New study finds fewer, but more intense Atlantic hurricanes as a result of global warming - thoughts?

The results don't exactly surprise me. Water vapor from warm oceans is what fuels tropical cyclones. The potential intensity of a hurricane is set by the temperature of the ocean over which it occurs, so if the ocean is warmer then it can possibly reach major hurricane status. Another constraining factor is time spent over warm water, and if the amount of warm water expands then it is reasonable that more hurricanes will reach major status. The other key element is wind shear (variation of environmental wind speed and direction with height). Wind shear can destroy a hurricane over even the warmest water, so models need to get that right if they're going to accurately predict the number of hurricanes. I'm not sure the GCM's are particularly good at that right now, it's fairly subtle. I think the authors of this study took a smart approach, downscaling the forecasted storms to a regional scale model. But still, it's hard to say what's going to happen, hurricanes are complex systems.