Warming may bring hurricanes to Mediterranean

[Guest Captain Compassion]

Warming may bring hurricanes to Mediterranean

Mon Jul 16, 2007 8:53AM EDT

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.

 

"Most models in our study show increasing storm intensity and if you

combine this with rising sea levels, as are projected, this could be

damaging for many coastal settlements."

 

As well as being home to millions, the Mediterranean coast is also a

major centre of tourism, which would be under threat.

 

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.

 

They found rising temperatures pointed to increasing storm intensity

and, in the case of the most sensitive computer model, a likelihood of

strong hurricanes.

 

Gaertner said a large number of uncertainties remained and it was not

yet possible to say which parts of the Mediterranean would be hardest

hit. He also believes there is time to avoid the worst-case scenario

by working to limit global warming.

 

"This is a big threat but I think we have time to avoid it, if we cut

emissions of greenhouse gases," Gaertner said.

 

A United Nations climate panel, drawing on the work of 2,500

scientists, said this year that the "best estimate" was that

temperatures would rise 1.8-4.0 Celsius this century.

 

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.

 

 

--

There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling

the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their

cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.

 

Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not

on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away

with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone

are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices

me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS

 

Joseph R. Darancette

daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net