Hurricane season erupted dramatically in the Caribbean and vast areas of the United States. After the emergency caused by Helene, millions of people are now under alert for the imminent impact of Milton in the North American state of Florida, where it is expected to arrive this Wednesday.
The latest hurricanes are causing enormous damage and a high number of victims. In fact, Helene left 227 dead in six North American states with heavy rains and winds that, according to experts, are becoming increasingly powerful.
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A new study from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) stated that Climate change worsened heavy rains and winds generated by Helene as it passed through the United States, where it caused serious flooding and devastated entire towns.
How climate change impacts hurricane season
The study stressed that the interior of the United States should better plan defenses to face floods caused by “unimaginable” hurricaneswhich will be more intense in the future, probably due to warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
“Hurricanes as intense as Hurricane Helene are today about 2.5 times more likely in the region: they were expected to occur on average every 130 years and are now expected with a probability of 1 in 53 in a given year,” he warned. the report.
As an example, the report noted that Hurricane Helene’s wind speed off the coast of Florida was 11% more intense due to climate change.
Additionally, according to the study, global warming increased Helene’s rainfall by about 10%.
The high sea temperatures that fueled Hurricane Helene became 200 to 500 times more likely due to climate change, the report warned.
More rain and stronger winds
Another study, carried out by a group of Climameter researchers, revealed that climate change caused Hurricane Helene’s torrential rains were up to 20% more intense and winds up to 7% stronger than at the end of the 20th century.
According to the warning, cyclones similar to Hurricane Helene cause up to 17 mm of rain per day and their winds are up to 5 km/h stronger than in the period 1980-2000. That equates to 20% more rain and 7% more winds.
The researchers stated that the natural phenomenon of the El Niño Southern Oscillation does not seem to have influenced this fact. “Other natural phenomena, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, may have played a role along with human-caused climate change,” he said.
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“Hurricane Helene’s extreme rainfall has been greatly intensified by the burning of fossil fuels. Even within the same hurricane season, we are now faced with multiple storms causing widespread impacts. If greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, these phenomena will hit larger areas of the United States, affecting territories and communities that were previously sheltered from such phenomena,” he warned. Davide Farandaexpert at the French National Center for Scientific Research.
In turn, the Italian researcher Thomas Albertifrom the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, said that the analyzes “clearly show that anthropogenic climate change is amplifying the impacts of natural phenomena that have always occurred, but now with much more devastating consequences.”
“In the case of Hurricane Helene, the intensity of extreme precipitation has increased significantly due to fossil fuel emissions and these phenomena will increasingly affect larger and previously less vulnerable regions,” he said.