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Hurricane frequency over Atlantic has doubled in 100 years: study
Jul 30, 2007, 20:06 GMT
Washington - The number of hurricanes forming over the Atlantic each year has doubled compared with 100 years ago, in part due to the effects of global warming, a US study released Monday said.
Warmer sea temperatures and changing wind patterns spurred by climate change are to blame for the increased storm activity, according to the study by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
'These numbers are a strong indication that climate change is a major factor in the increasing number of Atlantic hurricanes,' NCAR's Greg Holland, who co-authored the study with Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute, said in a statement.
'Even a quiet year by today's standards would be considered normal or slightly active compared to an average year in the early part of the 20th century,' Holland said.
According to the study, published online by the Royal Society of London, there were an average of six major storms between 1900 and 1930 - four hurricanes and two tropical storms - compared with 15 storms on average between 1995 and 2005. Eight storms reached the level of hurricane and seven were tropical storms.
Holland and Webster said the higher number of storms is closely linked with the rise in sea surface temperature over the last 100 years. Changes in sea temperature were noted in the run-up to years of increased storm activity.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Why did most media including MC leave (edit) this out?
The royal society has a long history of publishing poor global climate studies that lack rigor. Simply put you should ignore anything that come from the royal society; they bring shame on britian.
But at least members of the Royal Society can spell Britain correctly, as well as Rigour (strict exactitude) rather than Rigor (preliminary symptom of many diseases)and an 's' on the end of 'come' in the context above
page: 1
What was left out of this article for MCJul 31st, 2007 - 01:34:55
Other scientists say the report draws improper conclusions from partial data.
But other experts said the study by Holland and Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology is undermined by ''sloppy'' research that used overly selective data and fell victim to a problem called ``observation error.''
In short, it may not be that many more hurricanes are forming now than a century ago, said the critics, who agree that global warming is occurring but believe it has not significantly affected hurricane development.
They see a much simpler reason for the higher number of reported hurricanes:
EASIER TO DETECT
The storms, they say, are more easily and frequently detected since hurricane hunter flights began in the 1940s and weather satellites began providing data in the 1970s.
The two camps have been taking potshots at each other for years, generally through peer-reviewed studies.
''The new paper by Holland and Webster is sloppy science that neglects the fact that better monitoring by satellites allows us to observe storms and hurricanes that were simply missed earlier,'' said Chris Landsea, a noted researcher who serves as the National Hurricane Center's science and operations officer.
''The doubling in the number of storms and hurricanes in 100 years that they found in their paper is just an artifact of technology, not climate change,'' he said.
In addition, he and some other scientists said, long-term natural cycles that involve wind and ocean currents -- and are unrelated to global warming -- are mostly responsible for the upswing in hurricane activity since 1995.
In their paper, to be published online today in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Holland and Webster acknowledged that their analysis was ''broad brush'' but insisted that natural cycles and observation errors cannot fully explain the increase in hurricane frequency.
Also the Royal Society is now a oil spin influenced group.Don't fall for the George Bush Fear mongering and Warming Hoax.
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