Scientists from Wits University performed research that "debunked two big myths around climate change". First, the number of tropical storms is not increasing like many people have assumed. Rather, they are shifting and the place that will experience the effects of this shift the most is South Africa, especially by 2050 according to the research of Jennifer Fitchett, a PhD student in the Wits School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Science (GAES). "We never expected them to move", Fitchett admits of the tropical storms. But that is in fact what's been going on. Instead of an increase in number, we simply have had an increase in accurate technology and therefore automatically have detected more storms than in the past.
Another myth concerned frost. The scientists state, "while global warming is causing frost to be less severe, late season frost is not receding as quickly as flowering is advancing, resulting in increased frost risk which will likely begin to threaten food security". The best example of this is in Kerman, Iran, where "global warming is causing the fruit trees to flower as much as a month earlier than 50 years ago, which is a very rapid shift, changes in last season frost are not happening nearly as quickly". There is a lot of controversy around both of these issues, and more research is to be continuously conducted.
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