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Earlier this week, Hurricane Milton It gained so much strength in the Gulf of Mexico that it quickly became a category 5, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale. After leaving destructive winds in the Yucatan Peninsula, in Mexico, and before making landfall in Florida, no one doubts that this is an extreme event that can generate devastating damage in a State that has not yet recovered from the previous storm. “The hurricane Milton poses an extremely serious risk to Florida,” the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has warned. “If you stay, you’re going to die,” said Jane Castor, the mayor of Tampa, the city where the cyclone is expected to have the greatest impact, urging citizens to evacuate their homes.
This is not the first time people in this region have heard this warning in the last two weeks. On September 26, the hurricane Helene It also made landfall in Florida, as a category 4, and moved towards the continent with torrential rains in Georgia, western Carolinas, eastern Tennessee and southern Virginia. The painful result was 227 deaths – making it the second deadliest hurricane for the United States, only behind Katrina in 2005 -, two million people without electricity and damage that has not been repaired when Milton It’s already on its way.
“It was such a massive event that it flooded almost everything on its way to Ohio, not just the coast,” recalled Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist. Climate Central of the United States, during a press conference World Weather Attributionan organization of scientists that, once again, sought to answer as soon as possible what role climate change plays in an extreme event like the hurricane Helene.
At a general level, scientists have already warned that climate change generated by human activities is making hurricanes more destructive. But what this study did – which, although it has not been reviewed by scientific peers, did use methodologies that have done so – is to see how this relationship has occurred, with numbers in hand, in the case of Helen. Because of climate change, they say, today it is 2.5 times more likely that a hurricane this intense will occur in the region compared to the pre-industrial era. In other words, if a hurricane this extreme was previously expected to occur once every 130 years, now the probability is one every 53 years.
Understanding how hurricane dynamics change in the face of global warming involves tying together several pieces. For this reason, as explained Ben Clarke, researcher at the Graham Institute of the Imperial College London (United Kingdom), the team analyzed indices and models for three factors: rainfall patterns, wind and ocean surface temperature, the last aspect that is key in fueling hurricanes. The data were also analyzed both for what happened on the coast – with intense rains that lasted two days – and for the continental part, where heavy rainfall lasted up to three days.
“In both regions, precipitation was approximately 10% more intense due to climate change,” says the research, clarifying that, for the two days of rain on the coast, the figure is 40% and for the three on the continent it rises. to 70%. “And if the world continues burning fossil fuels, causing global warming of 2°C above pre-industrial levels, devastating rainfall in both regions will be 15% to 25% more likely.”
About the winds of HeleneWWA also found that climate change made them 11% more intense, and that rising ocean surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, which were just above average when Helene happened there, it was between 200 to 500 times more likely. Added to this climatic cocktail was the unusual trajectory of Helen, reaching beyond the coast, along the route to Ohio, where there is no adaptation to hurricanes as there is in Florida.
“Most of the deaths occurred inland, in mountainous terrain where problems such as lack of mobile phone and Internet services, little experience with hurricanes, and more limited evacuation infrastructure have been reported in the media,” notes the study.
Yes. Climate change is transmuting the dynamics of hurricanes. It’s not just about Helenbut also about Milton and the next ones to come. An analysis carried out by Climate Central also found that the high ocean temperatures on which it feeds Milton have been between 400 and 800 times more likely due to climate change.
Seeing the images of his progress and while describing the trajectory of Milton On live television, Puerto Rican meteorologist John Morales’ voice broke. “I apologize, this is…horrible,” he said. He knows what is before his eyes. How unpredictable the weather is becoming. After years of studying and seeing these phenomena, he senses that hurricane seasons in the Atlantic will become increasingly difficult.
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