High pollution levels over Indian Ocean create more powerful cyclones

Not looking after the environment has led to high levels of pollution gathering above the Arabian Sea making powerful cyclones likely to happen more regularly, as Charlotte Reid reports.

Tropical cyclones are happening more often because of pollution, according to scientists.

Fine aerosol emissions – which include forest fires and domestic heating – have increased six fold since the 1930s around the Indian Ocean which has created a three kilometre thick layer of pollution above that part of the sea.

The research, which is in the weekly science journal Nature, studied the intensity of storms between 1979 and 2010. The results suggest that pollution levels have created conditions which make cyclones more powerful and more likely to come to land.

This comes after a draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said weather conditions were set to get wilder because of climate change.

Picture source: Mohd Nor Azmil Abdul Rahman