How might global warming change hurricane intensity, frequency, and rainfall ?
Contributed by Chris Landsea In November 2006 the global community of tropical cyclone researchers and forecasters as met at the 6th International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones of the World Meteorological Organization in San Jose, Costa Rica. They released a statement on the links between anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change and tropical cyclones, including hurricanes and typhoons. The following is a summary of their report. • There have been a number of recent high-impact tropical cyclone events around the globe. These include 10 landfalling tropical cyclones in Japan in 2004, five tropical cyclones affecting the Cook Islands in a five-week period in 2005, Cyclone Gafilo in Madagascar in 2004, Cyclone Larry in Australia in 2006, Typhoon Saomai in China in 2006, and the extremely active 2004 and 2005 Atlantic tropical cyclone seasons – including the catastrophic socio-economic impact of Hurricane Katrina. • Some recent scientific articles have reported a large increase in tropi
