A Florida climate scientist says hurricanes are intensifying and becoming more frequent

Hurricane Ian was among the many strongest storms to ever make landfall in Florida and scientists say climate change contributed to that. WUSF’s Jessica Meszaros spoke with Daniel Gilford, a climate scientist with the nonprofit Climate Central, about international warming’s impact on Ian and what it might imply for future storms.

What about Hurricane Ian screams climate change to you?

Climate Central

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There’s most likely two important issues: One is that Hurricane Ian exists in an setting that we all know human beings have been altering over the previous century or so. As human beings emit greenhouse gases, these greenhouse gases go up into the environment, they heat up the planet, type of by pulling the blanket tighter across the planet, warming it up. That hotter air will get down into the water, and hotter water means more gas for hurricanes to kind of eat up as they go over the nice and cozy waters of say, the Gulf of Mexico.

That’s partially what occurred right here: Ian kind of matured in an setting that was very conducive to being an sturdy tropical cyclone, a powerful hurricane, due to the nice and cozy waters that had been kind of there. We know there is a very clear link in climate change between the fast intensification that’s kind of the short growth of a hurricane from a tropical storm or kind of a Category One, Category Two, say, all the way in which as much as Category Four, the place it made landfall that’s kind of inspired by hotter sea floor temperatures — which we undoubtedly noticed going very deep down into the Gulf of Mexico earlier than Ian’s landfall.

The second a part of it that’s more kind of substantive that we will even say proper now we all know that climate change affected is that there is elevated water vapor within the environment due to human actions. As we enhance the temperature of the environment, there’s the kind of air that’s throughout us can maintain more water. I had some colleagues who have done some research recently which have proven there’s been a few 10% enhance in atmospheric moisture and rainfall related to Hurricane Ian.

Rising temperatures are fueling hurricanes, proper? And that results in more Category Fours and Fives. Is there anything that individuals ought to know who stay in Florida about climate change about how they are in reality affecting storm exercise?

Yeah, so I imply, we all know that hurricanes are more doubtless than not slowing down in response to climate change. There’s a kind of discount the pace at which hurricanes transfer alongside the floor of the earth. What meaning is as a result of they are shifting more slowly, they’ll sit in sure locations for longer durations of time.

Also, we are rising the ocean ranges round us. We can’t overlook, as we enhance the temperature of the environment and the ocean, ice melts at our poles, in our mountain glaciers — that elevated water from ice soften, in addition to elevated sea floor peak due to the enlargement of the ocean because it warms — each of these issues contribute to sea stage rise.

We’ve already seen in some components of the state of Florida over a foot of sea stage rise. And when the storm comes on shore and brings the water together with it, it’s bringing that additional water that now we have added as a society by way of sea stage rise with the storm and meaning that there’s a larger potential for flooding in areas alongside the shoreline when a storm arrives. And certainly, throughout Hurricane Ian, we noticed unbelievable quantities of flooding injury within the southwest that’s per sea stage rise, kind of including further danger to the communities within the state.

Floridians are characteristically unafraid of hurricanes. I’ve heard some say we have been by way of this earlier than. What would you say to skeptics who do not know why after years of hurricanes earlier than we might be speaking about hurricanes within the context of climate change now?

Yes, now we have skilled intense hurricanes previously, however these hurricanes are getting worse. And we’re getting more of them, larger quantity of Category Four, Category Five storms, which will increase the probability that you will face harmful circumstances throughout your lifetime in case you stay within the state of Florida.

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