기본 콘텐츠로 건너뛰기

How climate change is intensifying storms like Hurricane Helene

 

How climate change is intensifying storms like Hurricane Helene


Climate change is making hurricanes like Hurricane Helene more intense, scientific research shows. 

Helene has unleashed high winds, heavy rain and a dangerous storm surge in the Southeast after making landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane Thursday night. As of Friday afternoon, the estimated death toll of the storm had climbed to more than 40 across four states. 

It follows roughly two and a half months after Hurricane Beryl — which peaked as a Category 5 storm — tracked destruction across the Caribbean as well as the United States, killing dozens of people.

The proportion of hurricanes that fall into these more intense categories 4 and 5 are expected to increase as the planet heats up, according to the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a well-respected climate science authority from the United Nations. Peak hurricane wind speeds are also expected to rise.

“These hurricanes are getting bigger and stronger and that is due to simple energy transfer,” said Claudia Benitez-Nelson, a climate scientist at the University of South Carolina.

Benitez-Nelson explained that a hotter planet means more energy can transfer from the ocean to the atmosphere. 

“And what are hurricanes? They’re big balls of energy and so that energy is now feeding into these tropical storms,” she said. 

That transferring effect is expected to continue and worsen as the planet heats up.

Estimates of just how much it will do so can vary. But if the planet warms up by about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels, a hurricane’s maximum wind speeds could increase by about 5 percent, according to Tom Knutson, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab.

Noting the increase in wind speeds, earlier this year scientists suggested adding a Category 6 to the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, saying that the currently used categories 1 through 5 are “inadequate” as hurricanes continue to intensify. 

In addition to making hurricanes overall more intense, Benitez-Nelson noted that climate change is also causing hurricanes to intensify more quickly, potentially giving people less time to prepare.

Hurricane Helene went from a Category 1 storm to a Category 4 in less than a day amid unusually warm ocean temperatures. 

Benitez-Nelson, who is a member of the climate education group Science Moms, said increased global temperatures lead to increased ocean temperatures that in turn lead to a “more effective transfer of heat.”

She added that this “really helps to spin up a hurricane that moves from a tropical storm to a hurricane, and then makes these hurricanes even stronger and intensify more rapidly.”

As well as fueling increased wind speeds, Knutson noted that climate change is also likely causing more rainfall to occur during hurricanes.

“With the warmer climate, the atmosphere is holding more water vapor systematically, and that’s leading the storms to become basically bigger, more intense rain producers,” Knutson said. “The air is holding more moisture than previously, so that causes some increase in the rainfall rates.”

He added that modeling shows that every additional degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the regional sea surface temperatures where the hurricane is leads to an average of 7 percent more rainfall. 

The Earth’s surface has already warmed by an average of about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) when compared to preindustrial levels, but the actual level of warming can vary across regions and between lands and oceans. 

Benitez-Nelson added that as hurricanes become stronger they also don’t dissipate as quickly and can move further inland, including to places that are not used to dealing with them. 

“Hot air can hold more water,” she said. “And it’s dumping massive amounts of water in places that simply are ill prepared to handle that amount of rainfall.”

She pointed to impacts from Hurricane Beryl’s remnants that made their way to Vermont earlier this year. “That’s ridiculous … but that is our future,” she said.

And beyond climate change’s own impacts on hurricanes, these storms can combine with other climate impacts like sea level rise to bring about more damage. 

“Our ocean has been rising, and so, of course it has an impact when a hurricane comes along because now the height of your water is already higher and then you’ve got the storm surge on top of that,” said Jennifer Collins, a professor at the University of South Florida School of Geosciences. 

Collins expressed concern that going forward, this will cause significant harm, as people tend to pay more attention to a hurricane’s wind speed than its flood potential. 

“We’ve seen other storms in the past that have had significant flooding from one of these weaker storms,” Collins said. “I am very concerned about those type of storms, honestly, because people made their evacuation decisions sometimes purely based on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale.”

Climate change is caused by human activity releasing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which get trapped in the atmosphere and create a greenhouse effect that warms the planet. The burning of fossil fuels is the main driver of climate change, though other parts of the economy like agriculture and landfills are also major contributors.

Benitez-Nelson said that to prevent climate-related harm going forward, “the biggest thing that we can do is reduce emissions.”

