Is there a link between climate change and the increasing severity and frequency of tropical cyclones?
Tropical cyclones form over warm sea when sea surface temperature (SST) exceeds 26.5° C. Due to global warming, sea surface temperature has been rising over the last few decades in several ocean basins. Since sea surface provides the necessary energy for intensification, it is expected that a warmer sea would help cyclones in attaining higher intensity. Considering IMD’s recent modernisation drive, where does the climate change mechanism fit into the scheme of things? The World Meteorological organisation (WMO) in its recent report has stated that, globally, there has been nearly a three-fold increase in extreme weather events like storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, etc during the past five decades. While, there could be some elements of natural variability, there appears to be a definite role of recent trend of global warming in such increase in the frequency of hydrometeorological disasters. Why do we need a 24-hour Weather Channel? Will the channel also be used to spread awarenes
