Are hurricanes getting worse because of ‘global warming’?

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/04/hurricanes-global-warming

Date: Friday 4 March 2011

Models suggest that there may be fewer, but more powerful, hurricanes as the world warms.

There’s tremendous variation in hurricane activity over time and from place to place. Various studies published since 2005 indicate that the number and/or strength of hurricanes have increased in various regions, especially since the 1970s. However, it’s likely that some hurricanes at sea went unnoticed in the days before satellites and hurricane-hunter aircraft, and that complicates the assessment. There’s no doubt, though, that hurricane activity has stepped up since the mid-1990s in the North Atlantic, where ocean temperatures have risen through long-term warming and an apparent multidecadal cycle in Atlantic currents. The tropics are part of a global trend toward ocean warming that goes hand in hand with atmospheric warming, and warm oceans provide the energy to drive hurricanes. As for the future, computer models tend to point towards fewer hurricanes overall (for reasons that aren’t yet firmed up) but a general strengthening of winds and rainfall in the hurricanes that do form.

Trends aside, a catastrophic storm can strike in any year, and it’s impossible to tie any single hurricane or other weather event directly to global warming. Take Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged New Orleans in 2005. Several hurricanes of comparable strength have been observed across the Atlantic over the past century. And the horrific damage caused to the city was the result not only of Katrina’s strength but also the storm’s track, the weakness of levees and many other factors. That said, the waters of the Gulf of Mexico that fuelled Katrina were at near-record warmth at the time.

 

What is the cause of so many birds and fish dying globally?

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‘The mystery of mass bird deaths’ – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12135380

TIMELINE

Date: 3rd January, 2011.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12106315

Wildlife officials are trying to determine what caused more than 1,000 birds to fall dead from the sky over a small town in the US state of Arkansas.

The birds began dropping over the town of Beebe just before midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Various reasons for the mystery deaths have been put forward.

Date: 5th January, 2011.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12118589

Tests are being carried out on about 500 red-winged blackbirds and starlings found dead in the US state of Louisiana.

It happened just a few days after some 3,000 blackbirds fell to Earth in neighbouring Arkansas in the small town of Beebe.

Several scientific explanations as well as conspiracy theories have been put forward to explain what may have happened.

Date: 6th January, 2011

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12129141

A number of birds have been found dead in the Swedish city of Falkoping, leaving authorities puzzled.

This comes days after thousands of birds mysteriously fell to their deaths in the US state of Arkansas.

Veterinary officials said that the case in Falkoeping was rare and cited a number of reasons for the sudden deaths such as “disease or poisoning”.

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‘The Core’ movie (2003)

Here is a scene from the movie ‘The Core’, where the London pigeons suddenly go wild, as a result of a change in the Earth’s magnetic field…