The Australian: Warming 'can't be blamed' for storms [February 21, 2006]

GLOBAL warming cannot be directly blamed for any significant tropical storm in the past two years, says an international group of meteorologists who submitted their findings to a climate conference in South Africa.

Although 2004 and last year produced record hurricane seasons in the US, including the devastating Katrina, none could be put down to a long-term trend, the report says.

In the same period Brazil experienced its first cyclone, there were five in the Cook Islands in five weeks and 10 in Japan.

A report on tropical storms submitted to the World Meteorological Organisation's Commission for Atmospheric Science in Cape Town says: "No single high-impact cyclone event of 2004 and 2005 can be directly attributed to global warming, though there may be an impact on the group as a whole."

The report was written by meteorologists from the US, Britain, China and Australia, including the Bureau of Meteorology's John McBride and Jeff Kepert.









They said there was evidence that the power of tropical cyclones was increasing and that the proportion of intense cyclones was also increasing.

Dr McBride told The Australian that there was widespread dissent in the research community about whether the increase in the proportion of intense storms could be linked to global warming.

"A lot of scientists, while they don't say that this can't possibly happen, say you can't tell from the data that we have," he said.

"The data keeps improving all the time.

"Now you can tell how intense a cyclone is because you've got so much better satellite imagery and you can send research aircraft out there in its path, but in the past you couldn't."

The rising damage bill associated with tropical storms was linked to the increase of development along coastlines, increasing populations and higher insured values.

Australian director of meteorology Geoff Love said in a statement: "Any significant increase in storm activity would compound these problems."

Dr McBride, Dr Kepert and their colleagues say that projected rises in sea levels "are a cause for concern" because "the primary cause of death (in a cyclone) is salt-water flooding associated with storm surge".

The scientists say there is nothing to suggest that the extent of the regions in which cyclones are generated will increase significantly.



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