Why are Hurricanes Increasing Faster than They Used to Be? A Commentary on Dr. Kossin and How Climate Change Change Causes More Storms
As Earth’s climate warms, more storms are intensifying quickly, growing from relatively weak tropical storms to Category 3 or higher hurricanes in under 24 hours, sometimes stunning forecasters and giving residents little time to prepare.
It is uncertain whether human-caused climate change will cause longer or more active hurricanes in the future but there is broad agreement on a point: Global warming is changing storms.
There is a “migration of tropical cyclones out of the tropics and toward subtropics and middle latitudes,” Dr. Kossin said. That could mean more storms making landfall in higher latitudes, like in the United States and Japan.
Slower storms have a negative effect on flooding. Dr. Kossin likened the problem to walking around your back yard while using a hose to spray water on the ground. The water will not be able to start pooling if you walk fast. But if you walk slowly, he said, “you’ll get a lot of rain below you.”
Dr. Kossin stated in his manuscript that hurricanes have slowed since 1947. Combined with the increase in rain rates, storms are causing a 25 percent increase in local rainfall in the United States, he said.
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Storms are slower. Some researchers don’t know why storms are moving slower, but they are. Some say a slowdown in global atmospheric circulation, or global winds, could be partly to blame.
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There was more rain. Warming can raise the amount of water in the atmosphere. In fact, every degree Celsius of warming allows the air to hold about 7 percent more water.
Climate Change, Extreme Winds and Hurricanes: The Anomalous Ocean of 30 Years and its Implications to Weather Forecasting and Emergency Management
The maximum sustained winds over a 24 hours can be as much as 35 m.p.h., if Rapid intensification is taken into account. Since the 1980’s, the likelihood of a hurricane changing into a large storm has remained the same at 1 percent.
Kerry Emanuel is a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 30 years ago, we predicted that it would go up.
“It’s very likely that human-caused climate change contributed to that anomalously warm ocean,” said James P. Kossin, a climate scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Climate change is making it more likely for hurricanes to behave in certain ways.”
He said that it was a forecaster’s nightmare. If a tropical storm or Category 1 hurricane develops into a Category 4 hurricane overnight, he said, “there’s no time to evacuate people.”
The window of opportunity to make a decision gets smaller. If officials issue an order to evacuate early, then they will not have enough time to get everyone out, and will have to scramble, jamming highways and causing major delays. Staying in place is more costly and dangerous in some cases.
The Florida Gulf Coast hasn’t seen a storm before: a hurricane Idalia storm whose winds hit 130 miles an hour overnight
Hurricane Idalia intensified overnight and is now a Category 4 storm heading toward Florida’s Gulf Coast. It has wind speeds of 130 miles an hour and is expected to make landfall around 8 a.m Eastern, bringing catastrophic waves and potentially submerging the coast in up to 16 feet of flooding. You can track the storm’s path here.
The Big Bend is where the state’s long peninsula curves to meet its Panhandle. Though that region is sparsely populated, the storm is expected to affect much of the southeastern United States: Officials issued evacuation orders in counties across West and Central Florida, and governors in Georgia and the Carolinas declared states of emergency because of concerns about heavy rains and potential tornadoes.
More than 50,000 customers in Florida are already without power. Leon County is expecting its strongest storm in decades, and is preparing for a few days with no power.
The Florida National Guard is fully mobilized, with more than 55,000 soldiers and airmen either deployed or deploying, and help is coming from as far away as California.
Communities along hundreds of miles of coastline boarded up windows, sandbagged buildings and emptied grocery store shelves of water. Many people have fled Cedar Key, an island city that is home to roughly 700 people. The mayor said that his family had been here for many generations. “We haven’t seen a storm this bad, ever.”