Hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons
Tropical storms have the potential to do great damage, especially on islands and coastal continental areas. Their names reflect where they form, hurricanes in the North Atlantic and Caribbean, typhoons in the Pacific, and tropical cyclones over Australia.
Tropical storms frequently hit the headlines, never more so than when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. The hurricane killed at least 1800 people and caused an estimated $81 billion worth of damage, making Katrina the costliest natural disaster in history.
One of the results of Hurricane Katrina was to focus the world’s attention on the role of climate change in the intensity and frequency of hurricanes and other tropical storms. The debate became polarised, with the US Government denying climate change played any role and some extreme views claiming the storm and its intensity were a direct result of higher temperatures. The reality is somewhere in between and is much more complex than either extreme would like it to be.
The scientific consensus is that warming of ocean surface waters is likely to lead to an increase in the intensity of tropical storms, with higher peak wind speeds and heavier rainfall. This means that hurricanes will be more damaging.
Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Institute of Technology have concluded that warmer sea surface temperatures and altered wind patterns associated with global warming are responsible for increases in the number of hurricanes. On average twice as many hurricanes form in the Atlantic each year than a century ago.
'These numbers are a strong indication that climate change is a major factor in the increasing number of Atlantic hurricanes.'
Greg Holland, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
There has been a marked increase in the number of tropical storms from the 1970s. This increase is greater than predicted based on the records we have of past storm cycles.
One possible effect for Scotland is that hurricanes are likely to become more common in areas outside the tropics, increasing the chance of severe winds and extreme weather events here.
Photo credit: (above) cyrenaic - (below) NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
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