(global warming news) Is Global Warming Worsening Hurricanes? - TIME

The Democratic National Convention — and a quirky Colorado radio show — promise to bring environmentalism to the forefront of the U. Researchers led by James Elsner, a meteorologist at Florida State University, analyzed satellite-derived data of tropical storms since 1981 and found that the maximum wind speeds of the strongest storms have increased significantly in the years since, with the most notable increases found in the North Atlantic and the northern Indian oceans. So far that doesn't seem to be the case, with the overall number of storms worldwide holding about steady — in fact, some scientists argue that warming might actually bring about a reduction in the overall frequency of storms. It's especially worrying because the most intense storms do the most damage by far — several minor storms can equal the damage of a single severe hurricane. Records of past hurricane strength are less than perfect, so it's difficult for scientists to be sure that the recent increase in storm intensity hasn't occurred before, in the years before the Earth started warming. And the weather — as we all know — is complicated, which means that it's difficult to model precisely how future warming might affect the formation of storms.

Tags: in, stop global warming, a, definition for global warming, global warming solutions, evidence against global warming, consequences of global warming