The Miami Herald guest editorial published in Tuesday's edition urges Governor DeSantis to take action on climate change following Hurricane Ian's destruction and attributes Ian to climate change. (“It’s time for DeSantis to say ‘climate change’.”)

The NOAA site lists the number of hurricanes striking the United States each decade since 1850 and along the severity. The site considers category three, four, and five hurricanes as major and indicates that we have averaged 17.5 hurricanes per decade and have averaged six major hurricanes per decade. There have been fewer than average hurricanes per decade since 1951 and fewer than average major hurricanes per decade since 1971.

Your guest editorial states that the New York Times analysis shows that category four or five storms have been on the rise since 1980. The same NOAA site shows only one of these severe storms each decade since 1980, which is less than the average of 1.3 since 1850. It is not clear where the New York times analysis got their data.

The NOAA data is clearly inconclusive regarding the effect of climate change on hurricane severity or frequency. I would also think that the Florida governor has many other issues that are to focus his attention.

George Kindel

East Lyme