Analyzing Climate Change/Hurricane Links

A review of top research scientists' views on climate/hurricane links points to areas of increasing scientific consensus, but with key voids still begging high-confidence understanding and answers.

Hurricanes at best are difficult to predict at any stage of their development and lifespan.  A lot of scientific data and new-age technology have improved our data collection ability and therefore our understandings.  But assessing the impacts of climate change – they also difficult to predict – on hurricanes is very much a work in progress.

There is, however, beginning to be scientific consensus on a few key factors as noted in this recent report.  But many more climate change/hurricane links remain to be determined.

Scientists know climate change is making the ocean surface temperature warmer, and they know too that it’s warming fastest in the north Atlantic, which is one of the areas we’re talking about here. They know that warm water is extending farther north, and that the water is staying warmer later into the season. And they clearly know that warm water is hurricane fuel.

Conversely, scientists know that cold sea water is a hurricane killer; and they know there’s still plenty of it under that warm surface layer; and that it can mix up all kinds of ways when a hurricane, or any other storm, comes through.

Well-established scientific evidence shows that climate change is melting the Arctic ice sheets and glaciers, and it’s clear that climate change is altering certain seasonal weather patterns.

We’ve seen stronger hurricanes and other kinds of storms in recent years. We’ve seen more intense precipitation and precipitation rates in hurricanes and other storms in recent years. A number of hurricane research studies pretty much indicate that precipitation rates are likely to increase even as the number of storms might actually decrease, though they are likely to be much stronger.

So, at the end of the day, what, if any, are the straight-line cause/effects between known climate change consequences and the hurricanes we’re told to expect?

No surprise that it’s probably less a line and more a series of chess moves – one leads to another and so on – when there is thought to be a connection. The best approach is to take the expertise of various respected researchers and piece them together to get anything that resembles a comprehensive view.

So here’s a sampling.

Read more at Analyzing Climate Change/Hurricane Links