Global Warming Expected to Intensify Hurricanes

DoraLives writes "Think this hurricane season was bad? Well according to the New York Times, a study was published online on Tuesday by The Journal of Climate indicating that warming ocean temperatures are going to make for stronger, wetter hurricanes in the coming years and decades. An abstract of the article concludes cheerfully enough that 'greenhouse gas-induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms.' Oh joy."

Comments

Forseen 18 years ago

[Randym]

In 1986, my dad -- an agriclimatologist -- worked on a report for the DOE, analyzing the impact of global warming upon crop regions and yield. Even then, the temperate perimeter had moved northward. I asked him to give me a quick overview of what global warming would bring. His reply was chilling:

"Hotter summers, colder winters, and more intense hurricanes. But we can't rule out a sudden (say, within a century) plunge into a little ice age, if the ice caps at the poles melt, causing the earth to lose too much albedo from the loss of the reflective ice caps. Also, glacial runoff from Greenland could stop the warming North Atlantic current and make northern Europe uninhabitable, like in the last big ice age, which ended 11,000 years ago."

So far he's been right. Not that that's a good thing.

Re:Weather is complicated

[Aglassis]

You said "Even the most complicated computer models for weather systems can only approach less than 5% of the actual variability and density of the atmosphere. Consider that most forecasts are less than 50% accurate at 48hrs+. I am not dismissing the research, far from it, I just don't think the models are there yet."

The key point is that they are less than 50% accurate for short term forcasts. The same rule applies to psychology for diagnosing a single patient (meaning that it isn't always particularly effective).

This rule does not apply for large sums. Psychology, for example, is an extremely predictable science for sample sizes greater than 1000 or so. The same will apply to weather forcasts. And it makes complete sense since hurricanes are fueled by thermal energy. Increasing the overall thermal energy of the planet can only make them more probable.

Of course predicting when one will occur is very difficult.

Re:Weather is complicated

[Martin Blank]

Indeed. In fact, when I saw this headline, I went looking for another story I saw just a few days ago that says that this may be part of a normal cycle of increasing and decreasing cyclone counts and intensities. It doesn't rule out global warming effects, but it does present an alternate theory.

I have seen some other alternate theories to cover possible issues with global warming. Increases in geothermal activity under Greenland, for example, causing increased movement of the glaciers there. There's been the suggestion that increased energy output by the sun (a fraction of a percent, but at the level of the sun's output, that adds up pretty quickly) may be more at fault than man-made atmospheric releases. I don't mind research into man-made effects -- I'm all for getting off of oil dependency, and tech innovations are Very Good Things(TM) in general -- but alternate ideas do need to be suggested, considered, and explored.

Ecosystem

[Tokerat]

1. Polution produces greenhouse gasses and puts holes in the ozone layer. Atmosphere allows more radiation in and traps more of it as heat.
2. Planet warms up.
3. Ocean tempatures rise.
4. Tropical storms, including hurricanes and typhoons become more severe.
5. Increased lightning activity means more ozone is generated, patching the ozone hole.
6. Wetter inland weather means more plant life is active to use some greenhouse gasses, thus reducing their atmospheric amounts
7. Things cool off a bit and then the cycle starts again, leaving the world not a whole lot different than it started.

It could run deeper and somehow the warming of the earth is what is starting volcanos to trigger again, producing carbon monoxide which in turn eventually helps form ozone, but I can't think of a way those two events could be directly related.

Re:Nature's way...

[Phronesis]

It describes what could happen were CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to increase by 1% annually. I don't know whether this is actually the current trend.

CO2 concent rations in the atmosphere have increased by about 30 percent in the last 50 years, with most of the increase happening in the last few decades.

The actual growth of CO2 varies from year to year, but has averaged about 0.5% per year for the last 15 years, with about 0.9% per year rates in the last four years (but these are probably related to El Nino cycles).

China's rapid industrialization (fuelled mostly by coal---the fuel richest in carbon emissions) threatens to accelerate this growth rate for the next several decades, so 1% annual growth is quite a reasonable estimate.