It’s easy to just look at the hurricane season intensify and
blame it on the weather, but instead we should be looking at our own actions
that cause the storms to become ever more violent. According to a study published
in the journal Nature, scientists have uncovered evidence that point to a
direct link between global warming and the intensity of storms worldwide.
Researchers James Elsner and Thomas Jagger of the Florida
State University, together with James Kossin of the University of Wisconsin,
revealed that rising ocean temperatures are directly linked with the upward tendency
in the average number or intensity of storms. Statistic data showed a shift
towards stronger storms, with maximum wind speeds of over 210 kilometers per
hour (category 4 and 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale).
Over the past three decades, the maximum wind speeds of the
strongest tropical cyclones have increased significantly, just as the effects
of global warming became more obvious. The aspect that should worry us the most
is that this trend will continue in the future as well, as this will reflect on
the number of victims and the damages left by the passing of cyclones over
populated areas.
According to this study, a 1 ºC increase in sea surface
temperatures would lead to a 31% increase in the global frequency of category 4
and 5 storms per year. So far, the temperature of tropical oceans has increased
by 0.5 ºC since 1970, which means that over the next century, if the trend
continues, we may see a 2 ºC increase.
If the calculations prove to be accurate, and many
believe they are, it means we will soon have 17 strong cyclones, instead of 13,
per year. Furthermore, the scientists found that the ocean basin with the
largest increase in tropical cyclone winds is the North Atlantic one; however,
that data does not apply to all basins.
Another study, completed three years ago by Judith Curry of
the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, supports the idea: “It’ll be
pretty hard now for anyone to claim that cyclone activity has not increased,”
Curry said.
Together with her colleagues, Curry wrote in her study that
category 4 and 5 storms have doubled in number since 1970, and have intensified
as well. The study was based on statistics and archives of satellite records,
however, some scientists believe the data to be unreliable or irrelevant for
drawing conclusions on strong cyclone trends, and the same doubts applied to
the most recent study as well.
Among the skeptics, Christopher W. Landsea of the National
Hurricane Center, said the data is discontinued by the lack of satellites that
were observing the storms above the Indian Ocean before 1977. Furthermore,
Landsea said: “The paper has some elegantly calculated statistics, but these
are generated on data that are not, in my opinion, reliable for examining how
the strongest tropical cyclones have changed around the world.”
However that may be, and whether the study is 100 percent
accurate or not, there is one undeniable aspect of this entire story: the
hurricanes have increased in intensity, and people should be aware that every
year, we are likely to encounter stronger storms, in larger numbers, leaving
devastating effects in the affected areas.