Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE)

Accumulated cyclone energy, or "ACE," is used to express the activity and destructive potential of individual tropical cyclones and entire tropical cyclone seasons. ACE is caluclated as the square of the wind speed every 6 hours, and is then scaled by a factor of 10,000 for usability. The ACE of a season is the sum of the ACE for each storm and takes into account the number, strength, and duration of all the tropical storms in the season. The caveat to using ACE as a measure of the activity of a season is that it does not take the size of the hurricane or tropical storm into account. The damage potential of a hurricane is proportional to the square or cube of the maximum wind speed, and thus ACE is not only a measure of tropical cyclone activity, but a measure of the damage potential of an individual cyclone or a season.

Hurricanes and Climate Change: Huge Dangers, Huge Unknowns

The climate models used to formulate the 2007 IPCC report suggested that we might see a decrease in the total number of hurricanes in the Atlantic (and worldwide) later this century. However, the latest set of models used to formulate the 2013 IPCC report, due out in September, show that the total number of hurricanes both globally and in the Atlantic may increase, according to a paper published in July 2013 by one of our top hurricane scientists, Dr. Kerry Emanuel of MIT.

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