Climate change could double the number of tropical cyclones that storm into the Hawaiian Islands.

Hiroyuki Murakami, then at the Meteorological Research Institute in Tsukuba, Japan, and his colleagues simulated tropical-cyclone patterns using several versions of a weather model, as well as predictions of sea-surface warming. The authors used the simulations, which they verified against modern observations, to predict that the frequency of cyclones reaching the Hawaiian Islands during 2075–99 will be about double that in 1979–2003.

The change is due mainly to the way in which cyclones that arise off the west coast of Mexico are expected to move across the Pacific Ocean as the climate warms. Although fewer storms will form, more will take a path towards the islands and have enough power to reach them.

Nature Clim. Change http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1890 (2013)