th.
Some scientists have attributed this rise in sea temperature to a natural cycle of warming and cooling known as the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. But tests run on computer models at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, where all possible contributing factors can be added or eliminated, conclude that the recent warming of the sea can be related to the dumping of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Dr Trenberth believes that the increasing intensity of hurricanes will conversely result in less storms per year -- a hurricane cools the sea so that there is less likelihood of further storms forming in its wake -- but that the storms that do form will be much more devastating and much more likely to cost human lives.
"Sooner or later [a storm like Hurricane Katrina is] going to happen again," says Dr Trenberth. "It's only a matter of time -- it's quite easy to avoid these storms by chance for a while but sooner or later it will happen again."
Tabasco and Chiapas caught the tail end of one of these storms -- Noel. But the main cause of the floods was two cold fronts which sat over the Gulf of Mexico for several days in late October and early November.
The heavy rain caused the Grijalva, La Sierra, Carrizal and Puxcatan rivers to break their banks, leaving 80 percent of the state of Tabasco under water, 13 people dead and 240 still missing. The Federal Government estimates that half of the region's 2.2 million people were directly affected.
Global warming is partly responsible for the disaster, according to Jorge Escandón, co-ordinator of Greenpeace Mexico's energy and climate change campaign. "At the moment, what we know about hydro-meteorological events is that there will be a major event with major intensity. We have already been told that by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and there are also various Mexican scientists who have modeled these scenarios."
But aside from climate change, Escandón also believes that Mexico's government knew that the state of Tabasco was at risk and did not do enough to prepare for such a scenario.
"The fact is that the government of Mexico published a document on the subject of climate change in 1997 in which the state of Tabasco was singled out as being particularly vulnerable to extreme rainfall.
"You have this since 1997 and the ideal would have been that a degree of adaptation would have taken place. It all suggests a lack of infrastructure."
Escandón believes that the damage in Tabasco and Chiapas could have been considerably minimized, firstly through long-term measures to reduce global warming but also through more immediate actions.
Other human activities also played their part in causing the floods. Deforestation meant that there were not enough trees to soak up surface water, while the Integral Project Against Flooding, set up in 2003 after similarly devastating flood hit the region in 1999, with the intention of building levees and drainage canals along the Grijalva, Carrizal and Samaria rivers was never finished.
Some newspaper reports have highlighted accusations by lawmakers of government corruption, with state officials unable to say where some of the money earmarked for flood prevention has gone.
"The problem of Tabasco is that corruption continues reigning," Francisco Sanchez Ramos, a federal congressman who represents Tabasco, told the LA Times. "Without doubt, this tragedy could have been avoided."
If scientists' predictions play out, this corner of paradise will increasingly experience situations such as the Tabasco floods.
This year Mexico emerged relatively unscathed from the hurricane season -- Ivan and Dean passed over relatively unpopulated areas -- but it seems it is only a matter of time before tragedy strikes again, be it in the form of storms or heavy rains.
The government of Mexico will have to show initiative and prepare for such occurrences if they do not want to be responsible for the loss of lives. E-mail to a friend