Nigel Lawson and Ed Davey were both on BBC Question Time last night (from 34 mins), and the conversation inevitably turned to hurricane Haiyan. At first, Davey was somewhat less belligerent than normal, offering qualified agreement with Lawson's suggestion that there was no connection between global warming and hurricanes. His qualification was, however, significant. He said in essence that while global warming was not affecting hurricane frequency, it was increasing their intensity.
This is not true.
Once again, the IPCC says there is low confidence in any global change in intense hurricane activity and low confidence in any human contribution to what changes there have been. Hurricane activity has been very low for the best part of 20 years.
And as if to underline the point, Paul Homewood has reviewed the data for the most intense typhoons and found that we have spent most of the last 20 years almost completely free of any such storms.