Living Green

Study predicts fewer, but more powerful hurricanes in future

A new study testing the influence of global warming on Atlantic hurricane activity at the end of the this century projects a mixed picture: fewer hurricanes will spawn overall, but those that do will be slightly more intense.

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ran model simulations that show factors like large-scale environmental changes in circulation, such as wind shear, are likely the dominant factors that will reduce storm frequency from 2080 through the year 3000.

"This study adds more support to the consensus finding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other reports that it is likely that hurricanes will gradually become more intense as the climate continues to warm," said Tom Knutson, research meteorologist and lead author of the report. "It's a bit of a mixed picture in the Atlantic, because we're projecting fewer hurricanes overall."

Most climate change researchers agree that increases in greenhouse gases have caused most of the global warming of the last half century, but the link between global warming and hurricane activity has been a topic of fiery debate in the scientific community.

The NOAA study, published online Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, suggests that in the Atlantic basin, global warming from increasing greenhouse gases will have little impact, or possibly cause a decrease, in tropical storm and hurricane numbers from 2080 through the year 3000.

But the warmer climate will lead to more intense hurricanes, the study suggests.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said "more likely than not," manmade global warming has already increased the frequency of the most intense storms.

On the opposite side of the debate, some hurricane researchers, especially scientists at NOAA's Miami Lab, have argued in the past the long-term data for all hurricanes show no such trend.