As Hurricane Wilma bears down upon Florida, we ponder a few things:

* For the first time in recorded history, the hurricane season ran out of names: The 2005 Hurricane Season broke the 1933 record held of 21 storms.
     UPDATE: The 2005 Hurricane Season broke the record with force! The season had twenty-seven (27) named storms, which is six better than the prior record of 21 held by the 1933 season. The 1969 record of 12 Hurricanes was broken in 2005 also: We had 14 hurricanes that season. Lastly other records were broken: Landfall of four major hurricanes and three category 5 hurricanes were both records.
* 2005's Hurricane Wilma (the 21st storm of the season) was the first "W" storm in recorded history.
* Hurricane Wilma was the strongest hurricane depression ever for the Atlantic basin: 882 millibars (26.045 inches; 661.55 millimeters), the lowest pressure recorded for this region.
* Hurricane Wilma also had the strongest sustained winds of any hurricane in recorded history: 175 mph (281.6 kph). This bordered on where a "Category 6" hurricane would be, if there were such a category.
* For the first time ever, the metrological nomenclature system had to dip into the Greek alphabet to name a tropical depression: Tropical Depression "Alpha" is the 22nd named storm of the season, also a record.
     UPDATE: Not only was this the first tropical storm "Alpha," we also had five other "Greek Alphabet" storms: All six were Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta, with Tropical Storm Zeta forming in the Atlantic basin on December 30, 2005. Zeta was the longest-lasting January tropical cyclone, tied "Tropical Storm 'Alice #2'" of 1954 as the latest December Atlantic basin storm formed -and beat Alice #2 as the longest lived December-to-January tropical cyclone. We're talking weather records of Biblical proportion, folks -and I think things are just starting at the tip of the iceberg, as I explain below.

This all begs the question: "Why?"

Why is all this happening?

There are at least two competing theories:
(1) Global Warming; and,
(2) The "Wrath of God" for collective sins and transgressions of mankind.

However, The Register posits another unexplored, but plausible, possibility:

(3) Could all this be happening due to air pollution "seeding" the atmosphere's clouds?

The first theory, "global warming" has been denounced by most credible sources. This alone is not convincing, since most "credible" sources insisted that the RMS Titanic had enough lifeboats -and that it was in no danger of sinking: History has proved the "experts" wrong on both counts. However, the criticism against the global warming theory makes sense: Hurricanes form best in light winds over warm equatorial water, and "global warming" might make it easier to form them. However, the amount of global warming that allegedly exists seems insufficient to effect change here.

As far as the wrath of God, we can not scientifically test this theory: In fact, a popular passage interrelating The Almighty and the weather states that God Almighty "maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Matthew 5:45 (King James Version {letters of Christ in red} the copyright of which is in the public domain) Therefore, one might safely conclude that a Hurricane probably did not come to Florida for its mistreatment of Terri Schiavo. (However, God, being sovereign, can do literally anything, should He desire.)

The Register notes that cloud seeding had been used for many years to change the weather. Generally, this method only produces changes of 5% to 30% in precipitation quantities, however, "single cloud" experiments reportedly have had 100% success rates in the changes effected. In "cloud seeding," silver iodide is deposited into the clouds, and this aids the condensation of the moisture in the air, and thus it forms rain (or, sometimes snow). (Dispersion of fog and hail is sometimes a goal for seeding.) So, how is this relevant?

While some industrial air pollution is thought to actually suppress rain, pollution of the right type may act as "seed" in much the same way as silver iodide. Indeed, air pollution has been on the rise in recent times -there is no end in sight to this trend.

If this hypothesis is true, then "air pollution" seeding can be implicated in both the current increases in rain-making activities and also possibly in the ancient "rain fury," more commonly known as "Noah's Flood."

The history on "Noah's Flood" interestingly indicates that before the flood, there was no such thing as "rain": "But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." Genesis 2:6 (King James Version, the copyright of which is in the public domain) It is thought that people violated orders from God and made camp fires, thus seeding the clouds cover that was over the earth at the time. Scant geological evidence in fact indicates that the prehistoric air pressure was much higher than what it is now, possibly allowing life-forms to live many hundreds of years longer than previously thought possible. One theory suggests a canopy of ice suspended by magnetic fields due to the Mysner Effect, the repulsive force of like magnets. (The "canopy" is thought to protect against solar UV rays, ultraviolet radiation from the sun; The decreasing magnetic field of the earth allows more and more cosmic radiation to penetrate earth's atmosphere as well.)

The conclusion is that, while merely a theory, The Register offers the best it has in this complex field: Various air pollution may have both positive and negative effects on cloud seeding and production of rain. Since we are seeing unprecedented levels of air pollution, this science is new and is filled with too many unknowns to discount any valid theory: Unprecedented air pollution and unprecedented hurricane seasons.

One thing is sure: If there is a God, then surely He must be looking at humans and saying: "They caused their own troubles by polluting the planet I gave them -both in Noah's time and now days; My "judgment" just may be to let them stew in their own pot: They made their bed; They can sleep in it. just as we said 'Let US make man in OUR image (plural), we can say, Let US watch many mess up OUR earth -and pay the price'." (In these times of allegedly increasing earthquakes (Matthew 24:7), increasing travel and technology (Daniel 12:4) and purported declining morals (Matthew 24:12) like Noah of old (Luke 17:26-27), maybe, just maybe, the "judgment" theory is not so far off after all.)