MIT Study - Global Warming Has Doubled Tropical Storm Power - Nature

[hatrack]

Tropical storms have doubled in destructive potential in the past 30 years because ocean surfaces have become warmer, according to a leading climate researcher. This is the first time that an increase in the size, duration and power of tropical storms has been linked to global warming. The result could have a significant effect on British weather, and have potentially disastrous consequences for the Caribbean, the west coast of the United States and Pacific countries such as Japan.

Professor Kerry Emanuel, of the atmospheric, oceans and climate research department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has studied data from all the severe storms - or tropical cyclones - over the past 30 years. He says they have been more intense and longer in duration, and have generated far more power, than computer models had predicted. Prof Emanuel, an acknowledged world expert on the thermodynamics of tropical cyclone research, told the Guardian he believed the power of the storms to create huge waves and mix the surface water of the oceans could also effect ocean currents - particularly the Gulf Stream, which sends warm water northwards and keeps Britain's climate milder than it otherwise would be.

Many scientists have predicted that the Gulf Stream could slow or be "turned off" by the effect of increased fresh water entering the Arctic from melting ice. But Prof Emanuel believes that the greater mixing of warm water in the tropics could have the opposite effect - speeding up the currents and driving more warm water north. Although there is no connection between his research and recent observations in Iceland, temperatures in the North Atlantic have risen notably as as a direct result of a strong current flow pushing farther north.

Prof Emanuel's findings, published in Nature magazine, follow an inconclusive scientific debate about whether the frequency of storms is a natural phenomenon or a result of man-made climate change.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1556652,00.html

[cliss]

1. Anyone who lives in the South

or is in the way of these potentially catastrophic hurricanes, needs to read this article.

And make an informed decision about what to do.

The argument about Global Warming or Not Global Warming is over now. It doesn't matter which side won. We see what's happening to our weather, and we need to respond to it. Soon.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. There had been some debate about that

As recently as last month, there was a minor dust-up involving misquotation of some storm experts. Another study made the same point about the power of tropical storms, and the experts in question were quoted as "debunking" Global Warming. It turns out that they simply disagreed that the power of tropical storms had increased. Two, in fact, were part of the UN's global warming scientific task force.

Slowly, but surely, the data are coming in, and it's not looking too rosy. I'm also sure that with newer, better data, the experts who disagree will revise their own conclusions.

--p!

[kansasblue]

3. I've been saying that for so long, but finally a connection...

even DUers have been dismissing it. Florida, you gave Bush the White House, he refuses to fight Global warming, .... well you get the point.

[NNadir]

4. Many of the Global Climate Change deniers I know live in Florida.

There is a kind of poetry to it, I suppose, but the fact is that many innocent people will be injured, killed or impoverished by global climate change.

It may be the most serious challenge ever to have faced humanity, not that you would know it from the number of twits focusing on twit subjects.