Maybe they're just conducting a thorough investigation, but there doesn't seem to be anything to investigate. On Friday, Josh Patashnik posted an item to the magazine's Environment & Energy blog in which he asserted with near certainty that hurricanes have "becomes more intense, on balance, as the world has warmed." The evidence for this, made in defense of Al Gore's statement alleging a connection between Cyclone Nargis and global warming, came in the form of a link to a 2005 study by MIT researcher Kerry Emanuel demonstrating that "the duration and strength of hurricanes have increased by about 50 percent over the last three decades." But as I noted that same day, Emanuel has since distanced himself from the study's conclusion. In April of this year, he told the New York Times that his latest research led him to believe that "the big increase in hurricane power over the past 30 years or so may not have much to do with global warming." It seems pretty cut and dry. Patashnik says the storm was "almost certainly" made more intense than it otherwise would have been as a result of global warming. Emanuel, whose research formed the basis for that claim, has since reversed course. This leaves Patashnik without a leg to stand on, but he's yet to update the post or offer a correction.