Real Climate Science

Theory
1
and modelling
2
predict that hurricane intensity should
increase with increasing global mean temperatures, but work on
the detection of trends in hurricane activity has focusedmostly on
their frequency
3,4
and shows no trend.Here I de?ne an index of the
potential destructiveness of hurricanes based on the total dissipation of power, integrated over the lifetime of the cyclone, and show
that this index has increased markedly since the mid-1970s. This
trend is due to both longer storm lifetimes and greater storm
intensities. I ?nd that the record of net hurricane power dissipation is highly correlated with tropical sea surface temperature,
re?ecting well-documented climate signals, including multidecadal oscillations in the North Atlantic and North Paci?c, and
global warming. My results suggest that future warming may
lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential,
and—taking into account an increasing coastal population—
a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the twenty-
?rst century