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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (2209)	9/25/2005 12:13:04 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24212

Studies suggest storms linked to global warming By LISA STIFFLER SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER Global warming -- the leading culprit for shrinking snowpack in the Cascade Mountains and Lake Washington's rising temperatures -- is increasingly being eyed as the cause of a spike in destructive hurricanes around the world. Recent studies are building links between climate change and the most lethal tropical hurricanes, including the monstrous Gulf Coast storms -- Katrina and now Rita -- that have forced millions to flee. "There is a growing consensus that ... a warmer ocean should lead to more intense hurricanes," said Nate Mantua, a scientist with the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group. Over the past 30 years, the surface temperature of the oceans has increased by about 0.5 to 1 degree Fahrenheit. During that period, the average annual number of the fiercest hurricanes -- Categories 4 and 5 -- has nearly doubled, according to a new study. "What we found was rather astonishing," Peter Webster, a Georgia Institute of Technology professor and co-author of the report, said in announcing the results last week. Georgia Tech scientists and a researcher from the National Center for Atmospheric Research conducted the study, which was published in the journal Science. Webster won't say conclusively that the more powerful hurricanes can be blamed on global warming. The storms are pumped up by the warmer ocean water. As sea temperature rises, it exponentially increases the amount of water vapor in the air. This vapor condenses into water, releasing energy and fueling the cyclones. "The physics of that are well-known and straightforward," Mantua said. But Mantua and other experts warn that the fury of a specific storm cannot be attributed to warming caused by heat-trapping "greenhouse gases." The relationship between global warming and weather events is best understood by examining events over long periods of time, they say. Some researchers say blaming the intensity of the storms on global warming is too simplistic an explanation. "There are other factors," said Phil Klotzbach, a researcher in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. Major climate patterns, such as El Niño and La Niña, play a key role in determining hurricane strength, experts say. Conditions associated with El Niño can create winds that rip apart and weaken hurricanes. Climate patterns lasting decades -- versus the yearlong El Niño -- also influence hurricane behavior. Recent studies documenting the growing ferocity of the storms are based on satellite data from the North Pacific, North Atlantic, Indian and southwest Pacific oceans. Klotzbach cautioned that some of the satellite data is "quite poor." And he noted that while ocean surface temperatures have "climbed considerably" since 1995, there hasn't been a corresponding rise in the number of high-intensity cyclones overall. Other scientists, though, are making grim predictions. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study published last month in the journal Nature compared hurricane power with ocean surface temperatures over the past 30 years. The conclusion: Hurricanes are becoming more powerful and longer-lasting.. "My results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential," Kerry Emanuel, the author of the study, wrote. Given that trend and the growing number of people living in vulnerable coastal areas, Emanuel predicted over this century "a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses." seattlepi.nwsource.com