Strong winds,
deadly storm surges
and a trail of destruction.
Recent hurricanes have wreaked
havoc in the United States.
And you might be wondering,
how does a hurricane work?
So, the important thing to
understand about hurricanes
is that they only
form over warm water.
Think of warm
water as the fuel
to the engine that
is a hurricane.
A hurricane forms when
warm air over the ocean rises.
As that warm air rises,
cool air sort of
fills in below it,
kind of creating
that cyclonic action.
At the top, it forms clouds,
and those clouds
create the rain system
that we associate
with hurricanes.
So, many people are
wondering, is climate change
making hurricanes worse?
Yes.
Remember we talked
about how warm water is
the fuel for a hurricane?
Because of climate change,
the oceans
are much warmer than
they used to be.
In recent years, we’ve seen
very powerful hurricanes
like Harvey and Florence.
And the obvious question is,
what do they have in common?
Both of these
hurricanes formed
in unusually warm waters.
Hurricane Harvey
formed in waters
around the Gulf of Mexico
that were,
on average,
about 1 degree Celsius
warmer than average.
Florence is being
powered by waters
that are 2 degrees Celsius
warmer than average.
So that’s a lot more energy
going into the storm.
The worry with Florence is
not just when it hits land,
but how long it
will stick around
and how far inland
that will go.
So does this mean
we’re going to have
more storms like this?
The short answer is yes.
The longer answer is storms
like this are even worse.
There’s some talk about
potentially raising
the hurricane category scale
to include a 6 for stronger
winds than we
currently have.
There is some concern
or some evidence
suggesting that hurricanes
are moving further north.
So that means they’re
going to be showing up
in places that they
haven’t traditionally existed
and, potentially,
even in places like Europe.
When there’s a hurricane,
when there’s a wildfire,
climate change
often comes up.
But climate change
is our new reality.
And if we don’t take
steps to mitigate it,
we will continue to see
powerful, severe hurricanes.
And more and more
people are going
to be put in harm’s way.
