DURHAM, N.H. (AP) – New research from the University of New Hampshire could shed light on how much hurricanes contribute to global warming.

Researchers from the school’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space used satellite imaging and field data to survey the Gulf Coast and find out how many trees were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. That allowed them to predict the amount of carbon those trees will emit as they decay, a process that could take up to a century.

George Hurtt, an associate professor who co-authored a study published in the academic journal Science, said the more than 300 million dead or damaged trees will send about 105 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere as they decompose, an amount equal to the carbon all forests in the United States take in each year.

The research is significant because while carbon emissions are considered a key factor in global warming, most scientists have focused only on man-made carbon emissions, Hurtt said. Some researchers believe that as global warming progresses, storms will get stronger and happen more frequently, Hurtt said, which creates a cycle of putting more carbon into the atmosphere.

“This situation with these hurricanes is a factor that hasn’t been considered yet that could make any amount of global warming that might happen due to human emissions even worse,” he said.

Hurtt said the data will allow researchers to create a computer model to better predict future storms. He already has used similar methods to measure the impact of recent wildfires in California, which he estimated to be about one-tenth that of Hurricane Katrina.

“With all the interest in carbon and global warming, you’re going to see more people, including us, trying to quantify the carbon footprint of other natural disasters,” he said.

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Information from: New Hampshire Union Leader, http://www.unionleader.com

AP-ES-11-17-07 1247EST