Damping The “Seeds” Of Hurricanes
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Increased atmospheric moisture produced weaker hurricane formation.
Increased atmospheric moisture may alter critical weather patterns over Africa, making it more difficult for the predecessors of many Atlantic hurricanes to form, according to a new study published this month.
The research team, led by scientists from the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR), used an innovative model that allows for higher-resolution simulations of hurricane formation than ever before. This allowed researchers to study the effects of increased regional moisture over Africa, which is the birthplace of weather systems that later produce hurricanes over the Atlantic.
Past research has suggested that warmer ocean water and a moister atmosphere could cause hurricanes to become more intense with greater amounts of rainfall. But how atmospheric moisture, which is predicted to increase in a warming climate, may be impacting hurricane formation itself has not been studied in detail until now.
The researchers found that a moister environment produced weaker and slower-moving African easterly waves, or disturbances which are the primary precursor or “seed” for hurricanes in the Atlantic. The addition of moisture moved the location of thunderstorms within the wave, making it harder for the wave to grow. Increased moisture also slowed the movement of the wave resulting in weaker and delayed hurricane seed formation by the time it reached eastern Atlantic waters.
“Considerable work during the last two decades has emphasized the role of deep moist convection to explain the development of African easterly waves,” said NSF NCAR scientist and lead author Kelly Núñez Ocasio. “But, the precise role of moisture has proven somewhat elusive. With the development of new modeling capabilities, I was able to focus on the role of moisture in cyclogenesis stemming from the hurricane seed.”
read more at news.ucar.edu.