A new rapid analysis finds that climate change intensified Hurricane Helene’s rain and winds, increasing its destruction.
The Gulf of Mexico has become unusually warm, which helped turn Helene into the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland in nearly two decades. According to analysis published by the World Weather Attribution Group, which studies extreme weather for evidence of climate change, the additional ocean warming from burning fossil fuels is 500 times more likely to occur. Additionally, Helene brought 10% more rainfall and saw its winds increase by 11% at the time of landfall due to the influence of the warmer atmosphere.
Helen crossed the Gulf before making landfall in Florida about two weeks ago. The storm moved inland where it dropped record rainfall, causing a humanitarian crisis in North Carolina. Severe flooding brought by Helen destroyed critical infrastructure, hampering disaster response.
According to AccuWeather, economic losses could amount to $250 billion, and insurance losses are expected to reach $6.4 billion. The report’s authors warn that climate change could exacerbate the damage and loss of life caused by Helen. Hurricane Milton is set to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday after explosively strengthening over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to cause billions of dollars more in damage to the US.
“The warming that human activities are adding to the atmosphere and oceans is like steroids for hurricanes,” Bernadette Woods Plucky, chief meteorologist at Climate Central and one of 21 researchers who conducted the study, said in a statement. “If humans continue to warm the climate, we will see hurricanes increasingly turn into monster hurricanes, causing even more destruction.”
Hurricanes as intense as Helene are also expected to occur more frequently in the Southeastern United States. In pre-industrial climates, a hurricane like Helene was likely to occur once in 130 years in any given year. According to WWA’s analysis, rising temperatures now make it possible that a storm of this intensity will occur on average every half a century. The report has not been peer-reviewed, although it relies on the methods used to reach its conclusions.
In recent decades, hurricanes have become more frequent as the oceans warm due to climate change. Although the extra heat may not cause hurricanes to occur more frequently, the ones that do occur are likely to occur with greater intensity, said Susana Camargo, a climate scientist at Columbia University.
“What happened is exactly what we’ve been talking about for decades at this point: to expect these more intense storms in a warming world,” Camargo said.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
