“Exactly. The earth’s rotation determines prevailing wind direction, which is why hurricanes in the north rotate counterclockwise and cyclones in the south move in a clockwise direction. It’s also the reason the warm gulfstream current that runs along the east coast of the United States moves north and then eastward so that Europe enjoys the weather it does. By rights most of Europe shouldn’t be habitable. Scotland is more northerly than the Canadian Arctic, for God’s sake.”

“So what happens if southern water flows past the equator near Africa?” Linda asked.

“It’s going to enter the breeding grounds of Atlantic hurricanes,” Eric Stone, who acted as the Oregon’s unofficial meteorologist, replied. “The warmer waters mean more evaporation and more evaporation means stronger storms. A tropical depression needs a surface temperature above eighty degrees to gain enough strength to become a hurricane. Once it has that, it absorbs around two billion tons of water a day.”

“Two billion tons?” Linda exclaimed.

“And when they hit land they drop anywhere between ten and twenty billion tons a day. What causes the variation between a category one storm and a massive category five is the amount of time they spend sucking up water off the African coast.”

Mark Murphy, usually the smartest person in the room, brightened as he finally understood. “With the Benguela being artificially heated and some of that water escaping north the storms can intensify much faster.”

“And there can be more of them,” Juan concluded. “Anyone thinking what I am?”

“That the severe storms the U.S. has experienced in the past couple of years have been given a little help.”

“Hurricane experts all agree that we’re entering a natural cycle of increased storm intensity,” Eric said, countering Murph’s point.

“That doesn’t mean the generators and heaters aren’t amplifying the cycle,” Mark shot back.

“Gentlemen,” Juan said soothingly, “it is up to better minds than ours to figure out the effects of those things. For now it’s enough they’re turned off. After this meeting I’ll call Overholt and lay out what we’ve found. He’ll more than likely turn it over to NUMA and it will be their problem. Murph, have the computer ready so I can send him all the files.”

“No prob.”

“For right now,” Juan continued, “I want us to concentrate on rescuing Geoffrey Merrick. Then we can think about going after whoever installed the generators in the first place.”

“Do you think there’s a connection?” Max asked from the opposite end of the long table.