Hurricanes and climate change: What’s the connection?
Year after year, it’s hard to gauge how bad. Hurricane season will be done. But scientists say. Climate change Making hurricanes worse, especially when it comes to how destructive they are when they hit land.
Dr. Kristin Corbusiero is an Assistant Professor of Environmental and Environmental Sciences at the University at Albany. She studies changes in the structure and intensity of tropical cyclones.
“We can definitely see changes in the impact of the hurricane, and we think it’s going to get worse,” Corbusiero said.
When Corbosiero talks about impacts, she means the path of destruction when a hurricane hits a community, such as homes, businesses and people. Corbosiero said Sea level rise Climate change is one of the most obvious ways to affect the destruction caused by hurricanes.
“When hurricanes come ashore, they bring water with them,” Corbusiero said. “Think about the flooding in Katrina, and that was, you know, 15 years ago today.”
“More water is going to come ashore,” Corbusiero continued. “And we know that bringing that kind of water ashore is really the biggest killer of people in hurricanes.”
It’s not just sea level rise he’s worried about. A recent study A paper published in April in the journal Science Advances showed how climate change could force more hurricanes to make landfall in parts of the United States.
“I liked this study because they weren’t trying to say that there will be more storms or that they will be more intense, but that the storms that do form are more likely to make landfall, which affects people. ” said Corbusier.
The study specifically states that landfalls may be higher in the southeastern United States, particularly Florida, and that the Northeast may see fewer landfalls.
“And that was due to the storms moving through the atmosphere in different ways. Warming climateCorbosiero said. “This study projects more than 40 years from now how our climate changes will affect these storms and whether or not they hit the United States.”
Corbosiero said scientists are less certain about other links between hurricanes and climate change, such as whether there will be more in the future.
“In terms of being able to attribute an increase in the intensity or number of hurricanes to climate change, it’s really hard to attribute things to certain causes,” he said.
One reason, Corbosiero said, is that they base their predictions for the future on past patterns, and they don’t yet have enough historical data to do that.
“And I know that’s not really a satisfying answer,” she said. “It’s not a satisfying answer for me as a scientist, but I think we need to be honest about what we know and what we’re most confident about and then what we don’t know. We are less sure about.”
Hurricanes only have a greater impact on those living along the coast. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, hurricanes are the most destructive of all recorded weather disasters in U.S. history.
When it comes to the number of U.S. hurricanes, according to government estimates, over the past 40 years, they have caused more than $1.1 trillion in damage and been responsible for nearly 6,700 deaths.