Cleaner Air Linked to More Hurricanes

For much of the 20th century, sooty pollution in the atmosphere has made conditions unfavourable for the storms, causing their numbers to drop.

But since the 1980s, cleaner air over the Atlantic has created better conditions for hurricane formation, with more tropical storms developing and battering American and Caribbean coasts as a result.

Greater concentrations of aerosols affect ocean temperatures and circulation patterns in a way that makes it harder for hurricanes to form, but cleaner air in recent decades has resulted in more favourable conditions for tropical storms.

Met Office scientist Dr Nick Dunstone, who led the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, said: "Since the introduction of the clean air-acts in the 1980s, concentrations of aerosols over the North Atlantic have reduced and model results suggest that this will have contributed to recent increases in hurricane numbers."

He added that this should be weighed against the positive effects of cutting pollution levels, which has benefited human health and helped to prevent devastating drought in Africa.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/we...urricanes.html

So my question is: is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Re: Cleaner Air Linked to More Hurricanes

Sounds like be careful what you wish for to me

Re: Cleaner Air Linked to More Hurricanes

What I don't understand is that yes, it's created cleaner air but what about those getting pummeled by hurricanes?

Re: Cleaner Air Linked to More Hurricanes

Exactly, while we want cleaner air is it worth the lives of those in these areas ?

Re: Cleaner Air Linked to More Hurricanes

When you think of the devastation caused by those hurricanes to those people where hundreds of people die and villages wiped out, oh I don't know; my conscience is now troubled ...

Re: Cleaner Air Linked to More Hurricanes

They say God never closes one door but he opens another.
I give up, I always said those experts hadn't a clue what they were on about.