댓글

이 블로그의 인기 게시물

Non-contact exposure to dinotefuran disrupts honey bee homing by altering MagR and Cry2 gene expression

  Non-contact exposure to dinotefuran disrupts honey bee homing by altering  MagR  and  Cry2  gene expression Dinotefuran is known to negatively affect honeybee ( Apis mellifera ) behavior, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. The magnetoreceptor ( MagR , which responds to magnetic fields) and cryptochrome ( Cry2 , which is sensitive to light) genes are considered to play important roles in honey bees’ homing and localization behaviors. Our study found that dinotefuran, even without direct contact, can act like a magnet, significantly altering  MagR  expression in honeybees. This non-contact exposure reduced the bees’ homing rate. In further experiments, we exposed foragers to light and magnetic fields, the  MagR  gene responded to magnetic fields only in the presence of light, with  Cry 2 playing a key switching role in the magnetic field receptor mechanism ( MagR–Cry2 ). Yeast two-hybrid and BiFc assays confirmed an interactio...

New Report – Interlocked: Midwives and the Climate Crisis

New Report – Interlocked: Midwives and the Climate Crisis Earlier this year, midwives from 41 countries shared their experiences of working in communities affected by climate change through our survey, Midwives’ Experiences and Perspectives on Climate Change. Their voices shaped our new report, Interlocked: Midwives and the Climate Crisis , which highlights how midwives are already responding to the health impacts of climate disasters like floods, wildfires, and extreme heat—and why they must be included in climate action plans. What did we learn?Climate change is damaging community health: 75% of midwives reported that climate change is harming the communities they serve, with rising rates of preterm births, food insecurity, and restricted access to care during disasters like floods. Midwives are critical first responders: Midwives are often the first and only healthcare providers on the ground in crises, delivering care during wildfires, floods, and extreme heat. Midwives face signi...

Bee attack claims life of newspaper distributor

  Bee attack claims life of newspaper distributor Newspaper distributor Pushparaja Shetty (45), who sustained severe injuries in a bee attack, succumbed to his injuries on Thursday at a hospital in Mangaluru. Pushparaja was attacked by a swarm of bees on Wednesday morning while walking at Kenjaru Taangadi under Bajpe town panchayat limits. He was immediately admitted to a hospital for treatment but could not survive the ordeal. Fondly known as ‘Boggu’ in the Porkodi area, Pushparaja was well-known for his dedication to delivering newspapers on foot to every household. He was admired for his generosity, as he often distributed sweets to schoolchildren on Independence Day using his own earnings and contributed part of his income to the betterment of society. Pushparaja was unmarried and is survived by three brothers and one sister.

“Global honey crisis”: Testing technology and local sourcing soars amid fraud and tampering concerns

  “Global honey crisis”: Testing technology and local sourcing soars amid fraud and tampering concerns The World Beekeeping Awards will not grant a prize for honey next year due to the “inability” to thoroughly test honey for adulteration. The announcement comes amid the rise of honey fraud in the EU, where a 2023 investigation found that 46% of 147 honey samples tested were likely contaminated with low-cost plant syrups.  Apimondia, the International Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations, organizes the event at its Congress, whose 49th edition will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in September 2025. The conference brings together beekeepers, scientists and other stakeholders. “We will celebrate honey in many ways at the Congress, but honey will no longer be a category, and thus, there will be no honey judging in the World Beekeeping Awards. The lessons learned from Canada 2019 and Chile 2023 were that adequate testing was impossible if we are to award winning honey at the Con...

Unveiling the Canopy's Secrets: New Bee Species Discovered in the Pacific

  Unveiling the Canopy's Secrets: New Bee Species Discovered in the Pacific In an exciting development for environmentalists and beekeeping experts, researchers have discovered eight new species of masked bees in the Pacific Islands, shining a light on the rich biodiversity hidden within the forest canopy. This discovery underscores the critical role bees play in our ecosystems and the pressing need for conservation efforts to protect these vital pollinators. A New Frontier in Bee Research By exploring the forest canopy, scientists have opened a new frontier in bee research, revealing species that have adapted to life high above the ground. These discoveries are crucial for understanding the complex relationships between bees, flora, and the broader ecosystem. The new species of masked bees, characterized by their striking black bodies with yellow or white highlights, particularly on their faces, rely exclusively on the forest canopy for survival. The Importance of Bee Conservation...

