energy the storm will gather and the stronger it becomes. There are only a few natural ways to stop a hurricane. Cold and Warm fronts have the ability to push the storm away from the continent, wind sheer over certain parts of the ocean can tear it apart, and any movement over land will weaken the storm. But, warmer waters equal stronger hurricanes which are harder to stop.
What exactly is Global Warming? Global warming is a very controversial issue in today’s economic world, political world, and sociological world. In a nutshell, the burning of fossil fuels, the release of methane gas, and the release of CFCs are causing our atmosphere to erode, allowing more radiation from the sun to penetrate, and thus heating up the planet. The area around the equator gets more sun than anywhere else on the planet, so more radiation from the sun penetrates warming up the waters. Many people think global warming is a farce, a scare tactic used to sway political voters into voting one way over another. If you are a believer or a skeptic one fact remains blatantly obvious, hurricanes over the past few years have been stronger than ever recorded.
So what is the connection? As stated earlier, hurricanes gain their energy by sucking up warm water along their trip across the ocean. The warmer the water is the stronger the hurricane becomes. With global warming, the area receiving the most sun radiation, thus heating faster and hotter, is the area around the equator in which the hurricanes travel. Hurricanes traveling over this newly heated water are becoming stronger and harder to be redirected by either wind shear or slowed down by land masses. One example of a super powerful hurricane is Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans. Originally a category 5, the strongest of the hurricanes, Katrina was one of the fast growing hurricanes on record. Seemly over night this storm turned into a monster. One opinion of this growth tends to blame global warming. The waters in the Gulf of Mexico are getting warmer, is it because of new radiation breaking through the holes in the atmosphere caused by greenhouse gas, or is there a cycle to the planets heatin? Katrina moved directly over these waters possibly affected by global warming and became stronger. Sadly enough this will happen again.
What can we do to stop it? The only true way to stop global warming and maybe weaken potential hurricanes is to fight for a cleaner environment. All the damage done to the oceans is probably irreversible, but there is a chance to slow down the progression. Are stronger hurricanes related to global warming? Maybe, more scientific research is needed.