Future trends in Atlantic storms may not mirror the patterns of recent decades.NASA / Univ. Wisconsin-Madison
Posted on 05/18/2008 10:13:11 PM PDT by neverdem
Increasing frequency of storms in past 25 years may not continue, although average severity may grow.
Future trends in Atlantic storms may not mirror the patterns of recent decades.NASA / Univ. Wisconsin-Madison
Hurricanes may become rarer in the Atlantic throughout the 21st century if the world continues to warm, suggests a new study.
The research is the latest to address the question of how — and whether — global warming will affect the intensity and frequency of hurricanes.
Globally, the number of major hurricanes has shot up by 75% since 1970. And although rising ocean temperatures are generally accepted as the key culprit — hurricanes can only form where sea surface temperatures exceed 26ºC — the link to global warming has remained a contentious issue.
In the new study, published today in Nature Geoscience 1, Thomas Knutson of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and colleagues used a regional climate model of the Atlantic basin to simulate the observed increase in hurricane activity between 1980 and 2006, on the basis of observed sea-surface temperatures and atmospheric conditions.
“The study does not support the notion that rising greenhouse gases are causing an increase in tropical storm frequency,” says Knutson.
Storm warning
They then used two versions of the model, one assuming climate warming of 2.8ºC by 2100, and one without warming, to estimate whether hurricane activity will continue to increase in the region as a result of human-induced climate change.
Overall, the number of hurricanes will decrease, with weaker storms feeling the greatest impacts. Knutson and his team predict a 27% drop in tropical storms, 18% fewer hurricanes and 8% fewer 'major hurricanes'.
“We can’t simply extrapolate the trend from the last 25 years into the future.”
Isaac Held
NOAA
So, despite the fact that hurricane activity has increased dramatically in the Atlantic over the past 25 years, this trend will not continue until the end of the century under warmer conditions. “We can’t simply extrapolate the trend from the past 25 years into the future,” says co-author Issac Held, also at NOAA.
The study focused primarily on changes in the number of hurricanes, but also projected a shift towards more intense storms and heavier rainfall events. This largely concurs with recent work by Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Using a different type of model, Emanuel projected that global warming will result in fewer hurricanes globally, but that they will become more intense in some locations.
Size matters
Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who was not involved in the study, agrees to an extent with the findings. “The results suggest fewer tropical storms in the Atlantic, and this seems reasonable given everything else we know”.
But he cautions that the authors may have underestimated increases in hurricanes and really severe storms, owing to the fact that their model was fairly low-resolution and could not account for changes in some of the largest of these events.
“In this business it is not the numbers that matter, it is also the intensity, duration and size,” he says.
References Knutson, T. R. et al. Nature Geosci. doi:10.1038/ngeo202 (2008).
Don't sweat it.
What are they going to do this year if we have a lot of storms..since they say now that gw will slow them down? After the season review, downgrade the categories and take the names away?
LOL!!! .... Now they will try to "bury" impending storms on p. 27 of the "Style" section ... Not good if you live on the Gulf Coast.
Platypus Looks Strange on the Inside, Too
Written in the skies: why quantum mechanics might be wrong
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Platypus Looks Strange on the Inside, Too
Written in the skies: why quantum mechanics might be wrong
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Gotta love this story!!! So the glow-ball warming activists have been telling us for years that warming was going to CAUSE hurricanes... now after a few seasons of no hurricanes, they tell us it’s BECAUSE of glow-ball warming!!
Indisputable PROOF that glow-ball warming is true.
Stop thinking so much, just remember: If there are a lot of storms, it’s because of global warming. If there are few storms, it’s because of global warming.
Global warming is the magical force that controls all events past and present.
I think this can be said for a lot (all?) of the Global Warming Climate Change studies....
(I fear Algore will just EAT us all in the end, anyways)
First they predict more storms, then they predict fewer storms.
Come June, we’ll find out ;)
LOL!
Bullseye!
We need to find last years article that says gw will produce more hurricanes. I distinctly remember that, and laugh because God surely laughed with us when they said it. That being said, unfortunately a year without a hurricane is a year without significant ground water for the southeast. Drought or hurricane? Tough choice.
LOL
AGW alarmists are able to explain more hurricanes, fewer hurricanes, more strength, and undoubtedly less strength. The only problem is which interpretation of AGW to apply this week, month or year. It can also explain higher temperatures, lower temperatures, more ice, less ice, higher sea levels, lower sea levels (yet to be announced), more disease as well as less disease, ...
The intellectual dishonesty of people espousing this falderol staggers my imagination.
Thanks neverdem.
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