Global warming could reduce the number of hurricanes to hit the US. The new federal study clashes with other research and is the latest in a contentious scientific debate over how man-made global warming may affect the intensity and number of hurricanes, BBC reported.
In it, researchers link warming waters, especially in the Indian and Pacific oceans, to increased vertical wind shear in the Atlantic Ocean near the United States.
Wind shear a change in wind speed or direction makes it hard for hurricanes to form, strengthen and stay alive. So that means "global warming may decrease the likelihood of hurricanes making landfall in the United States.
With every degree Celsius that the oceans warm, the wind shear increases by up to 10 mph, weakening storm formation, a research oceanographer at NOAA. Winds forming over the Pacific and Indian oceans have global effects, much like El Nino does, he said.
This study on observations instead of computer models and records of landfall hurricanes through more than 100 years. Hurricanes hitting land "are not a reliable record" for how hurricanes have changed. Trenberth is among those on the other side of a growing debate over global warming and hurricanes. Each side uses different sets of data and focus on different details.
One group of climate scientists has linked increases in the strongest hurricanes - just those with winds greater than 130 mph - in the past 35 years to global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said "more likely than not," manmade global warming has already increased the frequency of the most intense storms.
But hurricane researchers have argued that the long-term data for all hurricanes show no such trend. And Wang`s new research suggests just the opposite of the view that more intense hurricanes result from global warming.
The Miami faction points to a statement by an international workshop on tropical cyclones that says "no firm conclusion can be made on this point."
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