Thursday, January 24, 2008

Sometimes You Even Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Doesn't Blow

I'm not a big fan of January. It's cold, the sun goes down before I leave work, it's cold, there's salt all over the roads, and most of all, it's really, really cold. The one good thing about January, however, is that organizations like the American Astronomical Society and the American Meteorological Society hold their annual meetings, and for a brief time science gets to be in the news without being pressed into service as a foot soldier for politics.

This week's AMS meeting saw the publication of a study indicating that warmer oceans could reduce the number and intensity of hurricanes striking the US. This result is contrary to the conventional wisdom that warmer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) will result in more and stronger hurricanes. The culprit, it seems, is wind shear. Wind shear disrupts tropical cyclones, and the study finds that higher SSTs produce more shear; thus, fewer cyclones. One particularly interesting feature of this study is that it is based on observational data, rather than on climate model calculations.

If this study is borne out, then it will add an interesting new dimension to the climate debate. In practice it is unlikely that any climate change will be unambiguously good or bad; rather, there will probably be some who are helped and some who are harmed. This, then, is where the future of climate research lies: not in pointless debates over whether or not climate change is happening, but in serious study about the likely effects, for good or ill, of the change that is always happening.

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