Increasing Greenhouse Gas Emission will Lead to 10-40 Percent Rise in Frequency of Tropical Cyclones by 2100: Study

A latest study says that increasing greenhouse gas emissions will contribute to a 10-40 percent increase in the frequency of tropical cyclones by the year 2100, reports Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Over the past 40 years the frequency as well as the intensity of tropical cyclones has remained stable.  In the coming century as the Earth warms due to the increasing greenhouse gas emissions, the intensity and frequency of the storms may increase. These changes have been predicted by MIT climate/hurricane researcher Kerry Emanuel.

According to Emanuel's predictions, these storms will produce 45 percent more power, generate stronger winds, rain and storm surges around the world.  The storm activity will be more frequent and strongly felt in the North Pacific with a significant rise in the South Indian Ocean and North Atlantic.

In order to proceed with the finding, the researcher replicated cyclones at both global and local scales by inserting a high resolution, local storm model within six climate models from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The local storm stimulated the development of tropical cyclones based on regional temperatures and large scale atmospheric flow at a resolution that rises as the storm intensifies. With this model he was able to resolve the storm's eyewall, which   is a ring of thunderstorm that circles the eye of storms where the weather is extremely severe.

For all the six models the researcher simulated 600 storms from 1950-2005 with the help of weather data and other historical records. Using IPCC he stimulated tropical cyclone development through 2100 and saw that carbon dioxide emission will increase three times by 2100. Indicating the tropical cyclones will increase by 10 to 40 percent by 2100.

Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research says, "while Emanuel's modeling technique may provide more reliable predictions of the frequency and intensity of future storms, it's unclear how big these storms will be, or how long they will last. These factors are determined partly by the heating effects of carbon dioxide, and partly by the mixing of ocean layers - which the model, as Trenberth points out, does not consider."

If these predictions are true then South Pacific will face frequent monsoons and El Nino events.

The study was published in the Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).