Hurricanes And Climate Change: Storms Likely To Get Stronger And More Frequent, Study Shows
Source: Huffington Post
Hurricanes are Mother Natures largest and most destructive storms. Fed by warm ocean waters and moist atmospheric conditions, about 90 such storms also known as tropical cyclones form worldwide each year. With the population of coastal areas growing daily and sea level on the rise, how these monster storms may change as the climate continues to warm is an increasingly urgent question facing climate scientists, insurance companies, and public officials.
A new study by Kerry Emanuel, a prominent hurricane researcher at MIT, found that contrary to previous findings, tropical cyclones are likely to become both stronger and more frequent in the years to come, especially in the western North Pacific, where storms can devastate the heavily populated coastlines of Asian nations. Emanuel's research showed the same holds true for the North Atlantic, where about 12 percent of the world's tropical cyclones spin each year.
Emanuel's study casts doubt on what had been the consensus view of most climate scientists that in most ocean basins, tropical cyclones are likely to become less frequent as the world warms, but that the storms that do occur are likely to contain stronger winds and heavier rains. That view was expressed most recently in a 2012 report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Emanuel's study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses the latest generation of global climate models to power a series of high-resolution, regional simulations of tropical cyclones around the world.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/hurricanes-climate-change_n_3567007.html
valerief
(53,235 posts)kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)Duppers
(28,127 posts)Repeatedly.
Ezlivin
(8,153 posts)He is the Republican's "Jedi Master" when it comes to science.
Watch him in awe.
yesphan
(1,588 posts)Hydra
(14,459 posts)Drought, tornadoes, fires, thunderstorms...everything is getting more extreme.
The worst part is...I think this is just the beginning
dusty trails
(174 posts)I've heard that an important weather satellite needed to monitor these hurricanes is malfunctioning and that 12 of them need to be replaced with new weather satellites but the funding has not been approved.