By Sid Perkins
Some of the world’s strongest storms, particularly North Atlantic hurricanes, have, on average, gained wind speed during the past three decades, thanks to a warming trend in many of the ocean basins where such storms are spawned.
![Peak wind speeds of some of the world’s strongest storms (2005’s Wilma shown) have, on average, increased during the past three decades, thanks to a warming trend in many of the ocean basins where such storms are spawned](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/8657.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1)
New analyses reported in the Sept. 4 Nature indicate that in the strongest tropical cyclones — also known as hurricanes in the North Atlantic and typhoons in the North Pacific — peak wind speeds increased as much as 3 meters per second each decade from 1981 to 2006.
In other words, the strongest North Atlantic hurricanes in the 1990s had peak wind speeds about 10 kilometers per hour faster than those in the region’s strongest storms of the 1980s. Wind speeds measured for the largest storms from 2000 to 2006 were faster still, says James P. Kossin, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.