Massive typhoons could threaten Japan every 10-20 years by end of century: researchers

Massive typhoons with winds topping 194 kilometers per hour -- the highest strength classification -- may threaten Japan's coasts every 10-20 years by the end of the century, researchers have announced.

Such storms now pass near Japan's main island of Honshu only every 70-100 years.

A joint Meteorological Research Institute-Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) team made the predictions based on analysis of weather simulations, assuming that climate change will continue. The simulations also showed that the effects of global warming could produce the strongest typhoons ever recorded.

"Between 50 and 80 years ago, top-strength typhoons like the Muroto Typhoon (of 1934) and Typhoon Vera (of 1959) hit land one after another," says JAMSTEC special research chair Masato Sugi. "You could say that in recent years we've sometimes managed to avoid 'invasion' by such large-scale typhoons but major disaster damage from typhoons is not a thing of the past." Read More