A study conducted by a researcher from Florida State University has concluded that the theory according to which the global warming led to stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic is not just ..a theory.

Kerry Emanuel from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the first scientist who concluded that the global warming is linked to the increases in tropical cyclone intensity. In 2005 Emanuel published a study in which he concluded that the increased intensity of storms is determined by the heating of the oceans, one of the effects of the global warming.

By his theory was criticized because the data were not reliable enough to make assertions about the relationship between climate change and hurricanes. Moreover, when scientists looked at the mean tropical cyclone statistics, they did not see an upward trend.

In order to prove that Kerry Emanuel was right, FSU geography Professor James B. Elsner, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Professor James P. Kossin and FSU postdoctoral researcher Thomas H. Jagger have created a data set from satellite observations of hurricane intensity of all tropical cyclones around the globe and looked at the maximum wind speeds for each one during a 25-year period. Tropical cyclones, which include hurricanes, typhoons and tropical storms, occur on average about 90 times per year worldwide.

The researchers found that the strongest tropical cyclones are getting stronger, particularly over the North Atlantic and Indian oceans. Wind speeds for the strongest tropical storms increased from an average of 140 mph in 1981 to 156 mph in 2006, while the ocean temperature, averaged globally over the all regions where tropical cyclones form, increased from 28.2 degrees Celsius to 28.5 degrees Celsius during this period.

"By creating a better, more consistent historical data set, we've been able to weed out quality issues that introduce a lot of uncertainty," Kossin said. "Then, by looking only at the strongest tropical cyclones, where the relationship between storms and climate is most pronounced, we are able to observe the increasing trends in storm intensity that both the theory and models say should be there."