Typhoon intensity in the northwest Pacific Ocean has increased markedly over the last four decades, according to an analysis by a pair of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and the University of North Carolina.

Wei Mei, a former Scripps postdoctoral scholar, and Shang-Ping Xie, the Roger Revelle Chair in Environmental Science at Scripps, said the most significant aspect of their National Science Foundation-supported analysis is that the strongest intensification has occurred in typhoons that make landfall, which is about half of all typhoons. It is a consequence of strong ocean warming near the coasts of East and Southeast Asia....