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Global warming link to hurricanes challenged mongabay.com July 31, 2006 Last week a leading meteorologist challenged a proposed link between global warming and hurricane intensity, based on inaccuracies in the historical data used in the studies.
"It's not to say that global warming isn't causing changes. I don't dispute the fact that global warming is going on or that it can have an impact on hurricanes," Landsea told Reuters. "But you're getting a better analysis of how strong that hurricane is." The Science article reports that reanalysis of historic data found about 70 previously unrecognized Category 4 and 5 hurricanes in the eastern hemisphere from 1978 to 1990, a finding that weakens the argument that the number of intense hurricanes is rising with sea temperatures. "For some of the storms in the north Indian Ocean, if they were to occur today, we would say they are Category 4 or 5 and yet they are listed in the data as Category 3 or weaker," said Landsea, who noted that a 1970 cyclone that killed 500,000 people in Bangladesh is not even listed as a hurricane. Last year, two studies published in the journals Nature and Science found a strong correlation between rising tropical sea surface temperatures and an increase in the strength of hurricanes. The Nature study, published in July 2005 by Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that hurricanes in the north Atlantic and the north Pacific Oceans have grown significantly more powerful and destructive over the past three decades. Emanuel reported that "both the duration of the storms and their maximum wind speeds have increased by about 50 per cent since the mid-1970s", developments that are mirrored by increases in the average temperatures at the surface of the tropical oceans. At the time of publication, Emanuel warned that global climate change might increase the effect of hurricanes still further in coming years. In September, following the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, Science published study by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) indicating that the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has nearly doubled over the past 35 years, from about 10 Category 4 and 5 hurricanes per year in the 1970s to 18 per year since 1990. The two studies were later backed by researchers at Georgia Tech and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. This article is based on a Reuters news article and information from Science and previous mongabay.com news articles. Recommend this article? Comments? >Digg this article | >Hugg this article | Contact News options
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