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Rare South Atlantic Hurricane Heads Toward Brazil

Posted by michael on from the batten-the-hatches dept.

jellisky writes "An unprecendented sort of weather event has been occuring recently, without much fanfare at all. A tropical cyclone in the south Atlantic is slowly drifting toward Brazil. The southern Atlantic ocean isn't exactly a hurricane hotbed, as pointed out by National Hurricane Center forecaster Jack Beven, "We know there hasn't been a hurricane in that area since at least the satellite era, the mid-60s at the minimum." The storm is a small one, though, but has estimated winds near minimal hurricane strength (74-95 mph). It's quite an interesting sight, perfect for piquing the weather curiousity that many of us have."

3 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Better picture of it here... by shiwala · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a nicer image of the cyclone.

  2. s/global warming/climate change by 2marcus · · Score: 5, Informative
    In fact, those of us who do climate science use the term "climate change" rather than "global warming". As MrWa stated, thermohaline circulation (gulf stream) collapse would lead to anomalous cooling in the northern Atlantic (unlikely in the near term according to the models I've seen), but we also study aerosol effects (sulfate cooling, the effect of the Pinatubo eruption, etc), and so on. And in general regional changes in temperature, while hard to predict, can be either positive or negative even if global mean surface temperatures are increasing.

    In any case, most models do not predict large warming of the equatorial band, partially because evaporation over tropical oceans keeps the atmosphere from heating. Of course, this increased evaporation leads to increased latent heat, which is a possible cause of extreme weather.

    Having said that, one extreme event does not proof of climate change make. Climate change is about long term trends, not short term weather. If we see more South Atlantic hurricanes over the next decade, then there would be an indication that they could be a result of climate change.

    Then we could look for the proximate cause: increased latent heat, ocean temperature patterns, change in winds, salinity changes, all of the above concurrent or consecutive, whatever. Then we would ask, is this change something we would expect from human induced change, eg increased greenhouse gas forcing or aerosols or something else.

  3. More Links & Information on the Storm... by cwolfsheep · · Score: 5, Informative

    1. I first found out about the storm on Weather Underground.
    2. Dvorak Source
    3. CNN's 1st page on it. 4. CNN's follow-up page on it.

    *. Hats off to the person that beat me to a first post. ;)

    --

    Life is irony, and nothing ever goes as planned.