Will disrupted ocean currents (by Global Warming) form hurricanes?

Question

1) Is it true that hurricanes can form when the ocean currents are disrupted, when the warm and cold waters meet?

2)Will change in ocean currents result in the water in the Equator being warmer and the oceans at the poles colder?

Answer 1

It's kindda true when warm and cooler water meet, they may form hurricanes, the warmer waters may also partly contribute to more severe hurricanes now because of global warming.

Answer 2

1) Depends on how they're disrputed.

2) Yes, were it to happen.

Explanation:

The oceans and temperature are the driving forces behind the formation of hurricanes, tornadoes and similar storms. A disruption to ocean currents would certainly be instrumental in alterning the behaviour and pattern of storms.

One thing that we can't predict is the effect that global warming will have on ocean currents and the primary reason is that there are two conflicting factors. The scientific term for the ocean currents is thermohaline circulation (or meridian overtruning circulation), thermo meaning heat and haline meaning salt. It's heat and salinity that affects the density of the sea water and it's density which drives the ocean currents.

Fresh water is less dense than brine so it floats, cold water is more dense than warm water so it sinks. Herein lies the problem, meltwater runoff from the ice caps is both cold and fresh.

Depending on the prevailing condition of the seas and oceans at the point where meltwater runoff from the ice caps enters will determine what happens. The meltwater could be pushed under the ocean currents, it could be pushed over them, it could effectively run head first into them.

The result could be nothing, it may be that some ocean currents are diverted, truncated, split, diverged or 'switched off'.

The Gulf Stream or Atlantic Conveyor is the ocean current most likely to be affected as a result of meltwater from the Arctic and Greenland. Should this be 'switched off' or it's course radically altered the heat it conveys to northern Europe will remain in Caribbean waters, this would probably make the seas there more condusive to the spawning of storms whilst at the same time northwest Europe would cool significantly.

Ee don't yet know enough about the interaction between storm formation and warming oceans to say for certain what the effects of global warming will be. It's highly probable that there has been, and will contine to be, an increase in the number and intensity of storms.

However, in the last 30 years there's been a 50% increase in the intensity of tornadoes and an 80% in the number of such events. This is more than can be attributed to global warming alone so there have to be other factors at work and until more research is conducted we can't pinpoint what they are.

Answer 3

Hurricanes form over warm water. I'm sure if the water gets warmer at the Equator then hurricanes will increase in intensity, but Global Warming isn't the only think that can be blamed. El and La Nino/a also affect hurricanes. Hurricane Katrina happened during an El Nino (I think it was El Nino) year.

Answer 4

The second first there has never been a hurricane that cross the Equator. In the northern hemisphere they rotate in the clock wise direction. In the southern hemisphere they rotate in a counter clock wise direction. The warm waters feed the hurricane to form a little cold water will kill it.

Answer 5

Storms are not caused by "Global Warming". Storms form due to natural weather patterns that are know as Nino's (media term). The world has been naturally warming for the past millenia with periods of random cold and hot. For instance temperatures were much higher during the Jurassic periods than they are today and they were much colder during ice ages that come and go cyclically. We are still coming out of the last ice age, and we will go back into another ice age in around another thousand years. Carbon emissions from industry and human activity does not cause temperatures to rise on a global scale. On average, temperatures have risen .3 degrees over the last 600 years.

Answer 6

Hurricanes are not formed by ocean currents.