Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Will Tornadoes Get Stronger?

Scientists aren't sure:
Purdue's Trapp and colleagues got a similar result in their 2007 study, which they confirmed in research published in 2009 and 2011. "The number of days when conditions exist to form tornadoes is expected to increase" as the world warms, he said.
In addition, they found, regions near the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts not normally associated with tornadoes will experience tornado-making weather more frequently. They projected a doubling in the number of days with such conditions in Atlanta and New York City, for instance.
More powerful thunderstorms would be expected to produce more tornadoes, but wind shear could prove a mitigating factor.
Because climate change is not uniform, Del Genio wrote in the 2011 paper, "in the lower troposphere, the temperature difference between low and high latitudes decreases as the planet warms, creating less wind shear."
Some of these storms have been very ugly, and I'm afraid things will get worse in the future.

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