Residents stand amid their homes damaged by Hurricane Fiona September 19 in the Kosovo neighborhood of Veron de Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. (Ricardo Hernandez/AP)
Hurricanes are enormous heat engines of wind and rain that feed on warm seawater and humid air — and scientists say the climate crisis is making them stronger.
According to a UN climate report released in August, the proportion of high-intensity hurricanes has increased due to warmer global temperatures. Scientists have also found that the storms are more likely to stall and produce devastating rainfall, and last longer after making landfall.
“We have good faith that greenhouse warming increases the maximum wind intensity that tropical cyclones can achieve,” Jim Kossin, chief scientist at the Climate Service, an organization that provides governments and businesses with climate risk modeling and analysis, told CNN.
“This, in turn, allows for the strongest hurricanes — which pose by far the greatest risk — to become even stronger,” he added.
When hurricanes are stronger and slower moving, they drop more rain, causing more damage and flooding in the areas they pass.
A 2020 study published in the journal Nature also found that storms are moving further inland than they were five decades ago. Hurricanes, fueled by warm seawater, usually weaken after they make landfall, but in recent years they have raged longer after making landfall. The study concludes that warmer sea surface temperatures result in “slower decay” by increasing the moisture a hurricane carries.
For every fraction of a degree the planet warms, precipitation rates from high-intensity storms will increase because warmer air can hold more moisture, according to the UN report. Earlier this week, Tropical Storm Fred dumped more than 10 inches of rain on western North Carolina, according to the National Weather Servicewhich pushed the Pigeon River near Canton nine feet above flood level, killing at least four people.
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