Typhoons that slam into land in the northwestern Pacific — especially the biggest tropical cyclones of the bunch — have grown considerably stronger since the 1970s, a new study said on Monday.
Overall, the intensities of typhoons that make landfall have increased by about 12 percent in nearly four decades.
The change is most noticeable for storms with winds of 209kph or more — those in categories 4 and 5.
Since 1977, they have gone from a once-a-year occurrence to four times a year, according to a study in the journal Nature Geoscience.
LIONROCK, HAIYAN
These are storms like Lionrock that last month killed at least 17 people, about half of them elderly residents of a Japanese nursing home, and Haiyan — one of the strongest storms on record — which killed more than 6,000 people in the Philippines in 2013.
Study lead author Wei Mei, a climate scientist at the University of North Carolina, connected the strengthening of these storms to data showing warmer seawater near coasts, which would provide more fuel for typhoons.
NORTHERN EXPOSURE
As the world warms up more, stronger storms are likely to get even more intense, especially north of 20 degrees north latitude, where Taiwan, eastern China, South Korea and Japan are, Mei said.
Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said the study makes sense and raises interesting questions, but added that some of the storms before 1987 might have had their wind speeds underestimated.
BETTER RECORDS?
Mei said he thinks that time period actually had better measurements, because planes were then flying into storms to gauge their strength.
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