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Study: Global Warming Gives Hurricanes Extra Wallop

Well, then. Scientists have found evidence that global warming is heating the ocean and giving extra wallop to violent hurricanes (San Francisco Chronicle). Since 1906, sea-surface temperatures have warmed by between 0.6 and 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit -- in the tropical parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans where hurricanes get their start, and there's been a surge in big storms since the early 1990s.

The researchers, at Lawrence Livermore lab in California, tried to figure out what caused the hike in ocean temperatures by running a bunch of different computer models based on possible single causes. The best pointed to greenhouse gases.

Skeptics--not just your Flat-Earthers but bona fide hurricane experts--aren't persuaded. But the lead author of the new study says, "the models that we've used to understand the causes of [ocean warming] in these hurricane formation regions predict that the oceans are going to get a lot warmer over the 21st century. That causes some concern."

PLUS: Check out this graph, from ClearTheAir.org, tracking ocean temperature and hurricane strength over the past 30 years. (Click on the image.) (Thanks to reader Pete Altman.)

Posted by Julian Brookes on 09/12/06 at 10:02 AM | E-mail | Print

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