At a Glance

Five to seven monster storms will form each year in the Atlantic by the turnof the century, NOAA researchers predict.The scientistsnote it's not unusual for La Niña conditions in the Pacific that were present in 2017 to trigger active seasons.But they said the 2017 increase in major hurricanes was not primarily caused by La Niña conditions.They said the six major storms were fueled mainly by the Atlantic's warm waters.

Abnormally warmwaters in the Atlantic Ocean triggered the active and deadly 2017 hurricane season, a new study says.

This same study published in the journal Scienceon Thursday says a similar scenario will likely become the indecades to come as oceans warmeven more from rising greenhouse gas emissions.

"We will see more active hurricane seasons like 2017 in the future," lead author Hiro Murakami, a climate scientist and hurricane expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Associated Press.

Last year was marked by six major hurricanes in the Atlantic, each having winds in excess of 110 mph, the benchmark needed for a hurricane to be classified as a major Category3 and higher storm on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.

Three of these monster 2017 storms — Harvey, Irma and Maria — became three of the five costliest hurricanes on record. The storms pounded the U.S. and its territories with violent winds and record-breaking rainfall that resulted in catastrophic damage and thousands of fatalities.

The Atlantic two major hurricanes a year, but since 2000 it has been closer to three. So far this season, there has only been one major hurricane in the Atlantic — , which struck the Carolinas earlier this month, killing more than 45 people and causing ongoing, devastating flooding.

Scientists for the study say the exceptionally warm waters in the Atlantic in 2017 fueled the major storms, making them all the more powerful and dangerous.

NASA oceanographer Josh Willis has noted in the past that " is really ocean warming" because 90 percent of Earth's warming occurs in our oceans.

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For this most recent study, scientists used aclimate computing modelto simulate thewide-scale weather conditions on Earth throughout the 2017 hurricane season.

The scientistsnoted that it's not unusual for active hurricane seasons to be triggered byLa Niña events in the Pacific. Butthis was reportedly not entirely the case in 2017 even thoughLa Niña conditions were present.

“We show the increase in the 2017 major hurricanes was not primarily caused by La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean, but mainly by pronounced warm sea surface conditions in the tropical North Atlantic,” the study said.

The study notes that ocean water must be 79 degrees Fahrenheit for a tropical disturbance to form at all, which accounts for the six-month hurricane season that begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30. As water temperatures increases, the strength of the storm increases, particularly without other factors that canweakena storm, like shear.

Murakami says the combination ofnatural conditions and man-made climate change made the waters warmer — 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal overall — throughout one key area of the Atlantic that stretches from the south of Florida and north of South America all the way east to Africa, where tropical disturbances originate.

Using the climate computing model to looktowardthe future, the researchers found that it is likelyfive to eight major hurricanes a year could be the norm bythe year 2100. Murakami says natural variability will still play a role, but human-induced climate change will play an even more dominant role.

Some other experts disagreed with some aspects of the findings.

Brian McNoldy,a University of Miami hurricane expert not involved in the study, says he agrees the unusually warm water contributed to the active 2017 season but could not attributeglobal warming as the reason for thatwarming.

“It is true that a can support stronger hurricanes, but I think we need to avoid linking climate change to specific storms, seasonand basins," McNoldy told the Washington Post.