Global Warming = Weaker Hurricanes?

Usually when people talk about Global Warming, they also talk about increased intensity of hurricanes. You would think this might be the case since the water will be warmer and that is the fuel for the hurricane development.

This is an interesting release by NOAA discussing how Global Warming may actually weaken hurricanes in the tropical Atlantic and the east Pacific. Why? Because of increased vertical wind shear. Basically this means that as you move vertically away from the earth that the wind is moving in different directions and at different speeds at different heights. This has the effect of preventing the up-drafts from reaching their heights and nocking the top's off of the hurricanes and thunderstorms.

There are some interesting visualizations of this here.

Here is the NOAA press release:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2840.htm