More Powerful Hurricanes Predicted...01/21/00

(BBC) Scientists in the US believe hurricanes may become more powerful in the next few decades, and that the damage they cause will be much greater.  BBC News Online reports that Dr Chris Landsea, of the hurricane research division of NOAA told BBC Radio Four's environment programme Costing the Earth how serious the problem might become.  He said he now thought that global warming would not cause more frequent and intense hurricanes, but that a natural cycle could produce the same result.

"Our best estimates now are that the frequency of hurricanes won't change much at all, and that the intensities may go up by five or ten per cent.  If we did see a ten per cent increase in the strength of the strongest hurricanes, that might mean 50 per cent more damage, or doubling the damage.  That is a magnitude that's worth worrying about."  His colleague Professor Hugh Willoughby, who specialises in trying to reduce the power of hurricanes, was also a guest on the programme.  One fascinating fact he quoted was that: "There's more mechanical energy in a hurricane than you could get if you hooked all of the generating plants in the world together."

The programme also visited the island of Kutub Dia off the coast of Bangladesh, devastated by a cyclone and tidal surge in 1991 - the Bangladeshi environment minister told the programme her government had no money to build more cyclone shelters - half the people are thus unprotected.  And, she said it would take another seven years to complete the raising of the embankment that protects the island against tidal surges.  Links to the NOAA and Virtual Bangladesh websites and further information at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_603000/603948.stm