Storms
Storms can form everywhere on Earth, and there are many different types of storms. Most people today have heard of hurricanes in the US and West Indies, typhoons in East Asia, tropical cyclones and tornados, but probably do not know what Mistral, Föhn wind, Sirocco and Simoom (poison wind) are. Storms have been given local names if they have been recurring and have caused hardships for the population in a certain area.
Storms arise when a body of warm air meets a body of cold air, and the strength of the winds increases with increasing temperature differences. Consequently different parts of the globe have different storm seasons. There are no hurricanes in Florida in May. Typhoons in the Philippines usually strike between June and November (with the majority of the precipitation occurring between July and September). The North Sea has winter storms. A great deal is known about these seasonal patterns.
Many environmental scientists claim that storms have become worse as a result of human carbon dioxide emissions and that storms are becoming more frequent and intense as the global mean temperature rises. These claims have no substance.
The most violent storms in the North Sea since the 12th century took place during the Middle Ages and the "Little Ice Age", when sophisticated means of measurement did not exist but detailed descriptions of the effects were recorded; how many people died, how many ships were sunk, etc.: 1164 (15,000 drowned; a hot year), 1436, 1566 (the most devastating storm ever in the Baltic Sea), 1570 (the Spanish Armada was sunk by a storm; the "All Saints Flood"). During the bitterly cold pre-industrial 17th and 18th centuries violent storms in the North Sea were common: 1625, 1634 (the same intensity as the storm of 1981), 1662, 1694, 1695, 1697 and worst of all 1703 (about the same strength as the North Sea storm of 1986). The Danish and Swedish navies have lost more ships to storms than they have in all wars combined.
Our database TRITON holds everything of interest for governments and companies that want to be informed about actual historical trends in storms. Here is an example of the frequency of tropical cyclones and hurricanes each month in some specific parts of some oceans:
Fifty years ago the only storms that were reported were the ones that caused domestic harm. Today the mass media feeds us information about minor storms all over the world. It is important to be able to see these events against a larger context. Thanks to TRITON we can do this better than anybody outside of the United States or Japan.