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SCIENCETuesday 8 September 2015
U.S. study asks if Atlantic hurricane season is weakening
SETH BORENSTEIN account where a storm
hits, but how strong storms
AP Science Writer are and how long they last
regardless of whether they
WASHINGTON (AP) — A make landfall. So even
though no major hurricane
provocative new study hit the United States in
2010, its overall activity was
asks if an end is coming to more than 60 percent high-
er than normal. And just
the busy Atlantic hurricane because it’s a quiet season
doesn’t mean a city can’t
seasons of recent decades. be devastated, Klotzbach
said. Hurricane Andrew hit
The Atlantic looks like it is South Florida in an other-
wise quiet 1992 season as a
entering in to a new qui- top-of-the-scale storm.
Other scientists either reject
eter cycle of storm activity, the study outright or call it
premature.
like in the 1970s and 1980s, “I think they’re pretty much
wrong about this,” said
two prominent hurricane MIT meteorology professor
Kerry Emanuel, who also
researchers wrote Monday specializes in hurricane re-
search. “That paper is not
in the journal Nature Geo- backed by a lot of evi-
dence.” Emanuel doesn’t
science. believe in the cycle cited
by the researchers or the
Scientists at Colorado State connection to ocean tem-
perature and salinity. He
University, including the thinks the quiet period of
hurricanes of the 1970s and
professor who pioneered 1980s is connected to sulfur
pollution and the busy pe-
hurricane seasonal prog- riod that followed is a result
of the cleaning of the air.
nostication, say they are And Jim Kossin of the Na-
tional Oceanic and Atmo-
seeing a localized cool- spheric Administration said
cooler water temperatures
ing and salinity level drop earlier this year might be
due to Atlantic dust, and
in the North Atlantic near August temperatures there
have risen.
Greenland. Those condi- Another NOAA scientist,
Gabriel Vecchi, said while
tions, they theorize, change This Aug, 31, 2005 file photo shows a man pushing his bicycle through flood waters near the Super- there seems to be signs of
local weather and ocean dome in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina left much of the city under water. a change in the circulation
patterns and form an on- of the Atlantic, it’s far too
again, off-again cycle Associated Press early to say that the shift
in hurricane activity that has happened.
they trace back to the late es periods of more and of fewer and weaker hur- sometimes less. The busy “So what happens in the
1800s. stronger storms followed ricanes, the scientists say. cycle that just ended was next few years is going to
Warmer saltier produc- by cooler less salty water The periods last about 25 one of the shorter ones, be very exciting to watch
triggering a similar period years, sometimes more, perhaps because it was as it may help settle or at
so strong that it ran out of least refine some intense
scientific debates,” Vecchi
energy, said study lead au- said in an email.q
U.S. replanting project focuses thor Phil Klotzbach.
Klotzbach said since about
2012 there’s been more lo-
on repairing East Coast calized cooling in the key
area and less salt, suggest-
ing a new, quieter period.
AMY ANTHONY tats more resilient to fu- and Rhode Island are par- But Klotzbach said it is too
Associated Press ture storms, especially the ticipating in the New Eng- soon to be certain that one
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Is- coastal areas that act as a land collection effort. The has begun.
land (AP) — Vast stretches buffer during storms, the So- Society’s partners, North “We’re just asking the ques-
of the tall grasses that dot ciety said. For inland states, Carolina Botanical Garden tion,” he said.
the Atlantic coast were de- the seeds will be used to and Mid-Atlantic Regional But he said he thinks the
stroyed during Superstorm help restore river banks in Seed Bank, part of the New answer is yes. He says the
Sandy, removing a vital areas that flooded exten- York City Department of busy cycle started around
protective buffer for the re- sively during Sandy. Parks and Recreation, will 1995 and probably ended
gion’s shoreline. The two-year project is the collect and distribute seeds in 2012; in 2005 alone, Ka-
Now, the New England Wild first large-scale, coordinat- in North Carolina, Virginia, trina, Rita and Wilma killed
Flower Society and its part- ed, seed banking effort in Maryland, Delaware, New more than 1,500 people
ners are planning to collect the Eastern United States. It Jersey and New York. and caused billions of dol-
the seeds of native plants is part of the Seeds of Suc- Bill Brumback, conservation lars of damage. The quiet
like saltmarsh rush and little cess program, a national director for New England cycle before that went
bluestem and replant them initiative the Bureau of Land Wild Flower Society, said from about 1970 to 1994
in areas battered by the Management first estab- his team is collecting seeds and before that it was busy
deadly 2012 storm. lished in 2001. Wildlife ref- from inland areas of wild- from 1926 until 1969, he
The $2.3 million project uges in Connecticut, Mas- life refuges and replanting said.
will help make these habi- sachusetts, New Hampshire them near the coast.q Klotzbach doesn’t take into
