Hurricanes Could Be Bigger And Badder In The Future Thanks To Global Warming.

The number and power of storms has remained fairly constant over the past few decades, but there is still reason to worry.

Greenhouse gas emissions could contribute to anything from a 10 to 40 percent increase in the number of tropical storms that sweep the planet annually by 2100, as of right now we get about 90, according to an MIT press release.

The beefed up storms could produce up to 45 percent more power than what we see today, MIT's Kerry Emanuel said.

Emanuel predicts the effects will be felt the most in the North Atlantic and Pacific, as well as the Indian Ocean.

Tropical cyclones are thought to form in climates that contain both deep, warm water and cooler air. Water evaporating from the surface heats the atmosphere, thermal energy from the exchange causes the air to whirl around. There is usually a drop in pressure in the center of the whirlwind which can cause even stronger winds.

Climate models have been adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in order to predict the future effect of greenhouse gas on cyclones .

Emanuel embedded a "high-resolution, local storm model within six global climate models" courtesy of the IPCC in order to predict the storms on a global and local level.

The researcher simulated 600 storms for each of the six global climate models. He created prospective cyclones starting with the year 1950 and ending in 2100.

Emanuel noted the predictions were tentative, and other models had yielded some mixed results.

Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research thinks the models left out some important factors, such as the effects of carbon dioxide and the mixing of ocean layers.

"Having a warmer tropical Pacific, especially in the central Pacific, makes the overall atmosphere more like those in El Niño events. Places like Hawaii and Tahiti and Fiji would likely be more in jeopardy under these scenarios," he said.

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