This effect could counterbalance a predicted increase in major hurricanes due to rising ocean temperatures.
The study appears today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Heated Debate
But critics say Wang's study is based on poor data that was rejected by scientists on the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Reports released by the IPCC say that "more likely than not" human-caused global warming has already increased the frequency of the most intense storms.
At times only one in ten North Atlantic hurricanes hit the U.S. coast, critics add, and the data reflect only a small percentage of storms around the globe.
Hurricanes hitting land "are not a reliable record" for how the storms have changed, said Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
In 2006 Trenberth co-authored a study that said global warming was the main factor in the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which included Hurricane Katrina.
Another group of climate scientists has linked global warming to increases in the strongest hurricanes—just those with winds greater than 130 miles (kilometers) an hour—over the past 35 years.
But some hurricane researchers, especially scientists at NOAA's Miami Lab, have argued that the long-term data for all hurricanes show no such trend.
And Wang's new research suggests just the opposite.
Regardless of which side turns out to be right, it only takes one storm to be deadly, said former National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield.
So the key for residents of hurricane-prone areas, he said, is to be prepared for a storm "no matter what."
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