SIMULATED INCREASE OF HURRICANE INTENSITIES IN A CO2-WARMED CLIMATE

Hurricanes can inflict catastrophic property damage and loss of human life. Thus, it is important to determine how the character of these po werful storms could change in response to greenhouse gas-induced globa l warming. The impact of climate warming on hurricane intensities was investigated with a regional, high-resolution, hurricane prediction mo del. In a case study, 51 western Pacific storm cases under present-day climate conditions were compared with 51 storm cases under high-CO2 c onditions, More idealized experiments were also performed. The large-s cale initial conditions were derived from a global climate model. For a sea surface temperature warming of about 2.2 degrees C, the simulati ons yielded hurricanes that were more intense by 3 to 7 meters per sec ond (5 to 12 percent) for wind speed and 7 to 20 millibars for central surface pressure.