Study ties warming, big storms

WASHINGTON – Most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, says a study that one researcher says “closes the loop” between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.

A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.

And most of that temperature increase can be blamed on global warming caused by human activities such as automobile and industrial pollution, scientists report in Wednesday’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The work that we’ve done kind of closes the loop here,” said Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., a co-author of the paper.

While previous studies have looked at entire oceans, this work focused on the smaller areas of the Atlantic and Pacific where tropical storms form.

This study builds a connection between the theoretical foundation of global warming and changes that are being observed in those areas where hurricanes are born, said Robert Corell of the American Meteorological Society, who moderated a briefing on the work.

While they reported the connection between rising ocean temperatures and increasing storm power, the researchers declined to predict future changes.

Not so sure of the findings was William M. Gray of Colorado State University, a hurricane expert who forecasts each year the number of storms.

Gray said the models do not deal with all necessary ocean processes and called the report “a desperate attempt to keep the bandwagon going. They’ve kept it going with global warming and now they want to keep it going with hurricanes.”