It’s been known for a while now. But now it’s moving from common knowledge to scientifically-backed facts. Many studies are now linking human activities with the rise of temperatures of oceans where hurricanes form. A new study is now confirming this.
Rising ocean temperatures in key hurricane breeding grounds of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are due primarily to human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations, according to a study published online in the September 11 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Using 22 different computer models of the climate system, Benjamin Santer and six other atmospheric scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, together with Tom Wigley, Gerald Meehl, and Warren Washington from the Boulder-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and scientists from eight other research centers, have shown that the warming sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of the tropical Atlantic and Pacific oceans over the last century is linked to human activities.
“We’ve used virtually all the world’s climate models to study the causes of SST changes in hurricane formation regions,” Santer says.
Research published during the past year has uncovered evidence of a link between rising ocean temperatures and increases in hurricane intensity. This has raised concerns about the causes of the rising temperatures, particularly in parts of the Atlantic and Pacific where hurricanes and other tropical cyclones form.
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“The important conclusion is that the observed SST increases in these hurricane breeding grounds cannot be explained by natural processes alone,” says Wigley. “The best explanation for these changes has to include a large human influence.”
Hurricanes are complex phenomena that are influenced by a variety of physical factors, such as SSTs, wind shear, water vapor, and atmospheric stability. The increasing SSTs in the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane formation regions are not the sole determinant of hurricane intensity, but they are likely to be one of the most significant influences.
“It is important to note that we expect global temperatures and SSTs to increase even more rapidly over the next century,” Wigley says.
September 12th, 2006 | Earth Sciences and Geomatics, Environment | 3 comments
One of my colleague was forced to reinstall his system due to a hard drive failure. Poor guy. However, he was kind enough to keep a list of the software he installed. While most of this is either freeware or open-source, there are a couple of pieces of proprietary software that we installed. I consider this post as a natural follow-up to my previous “Help me rebuild my computer” post a while ago. You may take this list as a “How To… choose all the right software for your computer”!