Posted on 05/18/2008 8:01:22 PM PDT by blam
Warmer planet may mean fewer Atlantic hurricanes
NewScientist.com news service
Mason Inman
Contrary to the widespread view that a warming world will bring more hurricanes, a controversial new study suggests the number of cyclones could actually drop in the North Atlantic.
Hurricanes have become a lightning rod for arguments over what global warming might have in store. Most researchers agree that, since 1950, the number of hurricanes forming over the Atlantic has increased, and that since at least since 1980, they have become fiercer.
Many studies have blamed the increase in Atlantic hurricanes on increasing sea-surface temperatures, which fuel the storms. However, other ocean basins have not seen a similar increase in hurricanes.
Storm predictions
Tom Knutson and colleagues at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, US, built a computer model to simulate the formation of North Atlantic hurricanes, based on observed sea-surface temperatures and atmospheric conditions.
Tropical storms and hurricanes formed spontaneously in the model, following much the same tracks as real storms do.
They also found that the model predicted fairly closely the number of North Atlantic hurricanes over the past 25 years – with 162 predicted storms, as opposed to 143 recorded. The strength of the most severe storms was not predicted, however.
Next they fed the model predictions of how Atlantic waters are likely to warm with climate change.
These were based on an ensemble of climate models in which emissions rise until mid-century, then start to taper off – an optimistic scenario for future carbon-dioxide emissions. Though emissions drop off, the ocean would continue warming through the end of the century and beyond.
Fewer hurricanes
Surprisingly, the model simulated fewer tropical storms as the ocean warmed, and fewer hurricanes. By the end of this century,
(Excerpt) Read more at environment.newscientist.com ...
Ping.
stock up on plywood, just in case.
For those of you who still read that magazine, National Geographic is completely in the tank for global warming.
I remember the nineties. They toadied shamelessly to the Gorbot.
It's not controversial among those of us that have figured out that the planet is NOT in crisis and that man is to blame.
I love how they continue to backtrack on their dire predictions yet manage to attribute everything to global warming.
“A new ice age? Must be global warming.”
Didn’t they blame the summer of Katrina (with Rita and others) on global warming?
The globalist warmers have to reverse their position on warming’s effect on hurricanes because global cooling is causing fewer hurricanes. Nature has less heat to dispose of, but the warmers have a lot of hot air left.
No, that was George W. Bush's doing.
Well precisely. George W. Bush created global warming.
Just FOUR short years ago, they were telling us that Globo Warmin’ meant MORE and BIGGER Hurricanes....
Funny how Orwellian Newspeak this is, eh?
More hurricanes, less hurricanes, you just can’t lose when you are a global warmist.
Since global warming isn’t even happening, this is all moot.
The models for two weeks from now are also in stark disagreement.
Funny, they were shamelessly pro-Hitler, too. There’s a 1938 issue that they’ve hunted down and burned, IIRC.
Got it and my stabalized gasoline already.
Surprisingly, the model simulated fewer tropical storms as the ocean warmed, and fewer hurricanes. ...
The oceans are cooler now by measurement of the buoy’s out in the sea. But don’t let that fact get in the way.
Why would the hurricanes be less when the water is warmer. Not many hurricanes in February but a lot in August, Sept when the water is warmer.
Except we’ll never find out because the earth is cooling.
Too bad for these dolts the Earth is getting cooler, not warmer. We did finally get 3 significant sunspots. Problems are that they were about 6 months late and they are last cycle sunspots (you can tell from the N-S polarity). That means the current cycle is starting even weaker than if there were no sunspots. Don’t cheer, the AGWers will spin the data to keep the hoax going, and the cooling we may experience could be truly horrific for a lot of the world’s people.
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