What most people discussing global warming miss is that it is a change in overall climate, not directly related to daily weather, and some of the weather effects can be counterintuitive.
For example, higher surface temperatures mean higher temperature gradients across large areas. The effect on the atmosphere is therefore to cause highs and lows and therefore winds. And of course higher surface temperatures mean more evaporation, so the result is going to be more absolute moisture content in that air. Combine increased highs and lows, increased winds, and increased moisture, and you have a recipe for more storms.
In addition, why tropical storms (hurricanes, typhoons, Aussie/Ennzedd cyclones, et al.) are called that is that they form in the tropics, specifically when a mild low develops over water above 27.5 Centigrade. At or above that surface water temperature, there is a net building effect that results in fun stuff like Hugo, Floyd, Isabelle, and so on. Below that temperature, you get a normal low that is not self-perpetuating.
AFAIK, no hurricane has ever hit land while still growing in intensity; as soon as they move out of the area with 27.5 C or higher surface temperature, they start to die down. Unfortunately, with a typical hurricane, the vortex has built strong enough that it takes a quite long time to die down – long enough for it to move and perhaps strike land.
Only relatively small areas in the tropical Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and similar areas in the Pacific tend to get and stay at that surface temperature for any reasonable length of time, and hence are the sole “breeding grounds” for hurricanes, typhoons, and all their sock puppets.
Now, contemplate what happens with a net increase of only one or two degrees C to the earth’s overall average temperature. The area in which the ocean surface temperature meets or exceeds 27.5 C expands dramatically. Therefore there is a larger area in which a hurricane-forming low can develop, and the resulting hurricane can move over more area while still growing in intensity before it leaves the “breeding ground” and begins to die back.
The final scare scenario is quite theoretical, but based on actual observation. The Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, is in the process of losing its pack and drift ice cover. We do not know with certainty how long the Beaufort was predominantly iced over, but there are no records or legends of it being open water before the present. Nor do we know how much of the Arctic will become ice free.
The Arctic ice cap is effectively a desert – little or no evaporation occurs from the ice, and the air is cold and with minimal humidity by the time it gets there. Therefore very little precipitation occurs on or near it.
Evidence seems to indicate that each of the ice advances in the Pleistocene was preceded by a period when the Arctic was open water, which contributed to frigid air with relatively high humidity, resulting in increased snowfall, which took longer to melt and meant that year-round snow remained in more places longer, with the net result of areas where snow built up and turned into glaciers, which in turn chilled the surrounding area and reduced the overall albedo, with a net result of glacier growth.
So it is not completely out of the picture that, contrary to intuitive thinking, global warming could result in a new Ice Age.