Forecasting the future of hurricanes

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081211/full/news.2008.1298.html

Published online 11 December 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.1298

News

Forecasting the future of hurricanes

A meteorologist's new model zooms in on how climate change affects Atlantic storms.

Anna Barnett

The world's most advanced simulation of extreme weather on a warming Earth completed its first run on 5 December. Greg Holland at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, is leading the project, which nests detailed regional forecasts into a model of global climate change up to the mid-21st century. Under the model's microscope are future hurricane seasons in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, along with rainfall over the Rocky Mountains and wind patterns in the Great Plains.

What do scientists know about how climate change impacts hurricanes, and what's still controversial or uncertain?

Pretty well everything is uncertain. Well, not 'pretty well' — everything is uncertain. Some things that are starting to get above the noise level are that with global warming we can expect to see an increase in intensity and an increase in rainfall. Where it's controversial is on numbers and frequencies and actual locations.

Since 1995, we've now had 13 years of way above the previous hurricane frequency in general in the North Atlantic. The 2008 season has thus far 16 named storms, 8 hurricanes. That was exactly average for the last 13 years. If I go back to the previous 30 years, the average was 9 tropical storms and 5 hurricanes. So we're running twice the frequency and twice the number of intense storms as we were running historically. Now, that's absolutely certainly partly due to natural climate variability, but I quite firmly believe that there is a strong greenhouse warming signal appearing in there as well. And that's controversial.

Finally, there is the large uncertainty in how the tropical atmosphere will rearrange in detail. That is the reason we're doing this study.

…

[ananda]

1. Statement.

Greg Holland said thatthe idea that there is a
strong greenhouse warming signal is controversial...

My reply: only to the metaphorical equivalent
of round earth deniers who still seem to be
living in the age of darkness and heresy where
superstition trumped science.


Solutions please.