Hurricane season is upon us again. The first threatening storm, Dean, is whirling toward northern Mexico as I write this. In the wake of the devastation caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita 2 years ago, evacuation programs and the securing of equipment is ahead of schedule. If the storm whistles through the exploration and production areas of the Gulf of Mexico, the industry should be well prepared, at least in terms of saving lives. The equipment, though much improved by technology, is on its own. Technology still offers too little shelter from Mother Nature. It has always been so and always will. Consider this passage, written by a younger me in February 1991 from Aberdeen.

“The first week of this past December was a mild one for the North of Scotland and Northern North Sea. But everyone knew that the winter season was upon us and that the good weather wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. The first high winds and blowing snow showed up at the beginning of the second week of December.

By December 12, the situation had grown very serious indeed. The North Sea was in the throes of a 50-year storm, an event of such severity that it is expected only twice in a given century. Through the day and into the next, winds gusted to 100 mph and seas rose to reported levels of 60 to 90 ft (20 to 30 m).

The morning of the 13th revealed a situation that was the equivalent of the devastation of the Spanish Armada. Six floaters — the drilling units Glomar Arctic III, Sedco 704, Sea Explorer, Santa Fe 135, Ben Vrackie and the production unit North Sea Pioneer — had been partially evacuated after sustaining sea damage or parted mooring lines. The semisubmersible Maersk Vinlander was adrift after breaking tow in the Danish sector, and at least one work boat was under tow after suffering damage in the high winds and seas.”

The scenario has been replayed time and again in hurricanes, North Sea storms, Pacific cyclones and Far East typhoons. The outcome has not always been good. My mind wanders back to the losses of the Sea Gem, Alexander Keilland, Coral Sea and Ocean Ranger, all victims of severe weather and all involving tragic loss of lives. While we have gotten much better at protecting lives, technology will never overcome the destructive power of a major storm. Here’s hoping for a mild hurricane season.

While on the subject of weather I would like to pass along the following snippet of information that rolled into my e-mail this week. The year 1998 is no longer the hottest on record in North America. That title belongs to the year 1934. The third hottest year on record was not 2006 but 1921. Three of the five hottest years on record occurred before 1940. Six of the 10 hottest years on record in North America occurred before 90% of the growth in greenhouse emissions during the last century. So says the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as reported by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). The claims that the late 1990s set a number of heat records in North American were based on mathematical error according to NCPA senior fellow Sterling Burnett. Indeed, NCPA maintains that “NASA’a ground-based temperature records for the past 120 years…have now been corrected to show that much of the warming occurred before CO2 emissions and concentrations began to rise significantly.” Perhaps all the flack our industry has received for contributing to greenhouse gas emissions is misguided. Perhaps, in fact, global warming is a normal, cyclical event as a significant body of evidence suggests.

Perhaps, but I would rather err on the side of caution. Regardless of the causes of greenhouse gas emissions, I believe that atmospheric CO2 should be forced into abatement. As we mature further as an industry that will be good news because new technologies will make our products cleaner and ensure continued demand for oil and gas, and the need to sequester CO2 will create new uses for old reservoirs.

That’s it for the weather at six. Tune in at 10 for our complete forecast.