Evidence in support of the climate change-Atlantic hurricane hypothesis

[1] The power of Atlantic tropical cyclones is rising rather dramatically and the increase is correlated with an increase in the late summer/early fall sea surface temperature over the North Atlantic. A debate concerns the nature of these increases with some studies attributing them to a natural cli...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: James B. Elsner
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Subjects:
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.483.8825
http://mailer.fsu.edu/~jelsner/PDF/Research/Elsner2006.pdf
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Summary:[1] The power of Atlantic tropical cyclones is rising rather dramatically and the increase is correlated with an increase in the late summer/early fall sea surface temperature over the North Atlantic. A debate concerns the nature of these increases with some studies attributing them to a natural climate fluctuation, known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), and others suggesting climate change related to anthropogenic increases in radiative forcing from greenhouse-gases. Here tests for causality using the global mean near-surface air temperature (GT) and Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) records during the Atlantic hurricane season are applied. Results show that GT is useful in predicting Atlantic SST, but not the other way around. Thus GT ‘‘causes’ ’ SST providing additional evidence in support of the climate change hypothesis. Results have serious implications for life and property throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, and portions of the