A new technique for deriving hurricane climatologies from global data, applied to climate models, indicates that global warming should reduce the global frequency of hurricanes, though their intensity may increase in some locations.

Tropical cyclones account for the majority of natural catastrophic losses in the developed world and, next to floods, are the leading cause of death and injury among natural disasters affecting developing countries (UNDP/BCPR 2004). It is thus
of some interest to understand how their behavior is affected by climate change, whether natural or anthropogenic.

More than 131 x 106 metric tons (MT) of inorganic sediments accumulated in coastal wetlands when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita crossed the Louisiana coast in 2005, plus another 281 x 106 MT when accumulation was prorated for open water area.

Tropical cyclones—variously defined as hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones—regularly impact human populations and periodically produce devastating weather-related natural disasters. The epidemiology of tropical cyclones is fundamentally determined by the physical forces of massive cyclonic systems intersecting with patterns of human behavior. The destructive forces of cyclonic winds, inundating rains, and storm surge are frequently accompanied by floods, tornadoes, and landslides.