![]() But scientists are urgently trying to figure out the phenomenon and how climate change affects it. Unlike records rainfall or drought, records of storms rapidly intensifying only stretch back about 40 years, Bhatia says. And while the ocean undergoes periods of natural warming that can supply hurricanes with more fuel, the study found an increase in rapid intensification surpassing those natural fluctuations, says lead author Kieran Bhatia. In recent years, some of the most damaging hurricanes resulted from rapid intensification- Hurricane Laura in 2020, Hurricane Michael in 2018, and Hurricane Harvey in 2017. It fed the storm energy and allowed that storm to blossom into a Cat 4,” says Keim.Ī study published in 2019 in the journal Nature Communications found early evidence that climate change has likely made rapid intensification more common. “This exceptionally warm water basically created this warm-water superhighway for this storm. But then it passed over Cuba and encountered what’s called the Loop Current, hot Caribbean water that curls into the Gulf of Mexico. On Saturday afternoon it was a Category 1 hurricane, with winds measuring 103 miles per hour. Ida spun up out of a tropical depression in the southern Caribbean, a common place for storms to begin during the peak of hurricane season. Ida, however, far surpassed that criterion, increasing by 65 miles per hour in half that time. That type of fast-forward growth is what meteorologists call rapid intensification-defined as a 35 mile-per-hour increase in under 24 hours. Three days before the storm hit, “if you had looked at a map you wouldn’t have seen a hurricane in the Gulf.” “Just a few days ago it didn’t really exist,” says Daniel Horton, an extreme weather expert at Northwestern University. One of the most eye-popping aspects of Ida was how quickly it grew from a blip on the radar to a major hurricane. But they can take months to complete.Ībsent those more precise studies, scientists recognize several links between climate change and Hurricane Ida, pointing to certain characteristics consistent with warmer air and oceans. Such studies have proven that climate change contributed substantially to the intensity of the recent Pacific Northwest heat wave, Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and Hurricane Florence in 2018. ![]() In those, computer models re-run forecasts under atmospheric and oceanic conditions as they would have existed with and without greenhouse gas emissions. To determine the exact influence climate change may have had on Hurricane Ida, scientists will have to perform what are called attribution studies. Damage and economic losses from the storm could amount to as much as $80 billion, according to early estimates by AccuWeather. ![]() Not since last year’s Hurricane Laura and an unnamed storm from 1856 has a storm with such strong winds hit the state. ![]() “Ida is another example of a changing face of hurricane intensity,” says Jill Trepanier, an expert in extreme weather at Louisiana State University. It strikes the Gulf Coast on the heels of a major United Nations report finding strong evidence that climate change will make hurricanes rainier, slower, and more capable of explosive growth. “There’s so much energy stored there that once you get a hurricane to form you can feed it more energy and create a monster,” says Louisiana State Climatologist Barry Keim.Įxperts say Hurricane Ida is an example of what storms could look like on a warming planet.
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