Rise in tornadoes no certainty as Earth warms, scientists say

You may have heard that thunderstorms, lightning, sleet, hail, damaging winds, and hurricanes will occur more frequently later this century if the Earth's climate continues to warm as rapidly as America's top climate scientists believe it is now.

But tornadoes? Not so fast.

"This science is in its infancy," explained Tony Del Genio, a climatologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
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Jeff Masters, director of meteorology for Weather Underground Inc., a private weather-forecasting service in Ann Arbor, said the region's wind shear will keep weakening if the North Pole and South Pole continue to warm.

Oddly enough, though, while tornado reports nationwide have been on the rise since the 1950s, those twisters strong enough to be classified as EF-4s or EF-5s -- a fraction of the total -- occurred less frequently during the 2000s than during the 1990s.

If anything, scientists might have expected more because the climate had slightly warmed.

Some researchers theorize the number of twisters didn't necessarily go up. Because they're usually formed in rural areas, many may have simply gone unreported in years past, they said.

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