Science. Tropical cyclones are closer to land around the world – Sunday Vision

Madrid, 28 (Europe Press)

According to a new statistical analysis from Imperial College London, tropical cyclones are approaching land as their paths shift toward the pole and west.

The findings, published in the journal Science, could herald an increased risk of these devastating storms for coastal populations around the world. Tropical cyclones are one of the most devastating and costly natural disasters, and today nearly a third of the worlds population resides within their reach.

Recently, it has been observed that these storms are getting stronger and occur at higher latitudes than in the past. Although man-made impacts of climate change are believed to be driving these changes, their potential impact on coastal areas remains unclear.

Understanding these trends is critical to better gauging how coastal tropical cyclone risks will change in the future. For this reason, researchers Shuai Wang and Ralph Tomei studied the global activity of tropical cyclones during the period 1982-2018 and discovered that in addition to their migration towards the poles, the activity of cyclones is approaching the Earth around the world. .

According to their results, the distance between the maximum intensity point of each storm and the Earth decreased by about 30 kilometers per decade. In addition, the proportion of tropical cyclones entering coastal regions defined as the area of the high seas less than 200 kilometers from the nearest Earth also increases every decade, they say.

Wang and Tommy discover a shift westward in tropical cyclone tracks. They say that tropical cyclone activity is moving westward in the western Pacific, eastern Pacific, and northern and southern Indian oceans.

Although the reasons behind these displacements remain unclear, the authors suggest that they may be due to differences in the large-scale atmospheric circulation systems of Locker and Hadley.

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Science. Tropical cyclones are closer to land around the world - Sunday Vision