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Louise Thomas Editor Global warming may have contributed to the freak storm that sank a luxury British-flagged yacht off the coast of Sicily on Monday, scientists have said. One man died and six people were missing, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, after the "Bayesian", a 56-metre-long (184-ft) sailboat, was suddenly hit by ferocious weather. Lynch, who was acquitted in June in a big US fraud trial, was among the six people who remain unaccounted for after their chartered sailboat sank off Porticello, when a tornado over the water known as a waterspout struck the area overnight, said Salvo Cocina of Sicily's civil protection agency.
( Daniel Skudder/Reuters ) Italian climatologist Luca Mercalli, president of the Italian meteorological society, said the episode could have been a waterspout, essentially a tornado over water, or else a downburst, a more frequent phenomenon that doesn't involve the...
Gavin Jones.