Warming may bring hurricanes to Mediterranean
On Jul 18, 2:10 pm, Roger Coppock wrote:
Here's a testable prediction. Unfortunately, a 3K rise
is projected for the latitude of the Mediterranean sea
about a century from now. Although, we could see
some extreme events sooner. -.-. --.- Roger
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Warming may bring hurricanes to Mediterranean
on Jul 16, 2007 3:06PM BST
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON (Reuters) - Global warming could trigger hurricanes, or
tropical cyclones, over the Mediterranean sea, threatening one of the
world's most densely populated coastal regions, according to European
scientists.
Hurricanes currently form out in the tropical Atlantic and rarely
reach Europe, but a new study shows a 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees
Fahrenheit) rise in average temperatures could set them off in the
enclosed Mediterranean in future.
"This is the first study to detect this possibility," lead researcher
Miguel Angel Gaertner of the University of Castilla-La Mancha in
Toledo, Spain, told Reuters on Monday.
[ . . . ]
Factors influencing hurricanes include warm sea surface temperatures
and atmospheric instability. In the past, they have been confined to a
limited number of regions, such as the north Atlantic and north
Pacific, where they are known as typhoons.
Recently, however, they have been forming in unusual places, which
Gaertner sees as a clear danger signal.
In 2004, Hurricane Catarina formed in the south Atlantic and hit land
in southern Brazil. A year later, Hurricane Vince formed next to the
Madeira Islands and became the first to make landfall in Spain.
In a paper published in the American Geophysical Union Journal,
Gaertner and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
in Hamburg, Germany, used a range of regional climate models to assess
the chance of similar events in the Mediterranean.
[ . . . ]
Most experts say emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning
fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, are the principal
reason for rising temperatures.
Yep. More inane predictions are going to convince us. You win.
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