• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy March 28, 2023
Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead March 26, 2023
B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns March 26, 2023
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20 March 20, 2023
Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action March 20, 2023
Next
Prev

Three Studies Predict More Frequent, Devastating Storms as Temperatures Rise

December 6, 2021
Reading time: 5 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

Capt. Martha Nigrelle/Texas Army National Guard

Capt. Martha Nigrelle/Texas Army National Guard

1
SHARES
 

This story includes details on the impacts of climate change that may be difficult for some readers. If you are feeling overwhelmed by this crisis situation here is a list of resources on how to cope with fears and feelings about the scope and pace of the climate crisis.

In the North Atlantic, hurricanes now happen more often than at any time in the last 150 years, according to new research.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

When they make a landfall over cities in the northeastern United States, hurricanes are expected to slow down, and spend even longer intervals wreaking even more certain havoc, a second team of climate scientists warns.

And the same goes for eastern and southeast Asia: as the planetary thermometer creeps ever higher, tropical cyclones could double in destructive power, Chinese scientists say in a third study.

All three findings are based on statistical methods and computer simulations; all are open to challenge; and all three are attempts to settle complex questions inherent in every potential climate extreme. But each of the latest results also supports earlier conclusions based on different techniques: in science, if you ask the same question in different ways, and keep getting the same answers, then those answers are probably right.

And the answers matter: tropical cyclones, typhoons, or hurricanes—the name varies across the oceans, but dangers are always the same—can be the most devastating of all climate extremes. They form over warm ocean, proceed as a swirling storm of colossal speed across an area many hundreds of kilometres wide, and— if they survive for long enough—slam into coastlines with gusts of devastating speed.

A storm’s force increases as the square of wind velocity, and the fiercest storms not only create a trail of destruction, they also carry unimaginable quantities of rainwater to bring sudden lethal flooding. And they can work with the highest tides to create calamitous storm surges. In June, 2021, a typhoon spilled rainwater over Zhengzhou in China at the rate of 150 millimetres an hour. In 1970, a storm surge driven by a cyclone swept over Bangladesh and claimed at least 300,000 and possibly half a million lives.

But questions remain. Is the rise in economic damage more easily explained by population growth than by increases in storm numbers or intensity? And although hurricane records in North America exist for the last 150 years, how accurate is the 19th century data?

New research in the journal Nature Communications finds that, in the North Atlantic at least, hurricane numbers have been on the increase.

“Nobody disagrees that that’s what the historical record shows,” said meteorologist and climate scientist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “On the other hand, most sensible people don’t really trust the historical record that far back in time.”

So Emanuel used sophisticated statistical analysis of climate model outcomes to simulate tropical cyclone activity around the world for the past century and a half. In three different analyses, he got the same result: an increase in North Atlantic hurricane activity was “unequivocal.”

The implication is that as the world warms, the numbers may continue to increase. But the bigger question is: how bad will they get? U.S. scientists report in the journal Earth’s Future that they analysed 35,000 computer-simulated storms from the pre-industrial period to the end of this century. They found that tomorrow’s Atlantic hurricanes will form in greater numbers, reach the coast more quickly, and then slow down as they arrive at the northeastern landmass of the U.S. The payoff will be more wind, rain, flooding, and destruction, with the longest-lived of these storms predicted to last twice as long as today’s.

Between 2010 and 2019, the U.S. coasts were hammered by 19 tropical cyclones — billion-dollar disasters all of them — that clocked up $480 billion in damage. “Think of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, sitting over Texas, and Hurricane Dorian in 2019 over the Bahamas. That prolonged exposure can worsen the impacts,” said study lead Andra Garner, assistant professor at Rowan University. “The work produced yet more evidence of a dire need to cut emissions of greenhouse gases now to stop the climate warming.”

In the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea, there is no evidence that  tropical cyclones have increased in number over the decades. But their capacity to devastate most certainly has. In the past five decades, tropical cyclones have claimed almost 780,000 lives and triggered more than US$1.4 trillion in economic losses.

Researchers report in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science that they analysed cyclone data from 1979 to 2016, then projected how cyclones might change as the planet continues to warm.

They found that, since 1979, there has been a dramatic increase in cyclone impacts on inland regions of eastern and southeastern Asia. Stronger cyclones hit the coasts, lasted for longer—between two and nine hours longer—and penetrated an average of 100 kilometres further inland.

They calculate that, by the end of the century, the fiercest cyclones will last for 56% longer and go 50% even further inland: that’s an additional 4.9 hours of devastation, more than 90 kilometres further from the coast. Their destructive power, under the notorious “business as usual” climate scenario, will almost double.

“The climate crisis will likely continue the increasing trend in landfalling typhoons and their impacts on inland regions, based on high-resolution climate model projections,” said first author Chi-Yung Tam, an Earth systems science professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“More Asian inland regions may be exposed to more severe storm-related disasters in the future as a result of the climate crisis.”



in Asia, China, Climate News Network, Health & Safety, International Agencies & Studies, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

UNICEF Ethiopia/flickr
Drought, Famine & Wildfires

Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead

March 29, 2023
36
Prime Minister's Office/flickr
Energy Politics

Biden’s Ottawa Visit Highlights EVs, Clean Grid, Critical Minerals

March 28, 2023
87
Faye Cornish/Unsplash
Culture

Abundance, Not Austerity: Reframe the Climate Narrative, Solnit Urges

March 26, 2023
149

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

kelly8843496 / Pixabay

BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy

March 29, 2023
625
Faye Cornish/Unsplash

Abundance, Not Austerity: Reframe the Climate Narrative, Solnit Urges

March 26, 2023
149
TruckPR/flickr

Opinion: Hydrogen Hype Sabotages Potential to Decarbonize

March 28, 2023
373
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons

B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns

March 28, 2023
59
U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement/flickr

Willow Oil Project in Alaska Faces Legal Challenges, Economic Doubts

March 19, 2023
756
Raysonho/wikimedia commons

Tesla App Mishap, Saudi Arabia Fights the IPCC, Fossil Industry Fights for its Life, Alberta Premier Wants More Gas Plants, and Carbon-Eating Fungi Could Feed Millions

March 29, 2023
62

Recent Posts

icondigital/pixabay

New Federal Procurement Rule Requires Biggest Bidders to Report Net-Zero Plans

March 28, 2023
182
UNICEF Ethiopia/flickr

Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead

March 29, 2023
36
Prime Minister's Office/flickr

Biden’s Ottawa Visit Highlights EVs, Clean Grid, Critical Minerals

March 28, 2023
87
EUMETSAT/wikimedia commons

Cyclone Freddy Leaves Over 500 Dead on Africa’s Southeast Coast

March 23, 2023
63
Kern River Valley Fire Info/Facebook

SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20

March 20, 2023
339
IFRC Intl. Federation:Twitter

Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action

March 21, 2023
1k
Next Post
PilotBrent/pixabay

Less Talk, More Action on Climate, Ex-Toronto Mayor Urges

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}