ClimateWire: Researchers say climate change will reduce the number of hurricanes but will also make them stronger.
A new consensus published this week in Nature Geoscience splits the middle on a years-long debate about how climate change would affect hurricane trends. The study reports the consensus reached by 10 climate scientists from the World Meteorological Organization that the number of storms would drop by 6 to 34 percent.
But most of that reduction would come from a drop-off in weak or moderate storms. The authors project overall wind speed in storms would rise by 2 to 11 percent, translating to an increase in damage of up to 60 percent. Storms would also have more rain, another damage indicator.
It’s unclear when the trend started or whether overall damage will increase, the authors said (Seth Borenstein, AP/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Feb. 21). – JP