Why global warming may not mean more typhoons, according to new study
- Analysis of South China Sea sediment and historical Chinese data on tropical storms suggests the reverse is true
Chinese-led research is challenging the idea of a direct link between warmer temperatures and more extreme typhoons, with a new study suggesting that bigger and deadlier tropical storms occurred in the past when temperatures fell.
An international team led by Chinese Academy of Sciences researcher Chen Tianran found that over the past few hundred years, the frequency and intensity of typhoons in the South China Sea increased at times when global temperatures dropped.
The pattern was uncovered in sediment and historical records from China’s southern coastal province of Guangdong, according to their paper, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters last month.
Between 1600 and 1900, world temperatures dropped by 1 to 1.5 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 2.7 Fahrenheit) – a period known as the Little Ice Age.
Before that, about three or four typhoon landfalls were recorded each year in Guangdong. By the middle of the 17th century, the number had peaked at around 12.
The researchers also analysed a sediment sample drilled from a sand pit on Guangjin Island, near the Yongle Atoll in the disputed Paracel Islands, which China calls the Xisha Islands.