Europe to be battered by Sandy-style superstorms

BATTEN down the hatches, western Europe. Come the end of the century, superstorm Sandys could be battering your beaches.

Hurricanes usually form in the western tropical Atlantic and head north-west to the US. Occasionally they make it to Europe by piggybacking on the jet stream.

To simulate future hurricanes, Reindert Haarsma of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in De Bilt and colleagues ran a detailed climate model for 2094 to 2098, assuming modest future greenhouse gas emissions.

They found that future hurricanes formed further east in the tropical Atlantic, as that area had warmed sufficiently to provide enough heat and moisture to power them. As a result, many didn't hit the US and instead struck western Europe. The storms weakened once they left the tropics, but powered up again when they entered cold and windy areas, becoming hybrid storms like Sandy, halfway between winter storms and hurricanes.

In the Bay of Biscay, the model predicts the average number of yearly hurricanes will increase from one to six (Geophysical Research Letters, doi.org/kv2).

This article appeared in print under the headline "Superstorms aiming for Europe"

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