Study expands tropical cyclone knowledge

TOLEDO, Spain, July 16 (UPI) -- A Spanish-led study has linked climate change to the newly observed development of unusual tropical cyclones over the Atlantic Ocean.

Two very atypical tropical cyclones recently occurred. The first was 2004's Hurricane Catarina, which made landfall over the southern coast of Brazil. The second was Hurricane Vince in 2005 -- which formed next to the Madeira Islands in the Atlantic Ocean -- the first detected hurricane to develop over that area and the first known tropical cyclone to make landfall in Spain.

Noting that anthropogenic climate change might be responsible for altering the geographical areas where tropical cyclones develop, M.A. Gaertner of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, in Toledo, Spain, and colleagues used several regional climate models to assess new locations of tropical cyclone occurrence.

They found an increase in cyclone intensity over the Mediterranean Sea in climate change scenario simulations. The study, for the first time, revealed a risk of tropical cyclone development over the Mediterranean Sea under future climate change conditions.

The research, which involved scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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