Study says Better Observations, Analyses Detecting Short-Lived Tropical Systems
Short-lived Tropical Storm Chantal forms 210 miles south of Halifax, Nova Scotia on July 31, 2007
A NOAA-led team of scientists has found that the apparent increase in the number of tropical storms and hurricanes recorded since the late 19th and early 20th centuries is likely attributable to improvements in observational tools and analysis techniques rather than an actual increase in the number of storms.
The new study, appears in the online edition of the American Meteorological Society's peer-reviewed Journal of Climate. The study shows that the number of short-lived tropical storms and hurricanes, defined as those lasting two days or less, increased from less than one per year to about five per year between 1878 to 2008. Research indicated that short-duration storms were not counted as often during the years before satellite technology. The finding of no increasing trend in the counts of hurricane and tropical storms in the Atlantic is consistent with several recent simulations by high-resolution global climate models.
"This new study is one piece of the puzzle of how climate may influence hurricanes. Although Atlantic storm counts overall have not changed, this study does not address how the strength and number of the strongest hurricanes have changed or may change due to global warming," noted Thomas Knutson, one of the study's co-authors.
Chris Landsea, science and operations officer at NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami, and lead author on the study, has been supported by the Climate Program Office's Climate Change Data and Detection (C2D2) program. Read more about the study here.
