About twice as many hurricanes form each year on average in the Atlantic Ocean compared to a century ago, states a new statistical study of hurricanes and tropical storms in the north Atlantic. The study concludes that warmer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and altered wind patterns associated with global climate change are fueling much of the increase.

The study, by Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., and Peter Webster of Georgia Institute of Technology, is published online in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

“These numbers are a strong indication that climate change is a major factor in the increasing number of Atlantic hurricanes,” says Holland.

“This study adds to the evidence of another ramification of climate change,” says Cliff Jacobs of the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s atmospheric sciences division, which funded the research. “Now we need to better understand the complex physics and dynamics of the full life-cycle of these hurricanes.”

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