User:Rkerver/sandbox

Meteriorlogical History
This is a subsection to Cyclone Pam.

Global Warming Context
The most recent scientific research has confirmed that the most extreme tropical cyclones are getting stronger. Since 2000, the average number of climate-related disasters each year has been 44 per cent higher than between 1994 and 2000 and well over twice the level during the 1980s, a data-based managed by Brussels-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters shows.

As reported in 2008 by the Journal Nature, wind speeds for the strongest tropical storms have increased from an average of 140 mph in 1981 to 156 mph in 2006, while the ocean temperature, averaged globally over all the regions where tropical cyclones form, increased from 28.2 °C to 28.5 °C during this period.

More recently, NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) has found a strong signal in proportions of both weaker and stronger hurricanes. The proportion of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has increased at a rate of ~25–30 % per °C of global warming after accounting for analysis and observing system changes. Thomas Knutson's team at GFDL say they are spurred on in their research by the dangerous threat posed by tropical cyclones, but that understanding their relationship to global warming is both difficult and fascinating. Their modeling work show that the number of category-4 and category-5 cyclones will double by the end of this century, making a catastrophic storms like Cyclone Pam considerably more likely.

Cyclone Pam made landfall in Vanuatu at the same time as the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. World leaders are voicing growing concerns. ''Ian Fry, the chief climate-change negotiator for the island nation of Tuvalu told Reuters: "There's clearly a human imprint on these cyclones now, and there needs to be something done about it". Pacific Islands devastated by Cyclone Pam are using the disaster to drive home the need for a globally funded insurance pool to aid in the recovery from such events when they attend climate-change talks in Paris later this year. ''

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates that the cyclone “tragically underscored” the importance of global efforts on disaster risk reduction." "Climate change is increasingly recognized by the insurance community as a primary cause of natural disasters.

According to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation, which are associated with ongoing increases of tropical sea surface temperatures. The once-in-a-lifetime typhoons are now happening once a year".