Princeton Climate Model Predicts Fewer but More Intense Atlantic Hurricanes

Just this week, it was reported that the IPCC may have misstated a comment about the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers due to global warming.

In today's NYTimes, the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University has published a modeling study (originally published in Science) - Warming Expected to Cut Atlantic Hurricane Tally but Boost Threat (01/2010) - that projects a rise in potential hurricane damage in the Western Atlantic.

These enhanced analytical skills are possible because of the improvement in super-computer modeling capabilities. Yet, the study also acknowledges that "there can be other factors which could influence projected results - such as, local conditions can also greatly influence the energy potential of hurricanes. Also, different computer models can and do produce different results."

In conversations that I have had with climate scientists at NASA, there was another interesting factor that "seems" to have an impact on hurricane frequency and intensity - atmospheric aerosols. For the Atlantic, these generally come from West Africa.

The study's author, William Lau, offers the following conclusion of this study (from the NASA website) - Saharan Dust Has Chilling Effect on North Atlantic (12/2007): "Previous studies have looked at how hot, dry air associated with a Saharan dust outbreak affects an individual storm, but our study is the first to focus on dust's radiative effect on seas surface temperatures, which may affect storms for the entire season. Nobody had suggested that link before."

Does the Princeton study offer a better assessment of what is likely to happen to the quantity and intensity of North Atlantic hurricanes than NASA? Or, will Princeton's assertions follow a similar fate as IPCC and Himalayan glaciers?