From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Nov 02 1999 - 03:44:48 MST
"Cynthia" <cyn386@flash.net> writes:
> It seems to me, that global warming would reduce hurricanes, not make them
> worse. My logic is this. Hurricanes are caused by temperature differences,
> and global warming would reduce temperature differences.
I think the main cause of hurricanes is that warm moist sea air rises,
causing an inflow of surrounding air. The heat differential that
supplies the energy is vertical, the difference between ground level
and stratospheric air. The effects of global warming on this
differential is definitely non-trivial.
> The colder the poles are, the more moisture they sucked out of the air. And
> if the polar regions became warmer, then the rainfall and cloud cover would
> increase. Causing the warm regions to become cooler.
>
> And with the cold regions becoming warmer, and the warm regions becoming
> cooler, the temperature differential that causes storms would be reduced.
> Therefore I would expect more mild temperate weather.
Also, higher temperatures -> more evaporation -> more cloud formation
-> more sunlight reflected into space. But this effect will not be
homogeneous across the planet...
I have seen this idea proposed before, and it just goes to show how
tricky climate modelling is. You get a lot of highly nonlinear
interactions; an increase in arctic temperatures would reduce the
saline cold deep sea currents, possibly weakening the Gulf stream -
which might either balance the situation, or cause oscillations
leading to a new, likely unpleasant (to us Swedes) climate.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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