Stormy Weather Ahead

March 16, 2006 — -- Remember last year's hurricane season? Expect more of the same, scientists say.

After the massive damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina, many began to ask whether humans had any hand in the intensity of the storm through global warming. That debate is ongoing, but new research in the journal Science adds weight to the idea that we may have set ourselves up for more monster storms.

"Last fall you heard a lot about other factors, like wind shear, that are also at play," said Judy Curry, a climate scientist and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "But this study nails down the connection between sea surface temperature and the trend toward hurricane intensity."

Curry, along with graduate student Carlos Hoyos and others, used statistical analysis and theory models to isolate the cause of hurricane strength from 1970 to 2004 in six ocean basins, including the North Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. While they considered other variables such as vertical wind shear, higher humidity in the lower atmosphere, and air circulation patterns, they found that only warmer sea surface temperatures had a statistically significant link to the greater occurrence of bigger storms.

What's making sea surfaces in the Tropics warmer? Some say the answer is obvious.

"Call it what you like," said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, "but it is distinctly man-made in nature. It's hard not to point the finger at global warming."

Emanuel published a study last fall in the journal Nature that attributed hurricane intensity to sea surface warming. He sees Curry's new work as an answer to critics who claim he overlooked other factors.

"I got in trouble with the forecasters who said I didn't take into account wind shear or humidity," he said. "I think this paper reconciles at least one bone of contention."

So is the debate now settled? Hardly, says Chris Landsea, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami.