Wednesday 25 September 2013

No no no, as Earth cool's you mean. There has been no warming in 20 years, therefore, no warming to come!

As the Earth warms in the coming decades, explosive thunderstorm ingredients will gel more routinely, finds a new Stanford University-led study.

In other words, the risk of severe thunderstorms producing damaging winds, large hail and tornadoes is set to increase markedly if the study is correct.

The study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on an area from the Rockies to the East Coast. It projects a 40 percent increase in severe weather environments in the spring and 25-30 percent increase annually by the end of the century.

Using a large number of global climate model simulations, the study says the uptick in severe weather environments is “robust” and seen in most places in most seasons.

The most pronounced increases are projected for the central U.S. during spring but large increases also extend into the Northeast and back into the Plains. The lone decrease in severe thunderstorm environments is found in the central Plains during the summer.

The study finds the two critical ingredients necessary for severe thunderstorms will team up more frequently. The first ingredient is known as CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy), which is simply a measure of heat energy, or the fuel available to storms. The second is wind shear or the turning of the wind with altitude, which helps storm spin and stay alive.

“[We] find that days with high convective available potential energy (CAPE) and strong low-level wind shear increase in occurrence, suggesting an increasing likelihood of atmospheric conditions that contribute to the most severe events, including tornadoes,” the study says.


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