From The Australian:

Climate change to mean fewer cyclones and smaller waves, says CSIRO research

CSIRO research commissioned by the federal government suggests climate change could dramatically reduce the number of tropical cyclones in the Australian region and decrease wave heights on the nation’s east coast.

The surprise findings, which appear to contradict some common predictions about the impact of climate change, are contained in scientific papers on “Projecting Future Climate and its Extremes”, obtained under Freedom of Information laws by The Australian Online.

One paper, by CSIRO researcher Debbie Abbs, found rising temperatures could halve the frequency of tropical cyclones.

“Climate change projections using this modelling system show a strong tendency for a decrease in TC numbers in the Australian region, especially in the region of current preferred occurrence,” Dr Abbs said.

“On average for the period 2051-2090 relative to 1971-2000, the simulations show an approximately 50 per cent decrease in occurrence for the Australian region, a small decrease (0.3 days) in the duration of a given TC and a southward movement of 100km in the genesis and decay regions.”

…

The CSIRO has meanwhile today called for a carbon price to be a key part of the nation’s overall climate action.

CSIRO chief Dr Megan Clark will today join 600 of Australia’s top climate change scientists at a meeting in Cairns to update the latest observations.

Full story: here h/t to WUWT reader Scarlet Pumpernickel

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While CSIRO hasn’t seen fit to add this new work to their climate change page yet, Dr. Ryan Maue’s work supports the new CSIRO premise:

Global, Northern Hemisphere, and Southern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Energy (ACE) remain at decades-low levels. With the fantastic dearth of November and December global hurricane activity, it is also observed that the frequency of global hurricanes has continued an inexorable plunge into a double-dip recession status. With 2010 being a globally “hot” year, we saw the fewest number of global tropical cyclones observed since at least 1970.

Figure: Last 4-decades of Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sums through March 31, 2011. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months for the Northern Hemisphere (bottom line/gray boxes) and the entire global (top line/blue boxes). The area in between represents the Southern Hemisphere total ACE. Data for the graph: File

Figure: Last 4-decades of Global Tropical Storm and Hurricane frequency — 12-month running sums. The top time series is the number of TCs that reach at least tropical storm strength (maximum lifetime wind speed exceeds 34-knots). The bottom time series is the number of hurricane strength (64-knots+) TCs. The added red lines are linear trends, which serve the useful purpose of delineating the respective time-series mean, since they are flat and parallel. Updated through January 31, 2011 — including Cyclone Yasi but NOT Zaka (12P).

24-month Running Sums image is found here .

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