NASA Study Links Severe Storm Increases to Global Warming
Surely you will say that this comes as no surprise, but to actually have a study with some data to make the claim is what we look for when discussing such things. Especially when it comes from somewhere like NASA. Obviously, “common sense” isn’t proof of anything. It may help you with your marketing ideas for your small business franchise, but when it comes to science you might want to have data.
According to the study, extremely high clouds in the Earth’s tropics, which are associated with severe storms and rainfall, are increasing due to global warming. In a presentation Sunday to the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, JPL Senior Research Scientist Hartmut Aumann outlined the results of a study based on five years of data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft. The AIRS data were used to observe certain types of tropical clouds linked with severe storms, torrential rain and hail. The instrument typically detects about 6,000 of these clouds each day. Aumann and his team found a strong correlation between the frequency of these clouds and seasonal variations in the average sea surface temperature of the tropical oceans.
When the sea surface temperatures increase by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) the team observed that there was a 45% increase in the frequency of the very high clouds responsible for the severe storms. The current rate of increase of global warming temperature increases are at .23 degrees Farhenheit (19 Celius) per decade, which suggest to the team that the frequency of severe storms will increase at a rate of 6% per decade.
“Clouds and rain have been the weakest link in climate prediction,” said Aumann. “The interaction between the daytime warming of the sea surface under clear-sky conditions and increases in the formation of low clouds, high clouds and, ultimately, rain is very complicated. The high clouds in our observations—typically at altitudes of 20 kilometers (12 miles) and higher—present the greatest difficulties for current climate models, which aren’t able to resolve cloud structures smaller than about 250 kilometers (155 miles) in size.”
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Filed under: Environment by JMH
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