New research indicates that a big increase in wind shear - the change in wind speed or direction with height in the atmosphere - in the tropical Atlantic due to global warming could hamper hurricane activity.

While previous studies have linked global warming to a rise in hurricane formation and intensity, this study is the first to identify changes in wind shear that could counteract these effects. The study is in this week's Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union