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Hurricanes and Tropical Storms

Climate change exacerbates hurricanes by creating conditions better suited for them, resulting in a dramatic increase in the amount and severity of hurricanes. Hurricanes have tremendous impacts on communities, with the capacity to destroy entire cities or even countries, as seen in the Caribbean. Flooding from hurricanes results in billions of dollars in damages and impacts low-income and minority communities more because of a lack of resources and underdeveloped flood infrastructure.

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By 

Kids Fight Climate Change Team

While no single storm can be directly attributed to climate change, it exacerbates them all. A hurricane forms when warm moist air over warm water rises and is replaced by cooler air. However, cool air cannot hold as much moisture as warm air, so some of the moisture condenses and forms clouds, beginning the storm. As climate change increases global temperatures, particularly in equatorial regions where hurricanes form, water and air temperatures both increase, thereby intensifying and increasing hurricanes and tropical storms. Indeed, category 4-5 storms (the most intense storms) will increase in frequency by 29%. Storms with wind speeds greater than 145 miles per hour (234 km/h) will increase in frequency by 59%.


While these may seem like arbitrary numbers, they are vitally important. An increase in the intensity of hurricanes and the frequency of such hurricanes will result in these storms affecting more and more people. Across the world, hurricanes are the world's costliest weather disaster. Indeed, some hurricanes cost over $100 billion in damage; Hurricane Harvey in 2017, for example, cost $125 billion!


Hurricane damages stem from flooding, which is a major concern in coastal regions across the world, with effects reaching far inland. Floods indeed result in billions of dollars of damages, as discussed, and often disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities. This is for primarily two reasons. First, low-income communities are less likely to have the money to relocate nor flood insurance, or even the ability to get transportation during an evacuation. Similarly, many minority and low-income communities are underdeveloped. As a result, they have poor infrastructure, which sustains heavier damages during a flood. Floods also have negative effects on both agriculture and human health.

Sources

Berardelli, Jeff. “How Climate Change Is Making Hurricanes More Dangerous.” Yale Climate Connections. Yale Center for Environmental Communication, Yale School of the Environment, July 8, 2020. https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/07/how-climate-change-is-making-hurricanes-more-dangerous/.


Bhatia, Kieran T, Gabriel A Vecchi, Thomas R Knutson, Hiroyuki Murakami, James Kossin, Keith W Dixon, and Carolyn E Whitlock. 2019. “Recent Increases in Tropical Cyclone Intensification Rates.” Nature Communications 10 (1): 635. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08471-z.


Knutson, Thomas R., Joseph J. Sirutis, Ming Zhao, Robert E. Tuleya, Morris Bender, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Gabriele Villarini, and Daniel Chavas. " Global Projections of Intense Tropical Cyclone Activity for the Late Twenty-First Century from Dynamical Downscaling of CMIP5/RCP4.5 Scenarios", Journal of Climate 28, 18 (2015): 7203-7224, accessed Feb 12, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0129.1.


Knutson, Thomas R., Joseph J. Sirutis, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Stephen Garner, Ming Zhao, Hyeong-Seog Kim, Morris Bender, Robert E. Tuleya, Isaac M. Held, and Gabriele Villarini. " Dynamical Downscaling Projections of Twenty-First-Century Atlantic Hurricane Activity: CMIP3 and CMIP5 Model-Based Scenarios", Journal of Climate 26, 17 (2013): 6591-6617, accessed Feb 12, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00539.1.


Fountain, Henry. “Climate Change Is Making Hurricanes Stronger, Researchers Find.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company, May 18, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/climate/climate-changes-hurricane-intensity.html.


“Hurricane Costs.” Office for Coastal Management. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Accessed March 4, 2021. https://coast.noaa.gov/states/fast-facts/hurricane-costs.html.


Kossin, James P. “A Global Slowdown of Tropical-Cyclone Translation Speed.” Nature 558, no. 7708 (June 6, 2018): 104–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0158-3.


Denchak, Melissa. “Flooding and Climate Change: Everything You Need to Know.” Natural Resources Defense Council, April 10, 2019. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flooding-and-climate-change-everything-you-need-know.


Cho, Renee. “Why Climate Change Is an Environmental Justice Issue.” State of the Planet. Columbia University Earth Institute, September 16, 2020. https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/09/22/climate-change-environmental-justice/.


Image: Dramatic Views of Hurricane Florence from the International Space Station From 9/12. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Flickr, September 12, 2018. https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/42828604840.

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