Wednesday, May 24, 2006

On rise of ocean temperture and hurricanes

I don't know much about the mechanics of hurricanes, but what I gather of the gist of news reports is that the temperature underneath a hurricane is influencing the strength of it, because higher temperatures are equivalent to more energy. If this is right, then we have to see what temperature changes we have. But hey, they are all in the 0.xx Celsius scale over the years and even the daily extrema have the same variance as a decade ago. So, conclusively, a deci-degree of temperature change doesn't induce a lot more energy, because the enthalpy-change is still neglectible.
There are events like El-Nino and Nina, which really can make a difference in the intensity of storms, but I don't think that slow warming will do the thing, except when you have a high temperature gradient, which is not the case, if global warming is a consistent global phenomen. If it is not, then it is weather complexity that should concern us more.

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