Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Global Warming Builds Hurricanes Up to Knock Them Down

This is one I haven't heard before:
Study: Global warming may diminish Atlantic hurricane activity

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Vecchi and Soden used 18 complex computer climate models to anticipate the effects of warming in the years 2001-2020 and 2018-2100.

Included in the results were an increase in vertical wind shear over the tropical Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans.

Vertical wind shear is a difference in wind speed or direction at different altitudes. When a hurricane encounters vertical wind shear the hurricane can weaken when the heat of rising air dissipates over a larger area.
So, warmer water fuels hurricanes, but can also create more hurricane-weakening wind shear.

We really don't know what's going to happen in the future, do we?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

All the more reason that we should cut down our CO2 production, because there is a correlation between higher CO2 and higher worldwide temperature, and vice versa.

I, for one, don't want to take the chance that we have no effect on the Earth's climate.

Anonymous said...

I can not tell you what the surf is going to be like in the lake next week. I can't tell if the waves will be on Monday morning or if the water will be clear or cloudy. But I can tell you the high and low tides for years to come.

Your argument is silly. Anytime you add more energy (heat) to a system you cause more turbulence. More variability. More randomness. The more complex the system is the more this is true.

So what do you think this season will be like? There is la Nina instead of el NiƱo and the waters are suppose to be pretty warm. There is another issue too. Dust kicked up from a more dry Africa has a big effect on hurricanes forming as well.

But yes, the planet is getting warmer and when storms do form, they will have more energy.

Anonymous said...

Here is good explanation of hurricane

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2006/normal_2006.html

Just click here

I hope this helps

Anonymous said...

Sorry I am serial posting,

The warmer weather does not necessarily cause the wind shear. that is part of the el nino el nana thing and how it pulls the jet stream way far off of its "normal" course.

da po' boy said...

Thank you for the link, fp.

But, I am not sure what "argument" I am making in the post. If there is an argument, odds are it is a silly one, though.

Anonymous said...

sorry , my bad. I heard an argument somewher else and then read too much into what you were saying here.

People try to deny Global warming by claiming we can not even predict the weather, they try to denie the effects of their (our) actions on the planet.