Stronger tropical storms are part of a wider phenomenon of weather extremes driven by higher temperatures, scientists say. FEWER, BUT MORE INTENSE, STORMSScientists believe that climate change is also reshaping the behaviour of tropical storms, including typhoons, making them less frequent but more powerful. While it is difficult to attribute individual weather events to climate change, models predict that global warming makes typhoons stronger, said Sachie Kanada, a researcher at Japan's Nagoya University. In its "blue paper" on climate change published this month, China said the number of typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea had declined significantly since the 1990s, but they were getting stronger. Taiwan also said in its climate change report published in May that climate change was likely to reduce the overall number of typhoons in the region while making each one more intense.
