Hurricane Intensity Linked to Climate Change [View All]

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Hurricane intensity linked to climate change
September 16, 2005 - 9:06AM

The number of high-strength cyclones, like Hurricane Katrina, has nearly doubled in 35 years in all five of Earth's ocean basins, which scientists said today could be linked to global climate change.

"Global data indicate a 30-year trend toward more frequent and intense hurricanes," said the researchers from the University of Georgia and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, Colorado.

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They noted a strong uptick in the number and proportion of storms in the top two Saffir-Simpson levels, categories four and five, has been constant from 1970 to 2004, especially in the Indian and the North and South-west Pacific Ocean basins. The rise has been less in the North Atlantic.


Around the world, the number of tropical hurricane days rose regularly from 1970 to 1995, when it levelled off at 870 hurricane days, then dropped by 25 per cent until 2003, to 600 days, the scientists said.

http://smh.com.au/news/world/hurricane-intensity-linked-to-climate-change/2005/09/16/1126750104915.html