Start the New Year Humming Like a Bee

  Start the New Year Humming Like a Bee There are lots of opportunities to be as busy as a bee during these winter holidays. As we hustle toward the dawn of the New Year, it can be hard to notice that the natural world is actually suggesting something different for us right now. We’re past the solstice, but the winter still stretches ahead, the days are still short and the nights long. We’re being invited into a quieter, more inner-focused time. The ancient yogis were all about this inner focus. In India, for example, the Upanishads, the Sanskrit writings that accompanied the development of Hinduism — and alongside it, yoga — beginning around 800 B.C.E., went deeper than earlier texts had into philosophy and questions of being. With the goals of increased inner awareness and higher consciousness, yoga was at that time not yet as focused on the body or on asanas, as it now can tend to be. But the yogis did develop many practices to try to open the way to those goals. They discovered...

The Essential Role of Bees in Our Ecosystem and the Challenges They Face

The Essential Role of Bees in Our Ecosystem and the Challenges They Face Bees have been an integral part of our ecosystem and human agriculture for over four centuries, primarily utilized for their honey in the early days. Now, they are recognized more for their critical role in pollination, which directly impacts a vast majority of the food we consume. Mark Lilly, a prominent beekeeper, emphasizes that without bees' pollination efforts, a significant portion of our diet would be at risk. However, bees face numerous threats, including varroa mites and, in specific regions like West Virginia, black bears. These challenges necessitate concerted efforts for preservation and protection. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Q1: Why are bees so important to the ecosystem? A1: Bees are crucial for pollinating plants, which is necessary for the production of fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Without bees, a large portion of the food we eat would not be available. Q2: What are the main threats to...

The Growing Dilemma of Pet Burials in South Korea: Environmental and Legal Hurdles

The Growing Dilemma of Pet Burials in South Korea: Environmental and Legal Hurdles As the number of pets in South Korea steadily increases, pet owners face a growing dilemma due to the limited number of pet cemeteries across the country. Under the current legal framework, pet remains are classified as household waste, requiring specific disposal methods that are neither convenient nor easily accessible for all citizens. The imbalance between the rising pet population—over 5.52 million households with pets by the end of 2022—and the mere 70 registered pet cemeteries has led to significant challenges. This shortage is particularly evident in regions like Jeju Island, where pet owners must undergo arduous journeys to the mainland to ensure their pets receive proper burials. The root cause of this shortage lies in the strict regulations governing the establishment of pet cemeteries. These facilities, which must include crematoriums, face numerous restrictions, such as proximity to resident...

Climate Crisis Claims Glacier's Vital Climate Data Archive

  Climate Crisis Claims Glacier's Vital Climate Data Archive A recent study published in Nature Geoscience reveals a distressing consequence of global warming: the irreversible loss of valuable climate data stored in alpine glaciers. The research, conducted by a team led by Margit Schwikowski from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), underscores the alarming rate at which glaciers are melting and highlights the implications for climate research. The study focuses on the Corbassière glacier at Grand Combin in Switzerland, where ice cores drilled in 2018 and 2020 were intended to serve as vital climate archives. However, comparing the two sets of ice cores reveals a grim reality—global warming has rendered the glacier unsuitable as a reliable climate archive. Glaciers, renowned as climate archives, encapsulate valuable information about past climatic conditions and atmospheric compositions. The fluctuating concentrations of trace substances in ice layers provide insights into historica...

German election: Climate and environment take a back seat

  German election: Climate and environment take a back seat When the coalition government comprising the center-left  Social Democratic Party (SPD) ,  Greens  and neoliberal  Free Democratic Party (FDP)  emerged after the last German federal election in the fall of 2021, then-incoming Chancellor  Olaf Scholz  (SPD) did not object to being called the "climate chancellor." That was no surprise: the climate crisis had been a top issue during the election campaign. The new government made the fight against climate change a task for the Economy Ministry and appointed Vice Chancellor  Robert Habeck  from the Greens as its head. Three and a half years later, campaign speeches barely mention climate protection. The dominant issues are how to curb irregular immigration and how to boost Germany's sluggish economy. Skeptical view of renewable energy The head of the center-right  Christian Democratic Union (CDU) ,  Friedrich Merz ...